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Oh dear, Rishi looks like a limpet – politicalbetting.com
Oh dear, Rishi looks like a limpet – politicalbetting.com
Britain’s two longest-serving prime ministers since the 19th century – Margaret Thatcher (11 years, 208 days) and Tony Blair (10 years, 56 days) – have at least one thing in common. They both decided to work in parliamentary terms of four years (approx) and to seek re-election on each occasion in either May or June.
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The header is right to draw attention to the seats lost markets which should be compared with the size of majority markets.
Secretary for education accused Labour of putting parents off returning to work by refusing to back the free childcare scheme
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gillian-keegan-nurseries-staff-free-childcare-reform-scheme-v7lxx9dcb (£££)
Gillian Keegan maintains the government's reputation for competence.
A seafront plot of land in Skegness is being sold for one pound to make way for a new Travelodge and Starbucks.
The former crazy golf site in South Parade is understood to have a market value of around £280,000.
East Lindsey District Council said it had agreed to sell it for just one pound so developers could start work "within months".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4njx9937w3o
I'm off to look up which party controls the council so I know whether to be angry or not.
Limpets don't generally lose because they're limpets -- they're limpets because they can read opinion polls like the rest of us. They can see they'll likely lose at, say, the four-year mark, so they hang on hoping things will change.
Conversely the go-early types don't win because they've gone early; they go early because they think they'll win. Which, May apart, they generally do.
The more interesting thing is that hanging on thing rarely works -- things don't just turn up to make people change their minds. 1992 felt more like a last-minute change of mind than a response to a particular "something turning up" -- ie, if Major had gone in 1991 the result may well have been the same.
The general analysis would therefore seem to be that those who wait for something to turn up, do so in vain. Once a desire for change is in the air, even 4p off National Insurance won't shift the dial.
Still can't see 200+ seat losses though. Those odds look *very* tasty. Shame I married a Methodist!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-68720022
Callaghan (1978/9) and Major (1997) gave the impression of clinging on until the last minute and the electorate knew it. Major wouldn’t have won if he had gone sooner than May 1997 but the defeat might have been less severe. Callaghan might have run Thatcher close if he had gone in 1978 - remember that even after the subsequent Winter of Discontent she ‘only’ won a 44 seat majority. Gordon Brown also clung on and it’s likewise quite possible that he would have won if he had gone to the country in 2009.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that things will get worse not better for Rishi Sunak’s tories through this year. I listen to a lot of people across the political spectrum and they all want this to come before the country now.
With each passing week it becomes clearer to the British public that Rishi Sunak is in office but not in power.
On which note, here is a RefUK London Mayoral video. It is interesting because they are clearly targeting Conservative-supporting petrol heads.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GK78SJ_qPAw
It is not to be taken as a benchmark for any normal General Election.
As pointed out above, going long or short is effect rather than cause.
Brown, had he gone in 2009, would have lost very badly. The extra six months gave time for doubts about Cameron’s vacuity to surface. Didn’t help Labour’s poll share - they still had the worst result in terms of the popular vote of any government since 1832 - but it cost the Tories enough votes to put even a small majority out of reach.
That’s clearly what Sunak is hoping for here. It may happen, as well, although I don’t think it will even come close to saving his government.
Boris Johnson is planning a bleak midwinter General Election in a bid to wrongfoot Labour, according to a Cabinet source.
The PM has pencilled in November or December 2023 as the date to next send the UK to the polls.
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The source said: “Labour struggles to get their people out more than we do which gives us an advantage.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-plotting-bleak-midwinter-25176188
So even if you are right, your opinion does not matter. It is what CCHQ believes that counts. And as an aside, elections were often held in autumn or winter in the first half of the 20th Century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections
This is quite likely a simple confusion of cause and effect. Rather than the act of waiting bringing about the defeat, isn’t it more likely that the high probability of defeat brings about the waiting?
Could it be anything to do with the fact that he's 20 points behind in the polls?
The table above certainly demonstrates correlation, but in this case causation is obviously acting in the other direction.
I must complete it by the end of June.
A mutually-reinforcing doom loop, in other words. So unless a black swan comes along to save him, what is there that can provoke Rishi into calling an election before the very last minute?
(And whatever the answer to that, he needs a better response to the question "when will the election be?" than laughing.)
Clearly disentangling cause and effect in such correlations is both difficult and important. That there is such correlation at all doesn't bode well for Sunak.
Will things get worse still for his party? What is the reason that he wishes for another 6 months of this torment?
Polling and MRP analysis at the moment points towards seat numbers in the 50-150 range, including the humiliating prospect of being the first PM to lose their seat in the age of universal suffrage.
Personally I think he will struggle to hang on until autumn, and won't want to face a Conference that would be both sparsely attended and mutinous, particularly as the Labour one will be a sharp contrast.
So, while June/July is possible I think September more likely. Naming a date early would do him no harm, as politically we are already in campaign mode.
Edited because wtf is happening with Vanilla?
But, we keep being told by the likes of you that such things don't exist. Now, you'll pivot seamlessly to "what's the problem?" and "it will do you good".
Watch.
"I can understand why, in our world of aliases, suspicions arise. So here’s the truth (promise!). I am a long-time reader of PB (a lurker, perhaps, though that sounds a bit seedy) and a true fan of the well-informed political debate that takes place here. I pay tribute to Mike Smithson for having created this site and am sorry that he is stepping back.
I do not live in Moscow or on a never-ending tour of the world’s most glamorous hotels and restaurants, but in a pleasant house deep in the West Country, with a partner (female), three dogs, a garden and a Manchester United supporters badge (sorry, TSE and others, about last Sunday). I am an ex-Fleet St journalist (physically as well as metaphorically, if that gives you a clue), past retirement age, who still dabbles in publishing/editing etc with a few other harmless pastimes. I am a political centrist, a former Tory who left the party when Boris became leader, a monarchist, pro-Europe, pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump who believes that it will probably be good for democracy to put Labour in charge for a bit."
I don't agree that firms should pursue "systemic change" and I certainly don't believe the blurb that the results will be "just for you" and not shared with anybody. However, I will research in advance how to answer these to get the best result possible and then answer all the questions exactly how they expect them to be answered.
Then, I will ignore it all and go back to my daily life as before. Just like the last time I had to do race training, which also emanated as a global policy from New York.
I could imagine Rishi planning for a November election, using party conference as a springboard, but when he gets there, with Farage swanning around, Truss still reminding everyone she hasn't gone away, etc, it is ready to imagine him getting cold feet and delaying.
The coverage for the US presidential election might provide a quiet week without disaster in which Sunak could call a December election.
I see frankly little difference between four years and five in practical terms. This government has been drifting since Paterson, Partygate, Pinchergate and Lettuceforgetthat blew things apart in a twelve month period to October 2022 - and that was less than three years after the last election.
However, I am opposed to four years on principle because we copy the Y**** in too many things already.
Scarcely in America given one of the candidates is a doddering old fool who barely knows what day of the week it is and the other is Joe Biden.
I remember this from a UK bank. The reason why a UK Bank won't tell people the reason an account was closed is sometimes a bank really can't tell them. Hence banks never tell any ever customer because sometimes you would have to tell people you can't provide a reason and that would be the point you actually broke UK law..
And that threw me because the previous courses I'd done were under Austrian / Danish law where different things apply.
I'm loaded with bets on over 200 Tory losses, mostly struck at odds against. I'm not sure I would take the current 2/1 on, bit it is definitely less than an even money chance, and the 11/2 about fewer than 50 seats is being nibbled at.
*strokes chin*
Where do I advertise them?
MINISTER FOR FLAGS: Common Sense Minister Esther McVey has waded into the latest flag-gate with a Sun op-ed, saying “I wish organisations would leave [our flag] alone.” APPG for Flags and Heraldry Chair Henry Smith told GB News he’d like a minister for flags. This one’s about Team GB, which has now insisted Olympic athletes won’t be wearing a pink-and-purple version.
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/israel-gaza-war-dominates-once-more/
In part it is useful to the job, but in part it is a bit like that checkbox form in the USA visa where you have to tick a box saying you are not entering the USA to commit terrorist acts. This isn't to pick up terrorists by self declaration, but rather to be able to revoke visas easily if someone does.
So some "Mandatory Training" is to protect the business. If someone in your firm does get involved in market abuse despite having done their MT they cannot defend against dismissal by claiming that they had never been told not to. A key to getting rid of a wrong doer is to anticipate and close off their excuses before they are raised, thereby making for a cleaner exit.
I'll compromise on a 49-month Parliamentary term, which has the advantage of precessing the month of the election through the year. You could also then ban all election campaign spending for 48 months, and only allow it in the 1 month election campaign period.
Mr. Royale, good luck with the mind control and guilt training.
He came across as a complete dork at the tribunal, incidentally. He couldn't see that fondling children was wrong. But he was still given a ruling in his favour.
And good morning everybody!
Personally I would have 20% of the seats up for election each year to achieve this while giving some stability.
My contention, and that of @TopDog @TSE and many other political analysts, is that the Conservatives will fare worse the longer they delay.
I disagree with those who say it doesn’t matter when. And a couple of comments above are simply factually incorrect e.g. @ydoethur. Gordon Brown’s personal ratings were high in autumn 2009 and he might well have won if he had had the courage to seize the moment. @MikeSmithson has frequently and correctly commented on this. Brown would have been in with a real chance of winning on the bounce in autumn 2009:
https://www.forbes.com/2010/04/07/gordon-brown-general-election-labour-opinions-columnists-quentin-letts.html
Likewise Jim Callaghan in autumn 1978, before the Winter of Discontent, dithered when Labour were regulaly ahead in the polls:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1979_United_Kingdom_general_election
That all changed following the Winter of Discontent, the Conservatives took big leads in the polls and Margaret Thatcher won on May 3rd 1979 when had Callaghan gone to the country 8 months earlier he would almost certainly have deprived her of her majority.
The problem is that the public’s perception shifts. A party which looks like it is desperately clinging onto power begins to nosedive in popularity. John Major experienced this in 1997 when he announced the longest GE campaign in recent memory, in the vain hope that he could pull off a 1992 or that ‘something might turn up.’ Something did turn up and it was called a Labour landslide.
The longer Sunak leaves it, the heavier the defeat. I suggest that it's incorrect to state @DecrepiterJohnL that "there isn’t much further that they can fall."
If Sunak goes in June they might get 150 seats. I can easily see that figure dropping by 10 or 20 seats for every month he dilly-dallies. An autumn election sees the real possibility of a sub-100 seat Conservative result.
If I were a Conservative this would really concern me. Yes, they are demoralised. But they will bounce back because there is always a place for a centre-right party in this, or any, country. The longer Sunak leaves it, the heavier their defeat, and the harder it will be for them to recover.
I will report back once I've done it.
We all need to hold a mirror up and there are a few, you included, on here who badly need to do so.
And Callaghan's private polling, as with Brown's, both said the election would go badly despite what was being said in the press. For Brown, at best a May style result. For Callaghan, a defeat.
(As it happens, I think things will get worse for them, but it's neither completely stupid nor hopelessly unrealistic to hope otherwise. It worked in 2009, 1963, 1959. It failed in 1997, 1979, 1950 and 1929.)
Your post was and is entirely predictable: it says everything about the attitudes that lie behind why such courses are so corrosive.
The Tory manifesto as presently advised seems to me to be...reduce NI when finances allow and pass this ridiculous Rwanda bill. Perhaps the Tories can reburnish their faded green credentials by reducing their manifesto to a piece of A6, possibly stretching to a piece of A4 if they use lots of really big print and a picture.
And Sunak looks weaker and more desperate the longer he clings to office. Sad for us that we have to wait it out.
What's so fascinating here is that many on the liberal-left think Juche is an effective re-education programme for the delinquents.
Callaghan may well not have lost had he gone 8 months earlier. At the very least Labour would have fared much better.
Same thing happened with Gordon Brown.
Autumn 1978:
Spring 1979:
For most people the course is repeating the obvious but for some its essential and ensures that if action is required there is evidence to protect HR were an employment tribunal to occur..
As I get older I unfortunately find myself agreeing with small minded prejudices. Having someone formally put me right would be helpful.
I was on a cruise around the Caribbean and in English Harbour I noted the guide never mentioned slavery so I asked why. She explained that most of her clientele were American and a good number believed slaves were merely indentured servants so she didn't see the point in upsetting her customers (she lived on tips) by putting them right.
I on the other hand am quite content to listen to your perspective and then ignore it.
Maybe just research the relevant material yourself rather than uploading random screenshots from Wikipedia about material that I'm not disputing as some kind of 'proof?'
What it won't do is make a jot of difference to my personal beliefs or attitudes.
Thankyou @TopDog for an interesting header.
This may have been noted yesterday - apols if so.
A good piece in the Telegraph from a reporter who witnessed an exchange of soldiers' dead bodies between Russia and Ukraine. These have been continuing throughout the war, but only represent approx 2500-3000 bodies on each side in toto.
https://archive.ph/cY4sM
June: The party sinks itself with a failed putsch in early May
July / August: General collapse, can't carry on
September: Sunak gets to plan and instigate the election without all those idiots (Tory MPs) around as a distraction. And gets to avoid conference which would be Bad.
October: He can't announce triumphantly off the stand of his leaders's speech at conference. They'd linch him - those who actually attend. Is the King available?
November: Follow the autumn statement with an election. Possible
December: The 5th anniversary of the Boris triumph has a nice ring to it
January: The ultimate wild-card. And no need to call an election.
Several lumps to stir through. What happens on 2nd May and its immediate aftermath? What happens to the Rwanda circus into the summer? How bad is the silly season plotting? Does he throw an autumn statement in the summer and try to go to the country off another tax not-cut? How bad to catastrophic is conference?
That's just to get through to November dates...
You should never be too old to listen and learn.
'To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.’
Have a nice day everyone. I’m off to the opera this evening for a pretty horrible tale about an abusive western man getting a 15 yr old Asian geisha pregnant and then absolving himself of all responsibility.
Holding on didn't work for him, but he couldn't really forsee the Winter of Discontent... Could he?
As for Sunak, calling an election on the basis that things are bad but are likely to get worse would be eccentric. (I'm looking for a Sir Humphreyism that is above both brave and courageous.)
It's your behaviour afterwards - if it doesn't reflect the learnings of the course they will be able to remove you and when you go to a tribunal they will go - you were told XYZ, agreed XYZ but then didn't follow it...
Your paranoia that they are out to get you is focussed on the wrong place...
The only way to get significantly different answers is either by voodoo polling or by asking questions on subjects that mainstream pollsters do not. For example: what which of these policies would get you to vote Conservative again?
So you the tax cut would appear in October pay packets making a November election possible - although downside is that the previous NI cuts have made zero difference and you can't cut Income tax mid year - so it would have to be an NI cut..
If Thatcher hadn't been deposed in 1990, no doubt she's have clung on to her 5th year (1992) and Blair would probably have held on until 2010 (his 5th year) if he hadn't stood down in 2010.
The limpet PM's are the ones that think they're going to lose, usually.
Or, indeed, by looking at the most probable outcome rather than the most sensational one.
Private polling is the reason Brown and Callaghan backed out of elections. Brown was told instead of a 100 seat majority predicted in the press he might get a 15 seat majority and then again he might not. Callaghan was warned that the polls were not showing the overall trend fully.
Another person who used private polling, very sophisticated stuff, to great effect was Heath. He knew from 1968 what the actual position was, and discounted the enormous leads in the headline polls and the massive swing to Labour. He was vindicated by the result of the 1970 election. Unfortunately, hubris followed.
At least on a 4-5 year circle there are a couple of years where political awkward decisions can be made before you start to implement the populist policies needed to get re-elected.
FWIW, there's nothing wrong with my behaviour: unlike some of the morons on here disliking Wokeism isn't correlated with being a reactionary. Every single one of my direct reports happens to be in a different "identity group" to my own - two of whom requested me to mentor them - but that hasn't been engineered and to me it's barely worth even commenting on.
None even mention anything vaguely woke. I just treat them all as individuals.
Mind you I contract and i'm perfectly happy that I may be shown the door at any point if they decide they no longer need me...
And when I'm given a course to do I always have to wear the "were I an employee what answer are they expecting here". and once in a while it's actually interesting see reason why Nigel Farage couldn't be told why his account was closed example I gave earlier...
An example is ending of the (so-called) no fault eviction, which is routinely misrepresented by groups such as Shelter.
However, having made the commitment Sunak and friends blame their reverse ferret on the time needed to clear up Court backlogs.
Characteristically, the problem there - just like prison overcrowding - is not that it couldn't be done effectively in time, but that they were not on it 18 months to 2 years ago, but neglected to plan *anything* beyond the end of their noses.
It was also in the 2019 manifesto.
Give them time - it will drop out of the public consciousness a bit. Then it will be discovered to be being used to police Farcebook. Added to the stack of charges for upsetting people in online rows. Then it will be discovered that someone is unable to work due to failing background checks..... Give them time.
It took years to get the Post Office thing rolling properly.
Brilliant. Howard for Mayor.
One time, in a bank I was contracting into, we got pulled into a face to face thing. The Russian guy I worked with said that it reminded him of the sessions run by the Political Officer when he was a conscript. He was old enough to remember the end of the SU.
He found it extremely funny when I started giving... especially enthusiatic answers in the group discussions.
As others have pointed out, it hard to differentiate cause and effect. One things for sure though, PM who choose or feel compelled to wait the full five years are generally facing poor prospects of re-election.
It's like shagging youjr juniors or students. There's enough, erm, misunderstanding in wider society that people have to be very firmly told what is on and what is not on.
It's pretty likely that the only way to fund more NI cuts will be to chuck that credibility on the bonfire.
Those are things you should do in your own time if so inclined.
In my case it held, but the variation was only a couple of percent.