Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
The mental image of a "bouncing", " straddling" Penny Mordaunt makes an older male voter reach for the ballot paper and pencil.
So she's an intellectual vacuum, but she looks like Catherine Deneuve. That's enough for some of us.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
The mental image of a "bouncing", " straddling" Penny Mordaunt makes an older male voter reach for the ballot paper and pencil.
So she's an intellectual vacuum, but she looks like Catherine Deneuve. That's enough for some of us.
The fact is that PM4PM won’t automatically help the Tories, but there is at least a chance she might. At the moment, there seems to be no chance that Rishi can turn it around.
So when you’re desperate and staring down the barrel of a historic defeat, rolling the dice with a presentable candidate might be worth it. What does Rishi offer that PM doesn’t?
I agree with most of that.
And yet.
One thing Rishi does offer is the high likelihood of making it to the election without a Sterling crisis. Given what happened under his predecessor that's the sort of thing people contemplating changing PM might not take for granted.
@labour_history #OTD 1997. John Major calls the general election and six week campaign to overcome a 20pt poll deficit.
Tony Blair launches New Labour campaign in Gloucester saying Tories have lost the country because they are “discredited, out of date, weakly led and rather incompetent”.
I think that there is a small majority available in this country for compassionate one nation Conservatism. It’s what Cameron almost won with in 2010 and did win with in 2015. .
The trouble is, at both times we were still in the EU and this country felt like a very different place.
Brexit opened up so many wounds and has been such a cock-up that I’m not convinced one nation Conservatism will ever be a potent force again. It worked for as long as they kept the Blairite types happy and the red wall types holding their noses whilst voting for them. Those days are surely now gone?
Anecdote. As I queued for ages to get the bloody exit stamp in my passport at Oslo last week, lots of Brits were getting very stressed. They were in real danger of missing their connecting flights. I ushered them into the queue in front of me but couldn’t resist pointing out that it’s all our fault for voting Brexit.
Every time British people travel our stupidity hits home.
As I have said consistently both before and after the vote Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems: the horrific trade deficit that is year by year impoverishing us (and which got so much worse in the SM), our poor productivity, our propensity to spend rather than save or invest, our housing problems, our inability to efficiently get around a rather small island, etc etc.
The present government is not doing much if any of that. I see little sign that Labour will do either although their intentions are so obscure that it is hard to tell. But sooner or later, hopefully when we are not much poorer than we already are, we are going to need to address these issues.
The parties may not be shouting about Brexit, but it is very much there in the background. The Brexiteers, which is approximately the same as the current Conservative Party, promised a utopia and it hasn’t happened. That’s why their polling is so bad.
I see we're still in 2016 in parts of the site.
In 2016, we were arguing over unknowns. In 2024, we can plainly see what the result of Brexit was. If Brexit had delivered what Leave voters thought they were getting, the polling would be very different!
Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
The mental image of a "bouncing", " straddling" Penny Mordaunt makes an older male voter reach for the ballot paper and pencil.
So she's an intellectual vacuum, but she looks like Catherine Deneuve. That's enough for some of us.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
It's more much more simple than custom arrangements or anything like that.
For years the Conservatives have been able to blame the EU for various structural issues. They are now desperately scrabbling around for a replacement, and have so far come up with "woke blob", "lefty lawyers", "small boats", "LTNs"...
The most desperate they get, the weirder they become. All this stuff is either their fault (14 years in power) or 5G tinhat conspiracy.
There is one legitimate bogeyman - Putin, and thus the lack of spending increase in the budget is a missed opportunity. There is still a risk that the situation in Ukraine escalates in the next 6 months and an opportunistic Sunak/Mordaunt...
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
You really haven't got the hang of this election poster malarkey.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
You need to let this drop. What is "Brexit"? BRitain EXITing the EU. Its done.
All that has happened since - the TCA, the NI Framework, the Windsor Accord, the attempts to kill farming and fishing and touring bands and and and are things done *after* Brexit.
I have zero doubt that the next government will seek to change most of our post-Brexit decisions. Restoration of freedom to trade to start. But that isn't that Britain Exiting the EU isn't done. It is. This is act 2.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
You really haven't got the hang of this election poster malarkey.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
Looking at the previous thread Blair is Labours second biggest liability after Corbyn. Nobody really believes Corbyn can pull the strings any more, but everyone thinks Blair is a devious sod who could.
Regarding the headline - I don't think the Tory party ever solved the issue with the Red Wall / Blue Wall.
What happened in 2019 was that the Tory party went after the Red Wall and the Blue Wall just accepted that Bozo was safer than Corbyn. Remove Corbyn's ability to push people away from Labour and the Red Wall / Blue Wall voters are mutually incompatible, chase 1 set and you push a lot of the other set away.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
It's more much more simple than custom arrangements or anything like that.
For years the Conservatives have been able to blame the EU for various structural issues. They are now desperately scrabbling around for a replacement, and have so far come up with "woke blob", "lefty lawyers", "small boats", "LTNs"...
The most desperate they get, the weirder they become. All this stuff is either their fault (14 years in power) or 5G tinhat conspiracy.
There is one legitimate bogeyman - Putin, and thus the lack of spending increase in the budget is a missed opportunity. There is still a risk that the situation in Ukraine escalates in the next 6 months and an opportunistic Sunak/Mordaunt...
Our net contribution to the EU each year was something in the order of our defence budget. Where Hunt or Reeves would find that kind of money right now doesn't really bear thinking about.
@labour_history #OTD 1997. John Major calls the general election and six week campaign to overcome a 20pt poll deficit.
Tony Blair launches New Labour campaign in Gloucester saying Tories have lost the country because they are “discredited, out of date, weakly led and rather incompetent”.
Rishi looked at that statement and thought we can do even worse on all 4 items..
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
I think we can see Rishi in Nigel’s pocket in the image TSE used in the thread header.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
You need to let this drop. What is "Brexit"? BRitain EXITing the EU. Its done.
All that has happened since - the TCA, the NI Framework, the Windsor Accord, the attempts to kill farming and fishing and touring bands and and and are things done *after* Brexit.
I have zero doubt that the next government will seek to change most of our post-Brexit decisions. Restoration of freedom to trade to start. But that isn't that Britain Exiting the EU isn't done. It is. This is act 2.
And Act 3 hinges on the same question that the UK has been failing to answer, basically forever.
How much of the stuff we don't want (foreigners, ghastly Europolitics, being told what to do) are we prepared to swallow to get things we do want (seamless access to our neighbours with all the benefits that accrued from that)?
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Well don't put it under your mattress, there appear to a lot of Reds under your bed.
Seriously, I wonder what legal options your financial adviser might suggest? Whatever they are, I'll warrant said IFA will be the only one to profit.
Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
The mental image of a "bouncing", "straddling" Penny Mordaunt makes an older male voter reach for the ballot paper and pencil.
So she's an intellectual vacuum, but she looks like Catherine Deneuve. That's enough for some of us.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
You really haven't got the hang of this election poster malarkey.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
Looking at the previous thread Blair is Labours second biggest liability after Corbyn. Nobody really believes Corbyn can pull the strings any more, but everyone thinks Blair is a devious sod who could.
I suspect Blair, whilst offering a helping hand to Starmer, is too busy counting his after- dinner speaking US$ to be a threat to national stability. Farage on the other hand needs the enhanced profile to recoup his Coutts bank account.
Those who do not follow Balkan politics will not grasp the full scope of this story.
It is two foreign govts covertly channeling $ to Trump in exchange for his (2nd) admin's support for potentially the wholesale redrawing of the map the southeast Europe. .. https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1768781907847000496
The occasional reminder that the first world war is not quite over.
The fact is that PM4PM won’t automatically help the Tories, but there is at least a chance she might. At the moment, there seems to be no chance that Rishi can turn it around.
So when you’re desperate and staring down the barrel of a historic defeat, rolling the dice with a presentable candidate might be worth it. What does Rishi offer that PM doesn’t?
I agree with most of that.
And yet.
One thing Rishi does offer is the high likelihood of making it to the election without a Sterling crisis. Given what happened under his predecessor that's the sort of thing people contemplating changing PM might not take for granted.
You have identified one risk point if the Tories change leader again in that in all the time since Boris’ defenestration they have been utterly fixated on tax cuts above all else.
While it strikes me as utterly obvious that a new leader shouldn’t try to introduce any massive swerves in fiscal policy and save it for the manifesto, we do have to acknowledge that the Tories are so over the cliff edge right now that they might use it as an excuse to push for even more wild cuts.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
The mental image of a "bouncing", "straddling" Penny Mordaunt makes an older male voter reach for the ballot paper and pencil.
So she's an intellectual vacuum, but she looks like Catherine Deneuve. That's enough for some of us.
Are you blind Pete, she is a big heifer
Beggars can't be choosers Malc!
P S. Perhaps Casino is right after all and we should desist with the schoolboy smut.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
You really haven't got the hang of this election poster malarkey.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
Looking at the previous thread Blair is Labours second biggest liability after Corbyn. Nobody really believes Corbyn can pull the strings any more, but everyone thinks Blair is a devious sod who could.
No they don’t. Sure, he’s a devious sod, but he’s yesterday’s news. No one cares.
Too many people are getting worked up by the idea that the vapid but presentable Penny Mordaunt will straddle the Tories and give them a bounce. It’s. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Gee thanks for that bizarre and totally unnecessary mental image.
I mean, you can tell it's all blokes on here, can't you?
I don't like PM is PM material, but we could do without the sexual/pornographic analogies, thanks.
LOL, that is up there with vegan venison
To be fair to our colleagues, though I don't share their excitement, there has been a fashion for Tory leaders and cabinet ministers to be photographed in straddling poses ... goes back 5 years at least? That's a lot of leaders.
Those who do not follow Balkan politics will not grasp the full scope of this story.
It is two foreign govts covertly channeling $ to Trump in exchange for his (2nd) admin's support for potentially the wholesale redrawing of the map the southeast Europe. .. https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1768781907847000496
The occasional reminder that the first world war is not quite over.
A reminder that the world is a very unstable place, and re-electing the loon would be very dangerous indeed.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
It's more much more simple than custom arrangements or anything like that.
For years the Conservatives have been able to blame the EU for various structural issues. They are now desperately scrabbling around for a replacement, and have so far come up with "woke blob", "lefty lawyers", "small boats", "LTNs"...
The most desperate they get, the weirder they become. All this stuff is either their fault (14 years in power) or 5G tinhat conspiracy.
There is one legitimate bogeyman - Putin, and thus the lack of spending increase in the budget is a missed opportunity. There is still a risk that the situation in Ukraine escalates in the next 6 months and an opportunistic Sunak/Mordaunt...
Our net contribution to the EU each year was something in the order of our defence budget. Where Hunt or Reeves would find that kind of money right now doesn't really bear thinking about.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
The Tories cant win the Red Wall. They should just give it up and let Reform stand in their place. That way they might then remain in govt as part of a coalition.
Do REFUK poll particularly well in the "Red Wall"? The polling tables show support at much the same across England and Wales. Indeed I am pretty sceptical that much differs between "Red Wall" and "Blue Wall" seats that isn't explained by level of education.
I had to laugh too at this photo of Tice and Anderson on a victory tour:
No idea but there is a chance. The Tories have made themselves toast so its a chance versus certainty. And as part of a deal for tories not standing they could tell their voters down south to bote tory to give them the chance of a seat in government.
It would make it a more interesting election.
Some sort of electoral pact might happen, with Tory MPs unopposed, but voters don't always do as they are told. These people don't want to vote for Sunaks Tories for a reason, so they won't.
Besides, the "Rishi is in Nigel's pocket" poster designs itself, even without AI.
Well that would just be countered by the SKS in Blairs
You really haven't got the hang of this election poster malarkey.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
Looking at the previous thread Blair is Labours second biggest liability after Corbyn. Nobody really believes Corbyn can pull the strings any more, but everyone thinks Blair is a devious sod who could.
No they don’t. Sure, he’s a devious sod, but he’s yesterday’s news. No one cares.
Spoken as a leftie.
Blairs about the only thing that would make me think of voting Tory.
You can’t appeal to red wall and blue wall at the same time.
Well, you can. Blair did it. Starmer is about to do it.
Richi can't do it. Nigel Fucking Farage can't do it.
I can think of half a dozen ways to appeal to both.
For a start, managing public services by methods that work. Rather than methods that were considered failures in the time of Frederick Taylor.
For example, end the culture of outsourcing the outsourcing of the outsourcing of the outsourcing of day to day operations.
The idea of having to know the specifics of an area is very frightening to generalist managers. Outsourcing is often an attempt to reduce a body of knowledge to an accounting unit. Well, let the managers be afraid.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
Keir.
K E I R.
You’d think that PBers might be able to spell the Loto’s name.
You need to let this drop. What is "Brexit"? BRitain EXITing the EU. Its done.
Nope
Why are the current incarnation of the Tory party incapable of governing their way out of a wet paper bag? Brexit
Why is our economy stagnant? Brexit
Why are Brits abroad forced to queue for hours (and return every 90 days)? Brexit
In the words of Leeanderthal, we want our Country back...
Great! And all of that is the stuff we have done after Brexit. We had choices - we made shit ones. We can go back and change those and be in a far better place and still have completed Brexit.
The problem with your (frankly stupid) argument is that you let the Tories off the hook and reopen pandoras box. The reason that some major meat importers have struggled to import anything after 30th January is not because of Brexit. It is because of the stupid thing the Tories did several years later.
You can’t appeal to red wall and blue wall at the same time.
Well, you can. Blair did it. Starmer is about to do it.
Richi can't do it. Nigel Fucking Farage can't do it.
I can think of half a dozen ways to appeal to both.
For a start, managing public services by methods that work. Rather than methods that were considered failures in the time of Frederick Taylor.
For example, end the culture of outsourcing the outsourcing of the outsourcing of the outsourcing of day to day operations.
The idea of having to know the specifics of an area is very frightening to generalist managers. Outsourcing is often an attempt to reduce a body of knowledge to an accounting unit. Well, let the managers be afraid.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
Mm, yes. Trouble there is the way the Tories have kicked the farmers and fishing industry in the teeth of late.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
Keir.
K E I R.
You’d think that PBers might be able to spell the Loto’s name.
Weirdly, my spell check still underlines Starmer. Never quite got the hand of Miliband either.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Well don't put it under your mattress, there appear to a lot of Reds under your bed.
Seriously, I wonder what legal options your financial adviser might suggest? Whatever they are, I'll warrant said IFA will be the only one to profit.
Who knows. One idea is to send some out the country and/or put it in a trusted relatives name.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
The only way to avoid that would be to move abroad. Sadly with Brexit your options are going to be Australia and New Zealand because Europe probably isn't an option anymore...
However on the first point - got to say you are completely and utterly cuckoo. The last one is more plausible but it needs to be implemented anyway because currently council tax is a completely unfair lottery....
I mean, you can tell it's all blokes on here, can't you?
I don't like PM is PM material, but we could do without the sexual/pornographic analogies, thanks.
LOL, that is up there with vegan venison
To be fair to our colleagues, though I don't share their excitement, there has been a fashion for Tory leaders and cabinet ministers to be photographed in straddling poses ... goes back 5 years at least? That's a lot of leaders.
Morning Carnyx, typical nabbery though as they are all as bent as 3 bob bits. They are not chinless wonders for nothing.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
The only way to avoid that would be to move abroad. Sadly with Brexit your options are going to be Australia and New Zealand because Europe probably isn't an option anymore...
Even pre-Brexit more Britons emigrated to Australia than the whole of the EU (excluding Ireland, whom we still have the Common Travel Area with) combined.
Which is part of the reason why our membership of the EU was such a joke.
Yet given the vast majority of 2019 Conservative voters and current Tory voters and the majority of Conservative seats voted Leave, on a forced choice the Conservatives should focus on the redwall and their Leave seats than Remain seats in the bluewall (remember too that most Conservative seats even in the South outside London voted Leave.
Whether they focus on the bluewall or redwall the Tories will still likely lose given the mood for change, however if they lose their Leave voters by just focusing on the bluewall Remainers they will likely see many of their Leave seats fall to Farage too and cease even to be the main Opposition
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
Mm, yes. Trouble there is the way the Tories have kicked the farmers and fishing industry in the teeth of late.
Useless trying his best to help them , not happy with sending our money to his pals ..........
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
Mm, yes. Trouble there is the way the Tories have kicked the farmers and fishing industry in the teeth of late.
Useless trying his best to help them , not happy with sending our money to his pals ..........
Hm, I wasn't aware that a MP was responsible for his parents holdings! Children, yes, as they would be in his control, but other relatives?
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
You actually support a meaningless deal with Australia while rejecting the biggest chunk of free trade available to the UK? Sounds like protectionist bullshit to me.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
"freezer"
Yes, what's wrong with that?
Most meat is frozen in transportation, are you not aware of that?
No wonder you were so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters.
Yet given the vast majority of 2019 Conservative voters and current Tory voters and the majority of Conservative seats voted Leave, on a forced choice the Conservatives should focus on the redwall and their Leave seats than Remain seats in the bluewall (remember too that most Conservative seats even in the South outside London voted Leave.
Whether they focus on the bluewall or redwall the Tories will still likely lose given the mood for change, however if they lose their Leave voters by just focusing on the bluewall Remainers they will likely see many of their Leave seats fall to Farage too and cease even to be the main Opposition
I think this may be too backwards looking an analysis. Brexit is over as an issue, certainly as an issue that can work in the Tories' favour. The marginal red wall voter is a working class woman who believed that Brexit would provide more money for local services - now that she knows this is a lie she won't be voting Tory again. She probably doesn't even believe in Brexit anymore. I think the Tories will have more luck with wealthy southern voters, focusing on the message that Labour will tax too much and spend their money elsewhere.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
Mm, yes. Trouble there is the way the Tories have kicked the farmers and fishing industry in the teeth of late.
Useless trying his best to help them , not happy with sending our money to his pals ..........
Are parents fair game now? Have they ever been part of the register of members' interests?
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
Yes let's feck the planet and poor countries by stealing their food and polluting the planet. You just cannot be as thick as you make out.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Well don't put it under your mattress, there appear to a lot of Reds under your bed.
Seriously, I wonder what legal options your financial adviser might suggest? Whatever they are, I'll warrant said IFA will be the only one to profit.
Who knows. One idea is to send some out the country and/or put it in a trusted relatives name.
But that holds risks in itself.
Sending it abroad won't work - HMRC get the information nowadays...
Trusted relatives - trust me when money is involved your may discover you shouldn't have trusted them....
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
You actually support a meaningless deal with Australia while rejecting the biggest chunk of free trade available to the UK? Sounds like protectionist bullshit to me.
Sounds like sub 50 IQ to me, he will take any old shit as long as it is cheap.
Although Hamas's figures are almost certainly wrong, television pictures of devastation wreaked in Gaza render them moot.
Israel may or may not be targeting women and children - but we KNOW that the Palestinians are doing so. They raped their corpses. They took babies hostage. Israel, if they work really hard at it, might manage to be just as bad as the Palestinians. But it's hard to see how they could be worse.
Yet given the vast majority of 2019 Conservative voters and current Tory voters and the majority of Conservative seats voted Leave, on a forced choice the Conservatives should focus on the redwall and their Leave seats than Remain seats in the bluewall (remember too that most Conservative seats even in the South outside London voted Leave.
Whether they focus on the bluewall or redwall the Tories will still likely lose given the mood for change, however if they lose their Leave voters by just focusing on the bluewall Remainers they will likely see many of their Leave seats fall to Farage too and cease even to be the main Opposition
Leave. Remain. The last war. The current war is tax. Services. The cost of living.
If you were the member of the Conservative Party these things would not only matter to you, but you would have a swathe of policies to offer. But as the old Conservative Party has been reduced to a marginalised rump the policy offer is record taxes and please have £3,000 to go away. And supposedly a coming tax cut paid for by collapsing local government.
You may not have noticed, but people don't want further collapse of local government and public services...
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
No, you supported discriminating in favour of a tinier fraction than that. Stop pretending what you actually voted for.
Should the Tories wish to avoid a collapse on the scale of Welsh rugby they need PM as PM. She's the only Conservative with credit with the voters. PM is a formidable campaigner and as her consort I'd strike her in a Britannia mode with chariot, spear and union shield pose !!
She'll likely keep the Tories above 200 seats which will provide a springboard for the 2028/9 GE as the Starmer government drown in a sea of debt.
Departing Chancellor Hunt note to Reeves. "There's £2.40 down the back of the sofa. Be quick though, it's on HP and the bailiffs are coming on Saturday."
Great to hear from you. I hope pie production is going well.
I thought Penny the best candidate in the post Johnson but was significantly underwhelmed by her campaign and debates. She really is quite devoid of ideas, and not willing to face down the Culture Warriors.
Possibly slightly better than Sunak, but marginally so, and the farce of a further leadership contest would not help the Tories.
I'm mortified to think that you believe that JackW as Penny's Consort would not enliven the moribund Tories. Dull is most certainly wouldn't be and with the added bonus that Penny sends the SNP crackers !! ..
Morning, Jack. My impression is that it's the other way round - she displays a very ugly side whenever she talks about Scotland.
SNP != Scotland. I think Mordaunt would lock in the rightish Unionist vote, making the Scottish Tory vote relatively strong.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
Mm, yes. Trouble there is the way the Tories have kicked the farmers and fishing industry in the teeth of late.
Useless trying his best to help them , not happy with sending our money to his pals ..........
Hm, I wasn't aware that a MP was responsible for his parents holdings! Children, yes, as they would be in his control, but other relatives?
Did you read the article , he failed to register HIS interests
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
You actually support a meaningless deal with Australia while rejecting the biggest chunk of free trade available to the UK? Sounds like protectionist bullshit to me.
Quite the opposite, I support free trade with Europe and the rest of the world.
We have a free trade agreement with Europe. We don't need to be in the EU to have that.
Its time to broaden your horizons. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world make up more of the global economy and more of our trade than our minor neighbours do.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
We already have Council Tax, which is pretty close to being a tax on property. Personally I'd favour its replacement with a flat rate tax on property values to fund local government, similar to what they have in that hotbed of socialism the United States of America.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
Yes let's feck the planet and poor countries by stealing their food and polluting the planet. You just cannot be as thick as you make out.
Trade != theft.
Trade != pollution.
Zero from two, well done. The pollution effects of international shipping per kg are so miniscule that there can be fewer CO2 emissions from imported goods than domestic ones.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
"freezer"
Yes, what's wrong with that?
Most meat is frozen in transportation, are you not aware of that?
No wonder you were so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters.
I can talk you through the process of blast freezing, frozen import, uptemper, datecode, pack and ship if you like. And how to make a profit doing it.
Can you?
"Most meat is frozen" / "so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters"
Go round the chilled section of any supermarket. Look at the products. What they are called. How prominent the country of origin is.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
No, you supported discriminating in favour of a tinier fraction than that. Stop pretending what you actually voted for.
What tinier fraction?
We have free trade now with the EU and Australia and others.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Well don't put it under your mattress, there appear to a lot of Reds under your bed.
Seriously, I wonder what legal options your financial adviser might suggest? Whatever they are, I'll warrant said IFA will be the only one to profit.
Who knows. One idea is to send some out the country and/or put it in a trusted relatives name.
But that holds risks in itself.
I could see (would vote for) a wealth tax of say 1-2% per annum on assets over say £1m. If that's what you class as 'confiscatory' it would likely cost you a larger percentage to avoid that.
I am genuinely intrigued that you fear such a threat.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
No reason it can’t get worse for some.
Especially with the ‘wealth tax now’ fanatics that are around in politics and left of centre pressure groups.
William Atkinson @WTMAtkinson · 22m I still don't think enough Tories have woken up to the fact that a repeat of 1997 would be a very good result from where they currently are.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
Australia is close enough to make that possible. Its on Planet Earth, everywhere on Planet Earth is close enough to make that possible.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
"freezer"
Yes, what's wrong with that?
Most meat is frozen in transportation, are you not aware of that?
No wonder you were so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters.
I can talk you through the process of blast freezing, frozen import, uptemper, datecode, pack and ship if you like. And how to make a profit doing it.
Can you?
"Most meat is frozen" / "so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters"
Go round the chilled section of any supermarket. Look at the products. What they are called. How prominent the country of origin is.
Then try again.
Many chilled products in the supermarket were previously frozen. They're labelled so too.
Prominently displaying country of origin is protectionist bullshit, but if people want to pay attention to that they're free to do so.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with freezing meat. Or importing frozen meat.
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
We already have Council Tax, which is pretty close to being a tax on property. Personally I'd favour its replacement with a flat rate tax on property values to fund local government, similar to what they have in that hotbed of socialism the United States of America.
It also would be far easier to implement - Sold prices are known and between a current market price algorithm and actual sold prices would be easy to manage.
Plus people would be willing to pay more because hey it means their house is worth X...
Finally yep it may mean that some people can't afford to pay the higher rates but the fix there as we commented in the past would be to not pay immediately and have a charge attached to the property to be repaid when it's finally sold...
I think it's a bit strange that people should be so quick to say the red and blue walls cannot ever be reconciled, when this was achieved just over four years ago at GE 2019. If the polls are anywhere like accurate, then Labour are poised to reconcile three major groups in the electorate - metropolitan liberals, blue labour and conservative swing voters.
These groups are not reconciled due to the oratorical brilliance of Keir-Ends-In-R Starmer, but due to Starmer's success in blandifying the Labour party so as not to put any of the groups off, and the categorical imperative of finding a means for these groups to punish the Tories.
Achieving something in reverse for the Tories requires only a bit of experience of Labour in government, and a Tory leader who isn't trying to actively alienate one part of the voter coalition.
I like your counter to this, with the 2019 evidence to back up your point.
However … those cracks were in the Party for a long time and we kid ourselves to think otherwise. That divide is really what brought down John Major and it didn’t do Margaret Thatcher much good in the end either. It all boiled to the surface when @TSE ’s beloved Davey boy idiotically called the Brexit referendum, thinking in his Old Etonian arrogance that he would pull off the same stunt as indyref.
(If you want to see what a shit Cameron really is then DO read the finale to Suzanne Heywood’s What Does Jeremy Think?)
I still maintain that 2019 was unique. Even I, a remainer, was utterly exasperated at the antics of that Remainer Parliament and at just the right moment along came Boris, someone uniquely gifted at deception to hoodwink the British people. With mellifluous honey-coated lies he pulled in blue and red wall voters. My Surrey tory friend, totally disillusioned now with the Party, STILL ADORES Boris and would vote for him like a shot.
Assuming Boris doesn’t make a Lazarite comeback, there’s no one else of his ilk. Once in a century.
Yes, it's true to say that the splits had been in the Tory party for a long time - but then that is true of any governing party in Britain. There is no single cohesive group of voters that is large enough to win a majority on its own. So it's normal for a governing party to be sustained by a coalition of voters divided amongst itself, and those divisions will obviously come to the fore when the party is generally unpopular.
I don't see anything unusual with what is happening to the Tories now, and so I don't think it requires anything extraordinary to fix the situation.
Indeed, what seems to be a more volatile electorate means that there is potential for the fractured Tory coalition to come back together (very temporarily) more quickly than currently appears possible. The situation facing an incoming Labour government is much more difficult than that encountered in 1997.
Although the Tories have been in government for nearly 14 years now, I think that is misleading. They have had several reinventions in that time, and so the last 14 years have been a lot more like the 1970s, than the long periods of Thatcherite/Blairite rule in the 80s/90s/00s.
Whatever Starmerism turns out to be I would not bet on it lasting that long. It's quite likely to be overturned by something very different, either from within the Labour party, or without, by the end of the decade.
A good response but your last paragraph is a fig leaf I’ve noticed some Conservatives clinging onto i.e. the assumption that Starmer is going to fail.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the magnitude of problems facing this country, and I’m no longer convinced Labour will fix them, I suspect many people will look back on the last 5 years as a horror show they never want to go near again in their lifetime.
I’m beginning to think Labour will be in power for 20 years.
I'm not a Conservative.
We'll see what Starmerism turns out to be - it's really hard to predict because he's shown so little indication of what his approach will be - but I included the possibility of Starmerism being overturned from within the Labour party. Whether Labour is in office for two decades, or not, I do not think Britain is in for a period of stable politics. There are large problems, that are difficult to solve, and a lot of rootless discontent sloshing about the political system as a result.
It could be that the Tory brand, and all the politicians associated with it, is so damaged that the voters won't go near it for a long time, but in that case the voter's discontent will manifest itself through other parties, or through factions within the Labour party. Cameron was PM for 6 years and 64 days. He wasn't brought down because the voters were ready to give Labour another go. I doubt very much that Starmer will have so long, but I don't see the Tories returning so soon either (thank God).
I'm instructing my financial advisor to advise me on protecting my assets against a potential confiscatory very left-wing Labour government.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
Highest tax take under the Conservatives but you're worried about reds under Kier Starmer's bed?
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
I'm worried about private pensions and ISA investments being confiscated and annual wealth taxes on ordinary property.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
We already have Council Tax, which is pretty close to being a tax on property. Personally I'd favour its replacement with a flat rate tax on property values to fund local government, similar to what they have in that hotbed of socialism the United States of America.
It also would be far easier to implement - Sold prices are known and between a current market price algorithm and actual sold prices would be easy to manage.
Plus people would be willing to pay more because hey it means their house is worth X...
Finally yep it may mean that some people can't afford to pay the higher rates but the fix there as we commented in the past would be to not pay immediately and have a charge attached to the property to be repaid when it's finally sold...
Though a land value tax would be far superior, but that's not so easy to implement.
Brexit is nothing like as big a deal as both sides wanted to pretend for different reasons. It is done now and unlikely to be a sticking point going forward.
What we really need is a government that is willing to address our underlying problems
Brexit is not nearly "done", and it solved exactly none of our underlying problems, while exacerbating many of them.
Apart from that...
Indeed. They're still sorting out UK customs after many, many postponements.
That is not a state in control of its destiny, though this time it's the Brexiteers who are the government.
Let me give you a specific example - meat imports. We delayed repeatedly the introduction of our post-Brexit border model. At one point the minister for Brexit Opportunities described the implementation of our demanded model as an act of "national self-harm"
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
Alternative explanation: Not being aligned with the EU allows us to make agreements with other countries like Australia which we can import meat from.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
If only Australia was close enough to make that possible.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
You only have to look at the very careful labelling that Lidl do to see that a fair bit of meat is being imported from Australia / New Zealand now.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And that's an absolutely good thing for consumers.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
Talking of protectionist bullshit, I forget, are you in favour of freedom of movement, trade and capital, the Single Market and the Customs Union?
No, I support free trade with the entire planet, not a tiny fraction of it.
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
Yes let's feck the planet and poor countries by stealing their food and polluting the planet. You just cannot be as thick as you make out.
Trade != theft.
Trade != pollution.
Anyone who has followed (for example) the history if US trade with China will know that both those statements aren't exactly correct.
The real world isn't the idealised version that exists in your imagination.
The reason that some major meat importers have struggled to import anything after 30th January is not because of Brexit. It is because of the stupid thing the Tories did several years later.
The "Tories" did those stupid things due to Brexit.
If Call me Dave had won the referendum, would he have done any of the stupid things May/BoZo/Truss/Richi have done?
Comments
And yet.
One thing Rishi does offer is the high likelihood of making it to the election without a Sterling crisis. Given what happened under his predecessor that's the sort of thing people contemplating changing PM might not take for granted.
#OTD 1997. John Major calls the general election and six week campaign to overcome a 20pt poll deficit.
Tony Blair launches New Labour campaign in Gloucester saying Tories have lost the country because they are “discredited, out of date, weakly led and rather incompetent”.
The Drake has stood down. The end, one might say, of an era.
Farewell, friend.
It's perfectly possible Starmer gets dethroned, in office, for a Left-wing alternative like you say, and they utterly abuse the MP base they have in Parliament.
For years the Conservatives have been able to blame the EU for various structural issues. They are now desperately scrabbling around for a replacement, and have so far come up with "woke blob", "lefty lawyers", "small boats", "LTNs"...
The most desperate they get, the weirder they become. All this stuff is either their fault (14 years in power) or 5G tinhat conspiracy.
There is one legitimate bogeyman - Putin, and thus the lack of spending increase in the budget is a missed opportunity. There is still a risk that the situation in Ukraine escalates in the next 6 months and an opportunistic Sunak/Mordaunt...
I don't like PM is PM material, but we could do without the sexual/pornographic analogies, thanks.
Starmer in Corbyn's pocket might help, but Starmer in Blair's pocket probably adds a hatful of votes.
All that has happened since - the TCA, the NI Framework, the Windsor Accord, the attempts to kill farming and fishing and touring bands and and and are things done *after* Brexit.
I have zero doubt that the next government will seek to change most of our post-Brexit decisions. Restoration of freedom to trade to start. But that isn't that Britain Exiting the EU isn't done. It is. This is act 2.
New Conservatives will publish series of policy ideas on issues including tax
...
‘Rishi is probably the most socially conservative Prime Minister we’ve had since Margaret Thatcher.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13205667/Splinter-group-Right-wing-MPs-pen-manifesto-Rishi-Sunak-battles-fractured-party-together.html
Boris-fanboi Miriam Cates and her pals write the Britannia Unchained de nos jours.
What happened in 2019 was that the Tory party went after the Red Wall and the Blue Wall just accepted that Bozo was safer than Corbyn. Remove Corbyn's ability to push people away from Labour and the Red Wall / Blue Wall voters are mutually incompatible, chase 1 set and you push a lot of the other set away.
What with TSE's double entendre headers and Leon's earlier discussion regarding what musical accompaniment he prefers when ...
So at the end of January we belatedly imposed checks on imports, albeit not checks where we actually check either the paperwork or the goods. We still do not have the physical infrastructure or the staff or the computer systems to do so.
Our EU neighbours though, they are treaty-bound to implement our deal. And they have. In full. Where the French were struggling to get enough paperwork generated quickly enough, their own government started paying to clear them. The Spanish government are very clear on export to UK rules and have simply and completely implemented it.
We remain functionally incompetent when it comes to the border. Never mind Take Back Control, despite years of delay we still have to wave stuff through because we haven't bothered to invest in the set-up to do our own checks.
My conclusion is that for mist Tory Brexiteers the gains were all slogan and no detail. they didn't actually want the act of "national self-harm", they just wanted to pretend that we could tell the foreign what to do.
What other explanation is there?
(Made you look.)
How much of the stuff we don't want (foreigners, ghastly Europolitics, being told what to do) are we prepared to swallow to get things we do want (seamless access to our neighbours with all the benefits that accrued from that)?
Seriously, I wonder what legal options your financial adviser might suggest? Whatever they are, I'll warrant said IFA will be the only one to profit.
While it strikes me as utterly obvious that a new leader shouldn’t try to introduce any massive swerves in fiscal policy and save it for the manifesto, we do have to acknowledge that the Tories are so over the cliff edge right now that they might use it as an excuse to push for even more wild cuts.
P S. Perhaps Casino is right after all and we should desist with the schoolboy smut.
On which note, here is Mark Lawrenson on Liverpool players' joy when Mrs Thatcher's government cut the top rate of income tax to 60 per cent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wHSydJu_zg
Sure, he’s a devious sod, but he’s yesterday’s news. No one cares.
Implementing checks on EU meat is not necessary to achieve that gain.
The world is a bigger place than Europe. If you only look at France and Spain, of course it won't make sense.
Why are the current incarnation of the Tory party incapable of governing their way out of a wet paper bag? Brexit
Why is our economy stagnant? Brexit
Why are Brits abroad forced to queue for hours (and return every 90 days)? Brexit
In the words of Leeanderthal, we want our Country back...
Blairs about the only thing that would make me think of voting Tory.
On the right he;s toxic, he's the big GOTV play.
https://youtu.be/sKYYPh8rvQU?feature=shared
For a start, managing public services by methods that work. Rather than methods that were considered failures in the time of Frederick Taylor.
For example, end the culture of outsourcing the outsourcing of the outsourcing of the outsourcing of day to day operations.
The idea of having to know the specifics of an area is very frightening to generalist managers. Outsourcing is often an attempt to reduce a body of knowledge to an accounting unit. Well, let the managers be afraid.
Can I refer you back to the word "slogan"
We have a HUGELY competitive market. We already import some meat and fish from all kinds of places. Chicken from Brazil and Thailand as an example. If you want cheapo crap meat. But replace our closest most aligned marketplace with ones on the other side of the globe? If it was viable it would have been done already.
I good litmus test for a Tory extinction event is whether even the Unionist vote abandons them in Moray, Aberdeenshire, the Borders. If they survive there, I think there is a sliver of hope for a sane Westminster parliamentary party.
K E I R.
You’d think that PBers might be able to spell the Loto’s name.
Of course its doable, they both in the round want the same things.
The idea the red wall is full of xenophobic BNP Faragists is complete and utter horse shit. Its frankly very offensive.
Red wall voters want a well run country, low taxes on themselves, good hospitals, schools, roads, and other infrastructure.
You know the same thing every other group of voter in the country pretty much wants - only in London they care about trains not roads.
The problem with your (frankly stupid) argument is that you let the Tories off the hook and reopen pandoras box. The reason that some major meat importers have struggled to import anything after 30th January is not because of Brexit. It is because of the stupid thing the Tories did several years later.
For fresh veg you may have a point, but for meat? You can ship meat all over the planet. I have beef right now in my freezer from Argentina, what bloody difference does the country of origin make?
The alignment with the EU put tariff and non-tariff barriers against non-European meat. Barriers we can and absolutely should remove, but no reason for us to replace those with new barriers against European meat. All we need to do to look after consumers is remove the barriers, if the Europeans want to put barriers against us, that's their consumers problem, not ours.
Problem is their farms are so efficient compared to ours we aren't in a position to export there because anything we sold there would be insanely expensive compared to local costs.
And the economy.
David Ricardo is rolling in his grave from this protectionist bullshit.
The Conservatives freezing tax allowances to deal with the fallout from Covid, Ukraine and interest rates going back to normal doesn't come close.
-- Navaly's wish was for voters who support him to "vote" at noon
https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-election-alexei-navalnys-final-plan-to-cause-vladimir-putin-maximum-damage/
But that holds risks in itself.
However on the first point - got to say you are completely and utterly cuckoo. The last one is more plausible but it needs to be implemented anyway because currently council tax is a completely unfair lottery....
Which is part of the reason why our membership of the EU was such a joke.
Whether they focus on the bluewall or redwall the Tories will still likely lose given the mood for change, however if they lose their Leave voters by just focusing on the bluewall Remainers they will likely see many of their Leave seats fall to Farage too and cease even to be the main Opposition
I support allowing migrants on equal terms from the entire planet, not discriminating in favour of one tiny fraction of it.
Most meat is frozen in transportation, are you not aware of that?
No wonder you were so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters.
Trusted relatives - trust me when money is involved your may discover you shouldn't have trusted them....
Israel, if they work really hard at it, might manage to be just as bad as the Palestinians. But it's hard to see how they could be worse.
Just an idea.
If you were the member of the Conservative Party these things would not only matter to you, but you would have a swathe of policies to offer. But as the old Conservative Party has been reduced to a marginalised rump the policy offer is record taxes and please have £3,000 to go away. And supposedly a coming tax cut paid for by collapsing local government.
You may not have noticed, but people don't want further collapse of local government and public services...
Stop pretending what you actually voted for.
We have a free trade agreement with Europe. We don't need to be in the EU to have that.
Its time to broaden your horizons. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world make up more of the global economy and more of our trade than our minor neighbours do.
Trade != pollution.
Zero from two, well done. The pollution effects of international shipping per kg are so miniscule that there can be fewer CO2 emissions from imported goods than domestic ones.
Can you?
"Most meat is frozen" / "so ignorant that you thought country of origin matters"
Go round the chilled section of any supermarket. Look at the products. What they are called. How prominent the country of origin is.
Then try again.
We have free trade now with the EU and Australia and others.
That's more, not less.
I am genuinely intrigued that you fear such a threat.
Tory ex minister quoted in this piece seems to have a shaky grasp on the basic concepts of probability theory.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/17/our-chances-zero-and-getting-worse-inside-a-tory-edeath-spiral
Especially with the ‘wealth tax now’ fanatics that are around in politics and left of centre pressure groups.
@WTMAtkinson
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22m
I still don't think enough Tories have woken up to the fact that a repeat of 1997 would be a very good result from where they currently are.
https://twitter.com/WTMAtkinson/status/1769295492041560536
Prominently displaying country of origin is protectionist bullshit, but if people want to pay attention to that they're free to do so.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with freezing meat. Or importing frozen meat.
Plus people would be willing to pay more because hey it means their house is worth X...
Finally yep it may mean that some people can't afford to pay the higher rates but the fix there as we commented in the past would be to not pay immediately and have a charge attached to the property to be repaid when it's finally sold...
Sold prices != land value.
The real world isn't the idealised version that exists in your imagination.
If Call me Dave had won the referendum, would he have done any of the stupid things May/BoZo/Truss/Richi have done?
Really?