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Some good news for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Some good news for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
If Sunak were disposed most of the public say that there should be an immediate General Election including over half of 2019 Conservative voters. pic.twitter.com/Ji16wVpl70
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There seems to be a growing sense out there of wanting to get this over and done with now.
The problem is that this is now a meme. A trend. Or maybe more strong than that: a groundswell.
If as I suspect Sunak holds on and on and on to late autumn they will do worse. Barely posible, but true. And their recovery base will be that much lower.
But apparent his popularity suggests a desire for someone at least competent.
Don't know about Brenda.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1774355574672458035
As if somehow the entertainment on offer isn’t sufficient? Or have we become as a race incapable of quiet, collecting thoughts, or savouring natural atmosphere?
I guess for a nature-lover like me, this is basically London life and so I can’t have it both ways. Come here for a long weekend and it’s what you get.
Anyway off to Borough market for some nosh and then Greenwich.
xx
The Reform to Mordaunt switchers in the header are an interesting group. They cannot be interested by her Woke policy's surely? Is it her sword carrying skills? Boufant hair, or colour of her skin?
Where's @BartholomewRoberts ?
"Boat Race: Oxford rowers criticise sewage levels in River Thames"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68701486
In real elections Lab has been second place, so the obvious tactical vote. I agree though that where LD was second in 2019 that the MRP may be misleading.
Will the LDs have a 1997 type surge in seat numbers on Labour's coat tails? I am not convinced as yet. Ed Davey is an astute tactician but no Paddy Ashdown in charisma. On the other hand Starmer is no Blair and Sunak no Major. As a general rule Lib/LD seat numbers go up when Lab ones do too, so maybe.
In today’s politics you would have to be crazy to decry anything as impossible. So it *could* happen, it’s just a very very low order possibility.
I have respect for honest political opinion across the board. But I do have to ask the remaining Tory optimists if they have considered *why* the party deserves to win again.
Simon Calder in the Independent. Pointing out that in English Tourism Week the Tories are spending big attacking England’s biggest 3 cities as places you definitely shouldn’t visit.
After 14 years in power and all you have left is to try and trash tourism - driving away all that tourist money. Why do you want to win? Why do you deserve to win? All you have left is hope against hope - but hope for what?
On current polling there should be plenty of places where Labour will come from third to take the seat. MRP is unlikely to know where the Lib Dems can persuade previous Tory voters to choose them rather than Labour, as they would likely do in other seats.
She could of course tailor her message. In urban areas she should wheel out her hunky gay twin brother on the campaign trail , preferably dressed in just his boxers!
Korean lenders expand presence in Central Europe
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=371768
Local commercial and state-run lenders are rushing to establish offices in Poland and Hungary, buoyed by rapid growth of integrated economic activities between Korean businesses and their Central Europe peers, market watchers said Sunday.
Chief among them are car and battery manufacturing, Korea's growth driver industries seeking to make greater strides in the European market together with their smaller partner firms making automotive parts and rechargeable equipment. Industry leaders with production facilities there include Hyundai Motor and its sister firm Kia, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and SK On.
Further brightening Korea's prospects is the growth of defense industries in the region, as best encapsulated by Korea's over 9 billion won ($6.6 million) worth of defense exports to Poland last year. The 14.8 percent year-on-year increase pushed up Poland as Korea's fifth surplus-generating trading partner, up from the previous seventh.
Korea's leading commercial lenders aim to provide a combined financing of 10 trillion won to facilitate the country's arms equipment exports to Poland to the tune of 47 trillion won. The deal signed last year will be mediated primarily by the state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) and Korea Trade Insurance Corp (K-Sure).
The expanded presence will help Korean entities join nearby Ukraine's post-war reconstruction projects anticipated to be worth about $750 billion in total...
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2023/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2023
This is in contrast to the figures from the EU, which are overall static, and particularly Ireland, where they are sharply up last year, and more so this year to date.
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/2023-figures-show-stalling-progress-reducing-road-fatalities-too-many-countries-2024-03-08_en
The increases in Ireland are really quite shocking. Up by 19% last year, 31% on 2019, and up by another third so far this year. It's kinda baffling to explain what could have changed so drastically in such a short period of time that hasn't changed in Britain, or Europe.
The last two songs played over the PA before kick-off are:
"The Saints Are Coming" by The Skids, and
"Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty.
There is a very real risk that the government simply collapses. Truss lost authority over the party and was gone quickly. In this scenario Sunak can't be gone as he'd already defeated the May putsch attempt. So the government would be gone - a collapse election in the summer.
If he makes it that far we can all conceive what the summer would be like. So calling an election as soon as parliament resumes at the start of September would make a lot of sense. Because we can all conceive what the Tory conference would be like!
But as always, remember that the easiest decision is indecision. Letting things like conference just happen is an easy out...
We do get "goal music" and "goal flags" though. Both hated by traditionalists.
It does work on a national level for England and Wales, assuming that everything averages out to what their model suggests.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/31/cold-damp-unsafe-record-number-of-uk-schools-refused-funding-for-repairs
ELE does one of two things. For a country where even the Tory voters are sick of the Tories, the prospect of obliterating this disgrace of a party becomes tangible, exciting, desirable. Remember that in 1997 the Labour landslide only happened because of a pile on - the desire to hurt the Tories.
However, the further down the ELE road we get, the more that a Labour super-landslide causes its own problems. My assumption is that MRP gets the seat by seat bit wrong in that it starts applying national % and swing by (new) seat and coming up with bonkers. Yes, in a demolition election you can win from 3rd. But some of the seat assumptions are silly. I have to assume more LD seats because thats what both polling, council seats on the ground and sanity suggests.
You can get 14/1 on the election being in 2025. I still think it's unlikely, but maybe 10-20% unlikely, and 14/1 is a good value bet?
It's considerably more likely that a regular and reliable supply of western arms would see the opposite outcome.
And Putin isn't offering peace anyway. He's demanding capitulation, with no guarantees.
We can stop him now, or we can stop him next time, when he's rebuilt his military, at far greater cost.
I am cynical enough to think that the French are more interested in helping Ukraine now that the US is not, because it is now possible for them to play the leading role, rather than a supporting one.
theour NHS.NHS told to cut spending on doctors and nurses to save £4.5bn
Managers have been told by NHS England to review staffing levels and prepare to merge or close some services
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-told-to-cut-spending-on-doctors-and-nurses-to-save-45bn-sbgk7k02d (£££)
A great song, but not really one to rouse the fans.
Think the same levels of chaos. There is no majority if Tory MPs continue to organise against each other. Sure, they would win a confidence vote - but little else. They couldn't come for Rishi as I expect they will already have tried in May. So as the government loses control of itself it accepts the inevitable and an election is called.
Mad. Unthinkable. Self-destructive. But all of those things have already happened. Repeatedly. In this post-2019 parliament...
Whereas some of the more pro-Russian people say they cannot use the tools (because Ukrainians are lesser, or whatever), or because there are RISKS!!!!!!!!!!!
People who think like that can go to Hell.
All the previous changes of leader, after Cameron walked away, have been relatively long, drawn-out affairs. May won a confidence vote and endured months of resignations. Johnson won a confidence vote and could barely put a Cabinet together. Truss effectively had Hunt imposed on her as a minder.
Just because one attempt to understand Sunak after the locals might fail, doesn't preclude another have finishing him off a few weeks or months later - and none of them will want an immediate election. They'll want a new leader to steady the ship.
Ukraine now face several years of grim defence slowly losing ground for Russian lives. It is not an enticing prospect but we need to do all we can to help them.
But I do think Johnson would have pushed for more to be done if he was still PM. Sunak gives the appearance of going through the motions. I have a sense that they've looked at the British budget and military inventory first, and decided what can be spared, rather than looked at what Ukraine needs to win and worked out how to provide it.
I fear that Starmer will be the same and will later decide it is futile. There's a real risk that Ukraine loses because the West chooses defeat.
I'm not quite so cynical about the French, though there's probably something in what you say. I think Macron is genuinely worried for the future security of Europe - and rightly so.
Don't bet on it is my advice, and if you must, don't back the favorite.
Nobody likes it, but I guess it helps someone to justify a job.
They're not going to try another NATO style assault, that's for sure - but if the US were to pass the aid bill, they'd likely have military superiority over Russia's attacking forces.
Absent that, the best they can do is dig in - as they're now doing.
Two years into the war and Ukraine still has fewer artillery shells, isn't being provided with all the long-range weapons the West has available, and it's having to rely on it's own drone developments to try to fill the gap.
There's a route to victory for Ukraine which lies in providing Taurus, ATACMs, and using the much-vaunted economic superiority of the West to produce long-range missiles and artillery shells in sufficient quantity to obliterate the Russian Army from a distance. Get It Done.
$300m is 0.5% of what has been blocked by the Trumpist GOP. It is not equal to zero, but the missing 99.5% is more noticeable on the battlefield of Ukraine.
By the way, what has happened to your team. I thought they were nailed on for the title.
Foxes on the run?
What the west does in terms of help impacts not just Ukraine but bad actors leading other countries . Putin wants to destroy Ukraine . We can’t stand idly by whilst a European country ceases to exist .
There is no middle ground here , you’re either with Ukraine or you’re not .
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-ukraine-russia-war-funding-716ce5f7f336f1def7e000ac9170f190
(I mean, over and above my own constituency, Labour coming from 12% in a very poor third place in Carshalton and Wallington to a photo-finish with the LDs for the win just looks wrong).
Seats where Labour is 3rd and significantly back from second, where the LDs are a clear second (especially where they held the constituency very recently) and where local council strength forms a stark difference would be ones where you'd suggest would go one way.
Ones where the third place is pretty close to second, or the second place is still a very long way back, and where local strength is either similar or absent for both LDs and Labour would point to places where the air war would be a far bigger factor, and you might well see real shocks from third.
You could then go seat by seat to estimate tactical voting (or lack of it). A pretty big task and unavoidably subjective.
https://x.com/Hush_Kit/status/1774379528313303299?s=20
"Despite being named after a particularly delicious beef dish and being influenced by Vickers’ absolutely fantastic Wellesley, the Wellington was the most dull way to kill civilians. From its ‘scout hut in Reigate’ side windows to its vague vertical tail everything about the dreary Wellington screamed ‘I was found on an industrial estate’ and should have been left there."
Agree particularly with the Skua. The local newsagent seem to have an inexhaustible stock of the Frog model of said aircraft, and Aberdeen was so boring in the 70s I ended up buying a few of them. It didn't get more interesting with repeat builds for sure.
We saw it with cycle infrastructure in London, with resolving the Brexit impasse, with the vaccines and with sending ammunition and weapons in February 2022. There have been these times when Boris Johnson recognised what needed to be done and made sure it was done, regardless of who it upset, or whether it broke convention.
I didn't like the man. I cheered his downfall. But it seems clear that his successors, and other Western leaders, have failed to measure up to the example he set on Ukraine.
TBF the Skua was actually a pretty good plane for dive-bombing ships in 1939-40. Trouble is there weren't that many German surface ships within range without Bf 109s to intervene. Or German ships at all.
If I thought it was right I would be certain to vote Labour at the GE.
Do we have a Reform voter on PB? Would be a useful perspective.
An interesting look at Tory (and Labour) advertising for MoL.
'The labels picked by the Conservatives for their anti-Ulez messaging appeared to be being used to reach those who were more likely to have a car or to be older, and who therefore were more likely to “get angry”, he said. “It’s about button-pushing issues. So you look for what winds people up or gets them to act.”'
Interestingly, the Tories positively conceal their ads from some people. If you like public transport, no way do you get to see the Tory ads.
'As well as funding ads on Facebook and Instagram, both parties have paid for Google ads attacking their rival candidates, which show up under searches for each of their names. People searching “Sadiq Khan crime” are redirected to a Tory attack website. Those searching “Who is Susan Hall?” are shown an ad describing her as a “hard-right Tory candidate” who “hates London’s diversity” and directed to a website set up by Labour in her name, susanhall.uk.'
His view now is that he has as at least as much influence over his areas of knowledge now as he would if he were a cabinet minister so only Chancellor or PM has more, and he wouldn't want either for his mental health.
So many of them were never Tory voters. And they did not come home in 2019....
“Reform basically reverse took over the Conservatives and Stephen Harper became Prime Minister,” Farage explains. “If there was a model, it’s Canada."
May onwards will be a zombie government, even more than now, dead but shambling on.
He generated ideas like monkeys on typewriters and every now and then produced something readable.