Does anybody really believe Reform will get 16% in a FPTP general election? That is LDs 1997 levels and well over even UKIP 2015 levels.
Yes they will get some protest votes against Rishi but the Reform ramping by Godwin is becoming absurd and he and Yougov have Reform far higher than other polls, mainly at Tory expense
I don't think Reform will get 16% (though after three weeks of Sunak in the spotlight of a General Election campaign, it would be unwise to rule anything out).
Where the Tory wishful thinking falls down is in assuming that the Reform vote will just decant into the Tory column. It will be some mixture of Tory, Labour, sticking with Reform, minor parties and not bothering to vote. Supposing the Tories get half of that 16% and Labour only a couple of percentage points, that would still leave Labour with a 17 point lead - or more than that if the Reform -> Don't Know switch is significant.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
Yes, it should. But, y'know, it's a sexual offence by men against women and so it's incredibly common and perpetrators are rarely prosecuted.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
It absolutely should be. Though in this case they appear to be *solicited* dick pics.
Again, it's not a question of what has changed but what hasn't.
Techne 59-35, We Think 60-37, YouGov 59-36, R&W 61-36, Savanta 58-36, More In Common 57-38, Deltapoll 59-37, Opinium 59-36.
Last time it was 47-48 so the swing is 12-14% between the blocs and the headline Con-Lab swing varies from 14% (More In Common) to 18.5% (R&W). It's all remarkably consistent and has barely changed - this time last year Techne was 59-35, YouGov 60-33, Opinium 58-36.
On a wider point, experience informs your expectations. 1997 is the ground zero of that experience - there's a "belief" (they are polls not holy scriptures) the Conservatives can't poll much below 30% because they never have. Yes but taking a view it can't happen because it hasn't happened before is the sign above the entrnce to the punters' graveyard.
We know sampling and methodology (such as prompting) vary from pollster to pollster. We know weightings and how DKs are dealt with vary as well.
Somebody earlier suggested we should bin UNS - to a point, that's always been true. Edgbaston swung 10% in 1997 but Crosby swung 19% and you always see local variations. It's probable we will see big swings in some seats next time but I suspect the swing to Labour in East Ham for example will be more modest.
One of the reasons for example why Reform won't win many if any seats is they seem to be strongest where both Labour and Conservative parties are respectively strongest. Piling up 20-25% in those seats may get them some second places but won't win them anything so it's as much about vote efficiency as it is vote share.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
It absolutely should be. Though in this case they appear to be *solicited* dick pics.
TSE on 4 April: "I AM NOT WRITING A THREAD ON THAT "
TSE on 5 April: "As a regular user of the Grindr app of many years I didn’t think anything could shock me when it came to that app but the behaviour of William Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, has managed to leave me shocked and speechless. [click bait follows]"
When I reflected on the story overnight I realised there were some betting implications so was obliged to cover the story.
Unfortunately you forgot to mention the betting implications in your header.
Don't get me wrong. I think the antics of our betters are always interesting and entertaining to discuss. In this case, as he was an openly gay man, apparently single, not even planning to stand for election to Parliament again, it's interesting to speculate what he could have done that was so bad as to force him to deliver up his friends into the hands of these blackmailers and possible enemy agents.
The @Cleitophon Criterion "A PB header should have a betting implication"
It's met less often than you'd think.
Hahaha have I got a criterion named after me 😃😃😃 I love it.
I’m slightly wary about holiday polling but 5 x consecutive polls this week have 20%+ Labour leads, which is the first time this has happened since September last year.
Polling all took place before the latest tory sleaze scandal.
A number of people, myself included, are of the opinion that the tories have nowhere near bottomed out yet and are on a downward trajectory which may not cease this side of the election even if Sunak dilly-dallies until January.
Things can only get worser …
I mean seriously. 2 were by the same pollster one of those last 5 came out on exactly the same day as 2 other polls that were both below 20%
I hear the IDF have some vacancies if your interested
The last 4 were sampling between 3 and 8 days later than the earlier two (which showed 19% leads). And the earlier two have both had more recent polls above 20. I get that you disapprove of Starmer but you can't seriously dispute that polling is very consistently showing a 20-point lead.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
Interesting 15 year study from the Netherlands which finds that gender discontentedness is common in early adolescence but in very large part disappears with age (the cohort who have been followed since 11 are now 26).
The discontent seems to be closely linked to concepts of self worth and mental health generally with a slightly increased propensity amongst those who are not heterosexual. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38413534/
What it appears to me that this piece of substantial research indicates, once again, is that giving adolescents who have such anxieties puberty blockers and hormone treatment is neither necessary nor desirable. My view, rather than that of the authors, is that such interventions are far more likely to do harm than good for problems that have a very high propensity to resolve over time without them. It concerns me greatly that in Scotland there is still rigorous denial of this reality and a desire to use such troubled children as pawns in a game which seems designed to show that trans is more prevalent than it actually is.
Interesting. There are some other studies with similar findings.
The main limitation I see (from a quick skim - and they don't seem to discuss it) is that they don't appear to have any data on treatment for gender dysphoria, so they don't know whether gender dysphoria is resolving by itself or in response to treatment (psychological, puberty blockers, x-sex hormones). Worth noting that we also can't do that with any certainty in the UK (well, England at least - not certain for other nations) using already-collected data as the GIDS and adult clinics data are not readily available for research and there are legal barriers to linkage if someone has gained a gender recognition certificate.
ETA: On the main message, it certainly seems like there is a group that experiences temporary gender dysphoria that does resolve (it may in those cases be a mask for other, different, underlying issues - not fitting in, mental health and gender seeming like the problem and solution). But then there is another group with persistent (or 'real', if you like) gender dysphoria and that group seems to benefit from the interventions. The trouble is that ideally you need to correctly discriminate those groups before puberty, to put the second group on the blockers and then the x-sex hormones (and likely, eventually, surgery) and to put the first group, if needed, on appropriate treatments for the real problem (and not blockers or x-sex hormones). But how do you tell which troubled young people are in which group?
(I am tempted to do AI summaries of all three, but I'll leave you to make up your own minds... )
I will go to my grave saying this: you need to know three things about a datum to understand it: absolute values, relative values, and threshold. Crudely, how big is it, how big is it compared to others, how big is big enough. In this study it refers to "gender non-contentedness", but the authors believe it to not meet the threshold for "gender dysphoria", so it's not strictly applicable: see man-flu vs proper flu for a comparator.
With the regards to the treatment for gender dysphoria (if it meets the disease paradigm at all - I have thoughts, see previous posts), we need to know how to diagnose, how to treat, how to assess failure and success. The second is hotly debated and occasionally mentioned on PB, the first and the third rarely. I would humbly point out that the first and third are very important.
I could only read the abstract, and there agree that "gender non-content" is not the same as gender dysphoria.
The other striking thing is that while many of these did grow out of it, some went the other way and at age 26, 4% felt "gender not-content". Four % is a lot of the population.
That's almost LibDem 2017 vote levels.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
Is Sunak suffering power dysphoria now in believing he will win an election?
The answer of course is no, but leaders of national parties have to pretend that their party can win.
Interesting 15 year study from the Netherlands which finds that gender discontentedness is common in early adolescence but in very large part disappears with age (the cohort who have been followed since 11 are now 26).
The discontent seems to be closely linked to concepts of self worth and mental health generally with a slightly increased propensity amongst those who are not heterosexual. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38413534/
What it appears to me that this piece of substantial research indicates, once again, is that giving adolescents who have such anxieties puberty blockers and hormone treatment is neither necessary nor desirable. My view, rather than that of the authors, is that such interventions are far more likely to do harm than good for problems that have a very high propensity to resolve over time without them. It concerns me greatly that in Scotland there is still rigorous denial of this reality and a desire to use such troubled children as pawns in a game which seems designed to show that trans is more prevalent than it actually is.
Interesting. There are some other studies with similar findings.
The main limitation I see (from a quick skim - and they don't seem to discuss it) is that they don't appear to have any data on treatment for gender dysphoria, so they don't know whether gender dysphoria is resolving by itself or in response to treatment (psychological, puberty blockers, x-sex hormones). Worth noting that we also can't do that with any certainty in the UK (well, England at least - not certain for other nations) using already-collected data as the GIDS and adult clinics data are not readily available for research and there are legal barriers to linkage if someone has gained a gender recognition certificate.
ETA: On the main message, it certainly seems like there is a group that experiences temporary gender dysphoria that does resolve (it may in those cases be a mask for other, different, underlying issues - not fitting in, mental health and gender seeming like the problem and solution). But then there is another group with persistent (or 'real', if you like) gender dysphoria and that group seems to benefit from the interventions. The trouble is that ideally you need to correctly discriminate those groups before puberty, to put the second group on the blockers and then the x-sex hormones (and likely, eventually, surgery) and to put the first group, if needed, on appropriate treatments for the real problem (and not blockers or x-sex hormones). But how do you tell which troubled young people are in which group?
(I am tempted to do AI summaries of all three, but I'll leave you to make up your own minds... )
I will go to my grave saying this: you need to know three things about a datum to understand it: absolute values, relative values, and threshold. Crudely, how big is it, how big is it compared to others, how big is big enough. In this study it refers to "gender non-contentedness", but the authors believe it to not meet the threshold for "gender dysphoria", so it's not strictly applicable: see man-flu vs proper flu for a comparator.
With the regards to the treatment for gender dysphoria (if it meets the disease paradigm at all - I have thoughts, see previous posts), we need to know how to diagnose, how to treat, how to assess failure and success. The second is hotly debated and occasionally mentioned on PB, the first and the third rarely. I would humbly point out that the first and third are very important.
I could only read the abstract, and there agree that "gender non-content" is not the same as gender dysphoria.
The other striking thing is that while many of these did grow out of it, some went the other way and at age 26, 4% felt "gender not-content". Four % is a lot of the population.
That's almost LibDem 2017 vote levels.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
Is Sunak suffering power dysphoria now in believing he will win an election?
The answer of course is no, but leaders of national parties have to pretend that their party can win.
Interesting 15 year study from the Netherlands which finds that gender discontentedness is common in early adolescence but in very large part disappears with age (the cohort who have been followed since 11 are now 26).
The discontent seems to be closely linked to concepts of self worth and mental health generally with a slightly increased propensity amongst those who are not heterosexual. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38413534/
What it appears to me that this piece of substantial research indicates, once again, is that giving adolescents who have such anxieties puberty blockers and hormone treatment is neither necessary nor desirable. My view, rather than that of the authors, is that such interventions are far more likely to do harm than good for problems that have a very high propensity to resolve over time without them. It concerns me greatly that in Scotland there is still rigorous denial of this reality and a desire to use such troubled children as pawns in a game which seems designed to show that trans is more prevalent than it actually is.
Interesting. There are some other studies with similar findings.
The main limitation I see (from a quick skim - and they don't seem to discuss it) is that they don't appear to have any data on treatment for gender dysphoria, so they don't know whether gender dysphoria is resolving by itself or in response to treatment (psychological, puberty blockers, x-sex hormones). Worth noting that we also can't do that with any certainty in the UK (well, England at least - not certain for other nations) using already-collected data as the GIDS and adult clinics data are not readily available for research and there are legal barriers to linkage if someone has gained a gender recognition certificate.
ETA: On the main message, it certainly seems like there is a group that experiences temporary gender dysphoria that does resolve (it may in those cases be a mask for other, different, underlying issues - not fitting in, mental health and gender seeming like the problem and solution). But then there is another group with persistent (or 'real', if you like) gender dysphoria and that group seems to benefit from the interventions. The trouble is that ideally you need to correctly discriminate those groups before puberty, to put the second group on the blockers and then the x-sex hormones (and likely, eventually, surgery) and to put the first group, if needed, on appropriate treatments for the real problem (and not blockers or x-sex hormones). But how do you tell which troubled young people are in which group?
(I am tempted to do AI summaries of all three, but I'll leave you to make up your own minds... )
I will go to my grave saying this: you need to know three things about a datum to understand it: absolute values, relative values, and threshold. Crudely, how big is it, how big is it compared to others, how big is big enough. In this study it refers to "gender non-contentedness", but the authors believe it to not meet the threshold for "gender dysphoria", so it's not strictly applicable: see man-flu vs proper flu for a comparator.
With the regards to the treatment for gender dysphoria (if it meets the disease paradigm at all - I have thoughts, see previous posts), we need to know how to diagnose, how to treat, how to assess failure and success. The second is hotly debated and occasionally mentioned on PB, the first and the third rarely. I would humbly point out that the first and third are very important.
I could only read the abstract, and there agree that "gender non-content" is not the same as gender dysphoria.
The other striking thing is that while many of these did grow out of it, some went the other way and at age 26, 4% felt "gender not-content". Four % is a lot of the population.
That's almost LibDem 2017 vote levels.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
Is Sunak suffering power dysphoria now in believing he will win an election?
The answer of course is no, but leaders of national parties have to pretend that their party can win.
It’s a bit different though. He actually is Prime Minister.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
How many of these dickpics are of a third person's dick?
Does anybody really believe Reform will get 16% in a FPTP general election? That is LDs 1997 levels and well over even UKIP 2015 levels.
Yes they will get some protest votes against Rishi but the Reform ramping by Godwin is becoming absurd and he and Yougov have Reform far higher than other polls, mainly at Tory expense
I'd take 10% off REFORM and give most of it back to CON. You can also probably take 4% off GREEN and give is back to Lab
A result like Con 30% Lab 45% Lib-Dem 12% REF 6% GREEN 3% seems most likely to me in the end?
As you’ve put a question mark, I’ll respond only to say that I don’t think the Conservatives are going to reach 30%. Equally I’m not convinced Labour will poll as high as 45%.
In 1997 the Conservatives managed 30.7%. Yes, they were very unpopular but it was more about a desire for change and the economy was in pretty darned rude health.
Tony Blair’s wave of euphoria ‘only’ led to 43.2% and Keir Starmer doesn’t have the same charisma.
I’d probably have Labour above 40% but the real story will be just how poorly the Conservatives fare. In our lifetimes, that’s every single person on this forum - even Big John of Sheffield - there has never been a governing party more unpopular or ridiculed by the voting public.
They may surpass 25% but I’m not risking my money on it.
Just my take, of course
Just a bit of fun but I make that:
Lab 485 Con75 LD 49 SNP 18 Green 2 Ref nil
Not quite the landslide of 1931, but we do need to go back to that for a bigger majority.
With regards to the coming election, I think the error some (not you!) are making is caring about things like national percentages. There is absolutely no such thing as UNS any more, and you can't take any % for any party and just apply it as a blanket.
Some of the sillier wipeout forecasts do that, then again the MRP polls keep moving in that same direction - the trend towards ELE is clearly there.
Two key factors - turnout and tactical voting. I have little doubt that turnout will be down, which will restrict the size of majorities in some seats. But "I don't need to vote, Labour will win" only works in safe seats. I don't expect that en masse. Tactical voting will make people vote, because the mood amongst practically everyone is smash the Tories. Dreams of ReFUK voters 'coming home' are dreams - come home to what? Ex Tory voters in voting ReFUK are voting Real Tory, not Blue Labour. And the not voting > UKIP > ReFUK red wall voter? They didn't vote Tory last time - or did so once and once only. They aren't voting Tory this time.
What can change the trend towards ELE? A massive sex scandal involving DPP SKS, some nuns and a vat of Hummus? Otherwise, there is nothing the Tories can do to recover ground but endless things they are doing to lose more ground...
That's certainly one way Labour might experience a bit of a dip.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
How many of these dickpics are of a third person's dick?
Why would you think that I would know the answer to that question?
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
How many of these dickpics are of a third person's dick?
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
I think in many ways 2019 was another referendum and remain lost handsomely.
TSE on 4 April: "I AM NOT WRITING A THREAD ON THAT "
TSE on 5 April: "As a regular user of the Grindr app of many years I didn’t think anything could shock me when it came to that app but the behaviour of William Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, has managed to leave me shocked and speechless. [click bait follows]"
When I reflected on the story overnight I realised there were some betting implications so was obliged to cover the story.
Unfortunately you forgot to mention the betting implications in your header.
Don't get me wrong. I think the antics of our betters are always interesting and entertaining to discuss. In this case, as he was an openly gay man, apparently single, not even planning to stand for election to Parliament again, it's interesting to speculate what he could have done that was so bad as to force him to deliver up his friends into the hands of these blackmailers and possible enemy agents.
The @Cleitophon Criterion "A PB header should have a betting implication"
It's met less often than you'd think.
Hahaha have I got a criterion named after me 😃😃😃 I love it.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
If she had been a direct report a different matter, I think you did the right thing there. A silly mistake quickly atoned for, nothing more nothing less.
Does anybody really believe Reform will get 16% in a FPTP general election? That is LDs 1997 levels and well over even UKIP 2015 levels.
Yes they will get some protest votes against Rishi but the Reform ramping by Godwin is becoming absurd and he and Yougov have Reform far higher than other polls, mainly at Tory expense
I'd take 10% off REFORM and give most of it back to CON. You can also probably take 4% off GREEN and give is back to Lab
A result like Con 30% Lab 45% Lib-Dem 12% REF 6% GREEN 3% seems most likely to me in the end?
As you’ve put a question mark, I’ll respond only to say that I don’t think the Conservatives are going to reach 30%. Equally I’m not convinced Labour will poll as high as 45%.
In 1997 the Conservatives managed 30.7%. Yes, they were very unpopular but it was more about a desire for change and the economy was in pretty darned rude health.
Tony Blair’s wave of euphoria ‘only’ led to 43.2% and Keir Starmer doesn’t have the same charisma.
I’d probably have Labour above 40% but the real story will be just how poorly the Conservatives fare. In our lifetimes, that’s every single person on this forum - even Big John of Sheffield - there has never been a governing party more unpopular or ridiculed by the voting public.
They may surpass 25% but I’m not risking my money on it.
Just my take, of course
Just a bit of fun but I make that:
Lab 485 Con75 LD 49 SNP 18 Green 2 Ref nil
Not quite the landslide of 1931, but we do need to go back to that for a bigger majority.
With regards to the coming election, I think the error some (not you!) are making is caring about things like national percentages. There is absolutely no such thing as UNS any more, and you can't take any % for any party and just apply it as a blanket.
Some of the sillier wipeout forecasts do that, then again the MRP polls keep moving in that same direction - the trend towards ELE is clearly there.
Two key factors - turnout and tactical voting. I have little doubt that turnout will be down, which will restrict the size of majorities in some seats. But "I don't need to vote, Labour will win" only works in safe seats. I don't expect that en masse. Tactical voting will make people vote, because the mood amongst practically everyone is smash the Tories. Dreams of ReFUK voters 'coming home' are dreams - come home to what? Ex Tory voters in voting ReFUK are voting Real Tory, not Blue Labour. And the not voting > UKIP > ReFUK red wall voter? They didn't vote Tory last time - or did so once and once only. They aren't voting Tory this time.
What can change the trend towards ELE? A massive sex scandal involving DPP SKS, some nuns and a vat of Hummus? Otherwise, there is nothing the Tories can do to recover ground but endless things they are doing to lose more ground...
That's certainly one way Labour might experience a bit of a dip.
Does anybody really believe Reform will get 16% in a FPTP general election? That is LDs 1997 levels and well over even UKIP 2015 levels.
Yes they will get some protest votes against Rishi but the Reform ramping by Godwin is becoming absurd and he and Yougov have Reform far higher than other polls, mainly at Tory expense
I can believe the Tories are that unpopular, and ex-Tory voters are looking around for options.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
It would be trivial to spoof your address to solicit dick pics or anything else, or indeed to send them. No-one will do this because you do not matter but if you were on the Select Committee for Administrative Affairs...
ETA this terrible crime is already being prosecuted as others have noted.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
I agree with all that but especially the last point. The 2019 was effectively the 2nd referendum and I have no argument that the country decided to Leave. (I still think it was a bad decision though.)
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
Interesting 15 year study from the Netherlands which finds that gender discontentedness is common in early adolescence but in very large part disappears with age (the cohort who have been followed since 11 are now 26).
The discontent seems to be closely linked to concepts of self worth and mental health generally with a slightly increased propensity amongst those who are not heterosexual. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38413534/
What it appears to me that this piece of substantial research indicates, once again, is that giving adolescents who have such anxieties puberty blockers and hormone treatment is neither necessary nor desirable. My view, rather than that of the authors, is that such interventions are far more likely to do harm than good for problems that have a very high propensity to resolve over time without them. It concerns me greatly that in Scotland there is still rigorous denial of this reality and a desire to use such troubled children as pawns in a game which seems designed to show that trans is more prevalent than it actually is.
Interesting. There are some other studies with similar findings.
The main limitation I see (from a quick skim - and they don't seem to discuss it) is that they don't appear to have any data on treatment for gender dysphoria, so they don't know whether gender dysphoria is resolving by itself or in response to treatment (psychological, puberty blockers, x-sex hormones). Worth noting that we also can't do that with any certainty in the UK (well, England at least - not certain for other nations) using already-collected data as the GIDS and adult clinics data are not readily available for research and there are legal barriers to linkage if someone has gained a gender recognition certificate.
ETA: On the main message, it certainly seems like there is a group that experiences temporary gender dysphoria that does resolve (it may in those cases be a mask for other, different, underlying issues - not fitting in, mental health and gender seeming like the problem and solution). But then there is another group with persistent (or 'real', if you like) gender dysphoria and that group seems to benefit from the interventions. The trouble is that ideally you need to correctly discriminate those groups before puberty, to put the second group on the blockers and then the x-sex hormones (and likely, eventually, surgery) and to put the first group, if needed, on appropriate treatments for the real problem (and not blockers or x-sex hormones). But how do you tell which troubled young people are in which group?
(I am tempted to do AI summaries of all three, but I'll leave you to make up your own minds... )
I will go to my grave saying this: you need to know three things about a datum to understand it: absolute values, relative values, and threshold. Crudely, how big is it, how big is it compared to others, how big is big enough. In this study it refers to "gender non-contentedness", but the authors believe it to not meet the threshold for "gender dysphoria", so it's not strictly applicable: see man-flu vs proper flu for a comparator.
With the regards to the treatment for gender dysphoria (if it meets the disease paradigm at all - I have thoughts, see previous posts), we need to know how to diagnose, how to treat, how to assess failure and success. The second is hotly debated and occasionally mentioned on PB, the first and the third rarely. I would humbly point out that the first and third are very important.
I could only read the abstract, and there agree that "gender non-content" is not the same as gender dysphoria.
The other striking thing is that while many of these did grow out of it, some went the other way and at age 26, 4% felt "gender not-content". Four % is a lot of the population.
That's almost LibDem 2017 vote levels.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
Is Sunak suffering power dysphoria now in believing he will win an election?
The answer of course is no, but leaders of national parties have to pretend that their party can win.
It’s a bit different though. He actually is Prime Minister.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
Yes that Swinson "faux pas" was not. The mockery is because the LDs are a natural target for such by supporters of the Big Two. Eg Steel and his "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government". That got the piss taken out of it too. It's just a bullying powerplay.
Re GE19 you (the LDs) had a slim but realistic chance of beating Labour for 2nd place if you could have attracted most of the Remain vote. Labour realized this and decided to take that nightmare (for us) scenario out of the equation by pivoting our Brexit position to offering a 2nd Referendum. That's why we did that. To ensure we came 2nd and kept our status. It worked.
I do think, that an untold story of GE19 is how many targets the Lib Dems did create for themselves this time around, something the MRP is showing as starting to fall.
In a parallel universe, the Lib Dems would have done a lot better in GE19 but for Corbyn who many voters despised more than Brexit.
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
I think in many ways 2019 was another referendum and remain lost handsomely.
By FPTP. Parties supporting a second referendum had the majority of the popular vote.
I get repeated approached on LinkedIn, all with the same MO. PM comes in, hi I'm getting in touch on behalf of my boss who is senior bod (sometimes of a named company, sometimes not). They are looking to expand the business into your territory and your resume (never CV) looks interesting. We'd love to get in touch and discuss the opportunity. Can we use WhatsApp?
LinkedIn - going off my feed - has almost as many cocks as Grindr. I don;'t understand how someone can fall for something so obviously fake?
"I met you at an event. Phwoar. Please show me your cock" Come on...
One possible explanation I've come up with is that these are people who wouldn't think it was strange to send a dick pic to a female work colleague who had encouraged them by smiling that one time.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Surely sending unsolicited dick pics should be charged as an offence of indecent exposure?
I once received an uninvited photo from a colleague of her breasts. I didn't see it that evening, only the next morning, when it was followed by a text about how drunk she had been, and how it hadn't been meant for me.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
If she had been a direct report a different matter, I think you did the right thing there. A silly mistake quickly atoned for, nothing more nothing less.
I've had younger (and attractive) female direct reports ask me out for dinner, or a drink. Not many, but two or three.
Goodness me, it's tempting. But as @rcs1000 says it'd destroy your career, marriage and family - so no thanks.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Was Jo Swinson suffering from power dysphoria when she self-identified as a PM in waiting?
That has to be one of the dumbest political moments of my life.
No it wasn't. When you go into an election you have to go in bullish to the media and public. There is no point being wishy washy. At the next election Sunak will go in saying he believes he can win. He doesn't really.
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
Yes that Swinson "faux pas" was not. The mockery is because the LDs are a natural target for such by supporters of the Big Two. Eg Steel and his "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government". That got the piss taken out of it too. It's just a bullying powerplay.
Re GE19 you (the LDs) had a slim but realistic chance of beating Labour for 2nd place if you could have attracted most of the Remain vote. Labour realized this and decided to take that nightmare (for us) scenario out of the equation by pivoting our Brexit position to offering a 2nd Referendum. That's why we did that. To ensure we came 2nd and kept our status. It worked.
Also in 2019 the Conservatives and the Brexit party did a deal so that the Brexit party did not stand in Conservative seats (targets?). This helped the Conservative vote.
In that regard, comparing the Reform vote now to the Brexit vote in the 2019 election is not particularly good statistical analysis.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Isn't "local conservative" an agreed label for the conservatives? I think the electoral commission agree similar names?
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Similarly in St Albans - we have Local Conservatives who have not put forward a full slate in wards with 2 vacancies. In Sandridge and Wheathampstead ward we have 2 councillors to be elected, with 2 Greens, 2 Lib Dems, 1 Conservative and 1 Labour candidates. This used to be a safe conservative ward.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Ben Houchen is pretending he has nothing to do with the Government - doubt it will do him any good
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Isn't "local conservative" an agreed label for the conservatives? I think the electoral commission agree similar names?
I *think* the only permitted example is the use of the word "Scottish" in the sense that "Scottosh Labour Party" is allowed to be a trading name (so to speak) of what is called the Labour Party, although it is all one organization financially (the SCons and SLDs are more in tune with the spirit of the law there and don't need that, I think, Blairite fiddle in the legislation).
But IANAE when it comes to local elections and they might well be different.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
The problem is that you need a by-election in an exceptionally safe seat. (Which means an existing MP would need to fall on their sword, giving up their exceptionally safe seat.) And then you need the local party to choose Boris. Him not to be vetoed by Central Office. And him to win the by-election.
That's a non trivial number of steps, and he could fall at any one.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Isn't "local conservative" an agreed label for the conservatives? I think the electoral commission agree similar names?
I *think* the only permitted example is the use of the word "Scottish" in the sense that "Scottosh Labour Party" is allowed to be a trading name (so to speak) of what is called the Labour Party, although it is all one organization financially (the SCons and SLDs are more in tune with the spirit of the law there and don't need that, I think, Blairite fiddle in the legislation).
But IANAE when it comes to local elections and they might well be different.
just checked the ec website. There are loads of alternative names for the Conservatives, including local Conservatives. Surprisingly more than Labour or Libdems I think.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
Just your local equivalent of the "Independent" in Scotland, or the Ruth Davidson Says No to Indy party, only she was actually a Tory.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
Isn't "local conservative" an agreed label for the conservatives? I think the electoral commission agree similar names?
I *think* the only permitted example is the use of the word "Scottish" in the sense that "Scottosh Labour Party" is allowed to be a trading name (so to speak) of what is called the Labour Party, although it is all one organization financially (the SCons and SLDs are more in tune with the spirit of the law there and don't need that, I think, Blairite fiddle in the legislation).
But IANAE when it comes to local elections and they might well be different.
just checked the ec website. There are loads of alternative names for the Conservatives, including local Conservatives. Surprisingly more than Labour or Libdems I think.
Curious. The 'Scottish' thing was so exceptional it needed its own clause, so I'm puzzled. Never mind, it makes it clearer whom to vote for - or, indeed, against.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
The problem is that you need a by-election in an exceptionally safe seat. (Which means an existing MP would need to fall on their sword, giving up their exceptionally safe seat.) And then you need the local party to choose Boris. Him not to be vetoed by Central Office. And him to win the by-election.
That's a non trivial number of steps, and he could fall at any one.
Not being imaginative enough, he could stand for the Johnson Party and then suddenly decide to merge it with the Tories after the election.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
The problem is that you need a by-election in an exceptionally safe seat. (Which means an existing MP would need to fall on their sword, giving up their exceptionally safe seat.) And then you need the local party to choose Boris. Him not to be vetoed by Central Office. And him to win the by-election.
That's a non trivial number of steps, and he could fall at any one.
Not being imaginative enough, he could stand for the Johnson Party and then suddenly decide to merge it with the Tories after the election.
Would require the Tory party to not stand in the election..
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
There's a nasty tickle in my head that makes me think there's an opportunity for a Cameron comeback...
I was a Grindr user for many years and have probably sent my share of 'intimate photos' to various randos. I'd be mildly embarrassed if someone suddenly threatened to broadcast them (who knows they may already have in some dark recess of the internet) but nowhere near enough to give in to blackmail. William Wragg is an openly gay man so it can't be that shocking that he has an active sex life. It's not like his cock is suddenly going to appear on the front of the Daily Mirror or anything.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
The problem is that you need a by-election in an exceptionally safe seat. (Which means an existing MP would need to fall on their sword, giving up their exceptionally safe seat.) And then you need the local party to choose Boris. Him not to be vetoed by Central Office. And him to win the by-election.
That's a non trivial number of steps, and he could fall at any one.
Not being imaginative enough, he could stand for the Johnson Party and then suddenly decide to merge it with the Tories after the election.
He'd still need (a) a by-election, and (b) to win it against not only LD/Lab but an official Conservative Party candidate.
Also I hate to say it but I think TSE is guilty of rather poor manners as (former) Grindr user. Soliciting a picture and not sending one back is the equivalent of cadging drinks all evening and not getting a round in.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
There's a nasty tickle in my head that makes me think there's an opportunity for a Cameron comeback...
Comments
These slackers should be careful what they wish for. If the jobs become home based they could be outsourced anywhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68744433
Where the Tory wishful thinking falls down is in assuming that the Reform vote will just decant into the Tory column. It will be some mixture of Tory, Labour, sticking with Reform, minor parties and not bothering to vote. Supposing the Tories get half of that 16% and Labour only a couple of percentage points, that would still leave Labour with a 17 point lead - or more than that if the Reform -> Don't Know switch is significant.
If they are the sort of person who would send unsolicited dick pics, then they aren't going to need to be asked twice to send them if they receive a random request for them.
Still beggars belief to me that this strike could take place. Two days a week in the office seems most generous.
Again, it's not a question of what has changed but what hasn't.
Techne 59-35, We Think 60-37, YouGov 59-36, R&W 61-36, Savanta 58-36, More In Common 57-38, Deltapoll 59-37, Opinium 59-36.
Last time it was 47-48 so the swing is 12-14% between the blocs and the headline Con-Lab swing varies from 14% (More In Common) to 18.5% (R&W). It's all remarkably consistent and has barely changed - this time last year Techne was 59-35, YouGov 60-33, Opinium 58-36.
On a wider point, experience informs your expectations. 1997 is the ground zero of that experience - there's a "belief" (they are polls not holy scriptures) the Conservatives can't poll much below 30% because they never have. Yes but taking a view it can't happen because it hasn't happened before is the sign above the entrnce to the punters' graveyard.
We know sampling and methodology (such as prompting) vary from pollster to pollster. We know weightings and how DKs are dealt with vary as well.
Somebody earlier suggested we should bin UNS - to a point, that's always been true. Edgbaston swung 10% in 1997 but Crosby swung 19% and you always see local variations. It's probable we will see big swings in some seats next time but I suspect the swing to Labour in East Ham for example will be more modest.
One of the reasons for example why Reform won't win many if any seats is they seem to be strongest where both Labour and Conservative parties are respectively strongest. Piling up 20-25% in those seats may get them some second places but won't win them anything so it's as much about vote efficiency as it is vote share.
I've always wonder how Russia manages to maintain 6000 nuclear warheads.
She wasn't a direct report of mine, so I deleted the image, accepted her explanation, and avoided interactions with said person.
I don't know whether I should have reported her to HR. But I didn't particularly feel like blowing up her career (or mine, or my marriage).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/12/first-person-in-england-and-wales-convicted-of-cyberflashing
However in reality the LDs had a range of targets depending upon how they performed. The targets went up in 20 or 40 seat blocks depending upon how well the campaign was doing. Starting at 20 with a maximum of 140 and the figure of 140 wasn't the starting point. Far from it. 140 would have been LDs wildest dream territory. The starting point was much much lower. I can't remember what but probably at the 40 level. The campaign went badly and the target range kept dropping. For instance I started in Mole Valley, moved to Guildford and then Walton and Hersham when we were down below the 20 mark. They knew exactly what they were doing, but if you are losing you are losing.
So even if we got 140 which was immensely unlikely even before stuff started going pearshaped, that still doesn't form a Government and it doesn't by miles.
So how can you justify such a statement of being PM. Well if the 140 had happened it would have meant that both Labour and the Tories had blown up. It wasn't achievable in 2019 without both happening which was the hope and a possibility (albeit remote) before the election (An anti Brexit vote and an unpopular Labour leader was the hope. As it happened the latter was true, but the former not). Under such a scenario although the LDs would still have been 3rd they would have been the only winners and some sort of weird anti Brexit coalition would have to have been formed.
The 2019 election was really the Brexit election. The leavers won. We had to suck it up.
The answer of course is no, but leaders of national parties have to pretend that their party can win.
This made me chuckle. Talking of Liverpool
Utterly bad form that.
C - 0,-1,-1,-1
L - +4,+3,+1,+1
So a consistent shift.
No polling average this week, as only 4/6 companies have reported polls (no Savanta or Deltapoll).
ETA this terrible crime is already being prosecuted as others have noted.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/05/david-cameron-calls-uk-boost-defence-budget-russia-threat/ (£££)
If only his lordship were in the government.
I know that Sunak can vet candidates, but would he be so bold as to veto Johnson's candidature himself in a real life scenario? It would look appalling. Better to let Boris stand, if he fails, good; if he wins, take the win and welcome him back into the fold.
Re GE19 you (the LDs) had a slim but realistic chance of beating Labour for 2nd place if you could have attracted most of the Remain vote. Labour realized this and decided to take that nightmare (for us) scenario out of the equation by pivoting our Brexit position to offering a 2nd Referendum. That's why we did that. To ensure we came 2nd and kept our status. It worked.
In a parallel universe, the Lib Dems would have done a lot better in GE19 but for Corbyn who many voters despised more than Brexit.
I'm Coming Home (To See My Mother) - Clifton Chenier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_06Ig59jo8
Most of CC's equally-classic repertoire is sung in Cajun French.
Goodness me, it's tempting. But as @rcs1000 says it'd destroy your career, marriage and family - so no thanks.
Our (Blue Wall) District returning officer has just published the nominations for the May 2 local elections.
In just about every seat, we've four candidates: LibDem, Labour, Green and "Local Conservative". As if - in a District that had a solid Tory Parliamentary majority from its invention to 2019 - the Tory's got nothing to do with Sunak, Gove, Rees-Mogg or the other plonkers. And as if - in a District with extraordinarily high political sophistication - anyone's going to be taken in.
Is this surreal re-branding a national phenomenon? Or is it even more evidence that what was, till Johnson, the world's strongest political brand is in the process of self-destruction?
In that regard, comparing the Reform vote now to the Brexit vote in the 2019 election is not particularly good statistical analysis.
Where is the money coming from, I wonder? The EC does have rules about that.
But IANAE when it comes to local elections and they might well be different.
Or, in this day and age, a 3-D printer file, I suppose.
That's a non trivial number of steps, and he could fall at any one.
Jeremy Hunt just told an interviewer the lesson to learn is to beef up your security
I reckon the lesson to learn is dont send photos of your cock
What about Opinium, More in Common, Survation
Is it only me who remembers how such body parts were described in chapter 1 of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar? Quite offputting.
The response amongst us girls at the time was a mixture of laughter and "eugh!"
That's an even harder ask.
We think - now 45/24 then 47/24
YG - now 43/20 then 44/19
Techne - now 43/22 then 44/23
R&W - now 46/22 then 47/21
So Lab down in all 4 compared to 2 weeks ago
Con up by 1in 2 polls level in one and down 1 in other
This week by week comparison is pointless when only half have had a poll
Unless the LAB lead is shrinking of course in which case i will be the first to let you know the "consistent shift"!!
(but i think it was the cross)
That's enough with the gay double-entendres. Don't drag drown the discussion. Ed
Once received a willy warmer in secret santa but didnt model it as it was too small
Not the warmer
What are those shoes
Thames Water troubles swell as parent firm defaults on debt
Then my mum said "if you keep doing that, you'll go blind"