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Understanding Scottish voters – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,128
edited May 12 in General
Understanding Scottish voters – politicalbetting.com

By popular demand: Flow of the Vote, Scotland edition. Each block represents 25k voters in colour of 2019 vote, based on data from all Scottish polls this year.Much like the Tories GB-wide, the SNP's vote has splintered in multiple directions, Labour the ultimate beneficiary. pic.twitter.com/EDs39TTgzy

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,316
    Hamza Yousaf makes Sunak and Starmer seem like Titans of politics.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302

    Hamza Yousaf makes Sunak and Starmer seem like Titans of politics.

    To be fair he was succeeding Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, big shoes to fill.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    Blimey.

    A council leader is facing allegations that he kicked, punched, spat at and throttled women.

    Jonathan Nunn, of West Northamptonshire Council, is also accused of threatening or controlling behaviour.

    The BBC has heard exclusive accounts from five women. Four had relationships with Mr Nunn between 1990 and 2013.

    The 59-year-old told the BBC he "strenuously denies" the allegations and said "domestic abuse is never acceptable".

    A long-serving Tory councillor, Mr Nunn was elected to lead the county's newly formed unitary authority in 2021.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-68829156
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    Richi losing the election one MP at a time...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    Ouch.

    8% of people say they are favourable to Liz Truss. Some 24% also believe the devil exists.

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780837733834854670
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    This is interesting:

    "SEC. 505. (a) TRANSFER OF LONG-RANGE ATACMS REQUIRED.—As soon as practicable after the date of enactment of this Act, the President shall transfer long range Army Tactical Missile Systems to the Government of Ukraine to assist the Government of Ukraine in defending itself and achieving victory against the Russian Federation."

    https://punchbowl.news/ukraine-funding/

    As people elsewhere have pointed out; this might be the first reference to Ukraine achieving victory.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    Meh. Brings back memories of Martin 'Kaboom' Boon.

    Probably has a poll with Reform and the Tories at the same headline number, or something. But maybe not even that.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    On topic, I don't expect the SCons to be wiped out north of the border c.1997 - but I do expect a decent number of Labour gains from the SNP.

    However, I think they will hold most of their seats, which will no doubt be presented as a triumph, because they'd have to get really low vote tallies with Labour picking up all the slack to go back to the levels of the 1990s.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069

    Ouch.

    8% of people say they are favourable to Liz Truss. Some 24% also believe the devil exists.

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780837733834854670

    How many of the 8% think the devil exists and has the initials RS?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    edited April 18

    Ouch.

    8% of people say they are favourable to Liz Truss. Some 24% also believe the devil exists.

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780837733834854670

    Good morning everyone.

    is this not about the same as, or very slightly higher than, the % of black Americans who praise slavery when polled?

    Liz Truss has met 24% personally? Hmmm.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Good morning everybody!

    When I’ve had a few drinks, I’m often tempted to give some very strange answers to opinion polls!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    I think the SNP vote will be quite resilient too. For those that independence is the main issue there really is nowhere else to go. The Indy/Unionist divide trumps all else it seems, and the unionist side may well mean that Tories do better at holding their seats north rather than south of the border.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    edited April 18
    Bad news for Boris fans.




    New @YouGov poll shows voters think Starmer will be a better PM than Truss, Johnson, Sunak.

    Worse than Blair. Same or worse than Brown/Cameron.


    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1780845859610972583/photo/1
  • MonksfieldMonksfield Posts: 2,797
    Interesting that Starmer vs Johnson > Starmer vs Sunak. Johnson might rally the core Tory vote but otherwise he’s complete marmite.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706

    On topic, I don't expect the SCons to be wiped out north of the border c.1997 - but I do expect a decent number of Labour gains from the SNP.

    However, I think they will hold most of their seats, which will no doubt be presented as a triumph, because they'd have to get really low vote tallies with Labour picking up all the slack to go back to the levels of the 1990s.

    I am not sure about most of their seats. The disadvantage that the SNP have is that their vote is fairly even across the whole country whilst the Labour vote is much more focused on the central belt. This means that there are a fairly large swathe of seats that can fall to Labour, even if the SNP are matching them in terms of share of the vote.

    That broadly is what I expect to happen. The SNP may well gain some Tory seats because their vote has fallen even further but I expect them to lose 20-30 seats to Labour.

    There are a few other variables. Obviously operation Branchform has the capacity to cause further chaos in the SNP ranks and there is the not so small matter of the SNP being broke and having almost no money at all to fight a campaign. Labour, in contrast, are likely to spend pretty heavily in Scotland given the low lying fruit available to them.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    ...
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,062
    ydoethur said:

    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?

    Their vote is very concentrated geographically, so quite difficult for pollsters to pick up. Unquestionably they are on the up in the North East, and doing well in Edinburgh. Could also see a couple of Highlands seats in play. FPTP could be kind or cruel, but they are in a better position overall than in 2019.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,795
    DavidL said:

    On topic, I don't expect the SCons to be wiped out north of the border c.1997 - but I do expect a decent number of Labour gains from the SNP.

    However, I think they will hold most of their seats, which will no doubt be presented as a triumph, because they'd have to get really low vote tallies with Labour picking up all the slack to go back to the levels of the 1990s.

    I am not sure about most of their seats. The disadvantage that the SNP have is that their vote is fairly even across the whole country whilst the Labour vote is much more focused on the central belt. This means that there are a fairly large swathe of seats that can fall to Labour, even if the SNP are matching them in terms of share of the vote.

    That broadly is what I expect to happen. The SNP may well gain some Tory seats because their vote has fallen even further but I expect them to lose 20-30 seats to Labour.

    There are a few other variables. Obviously operation Branchform has the capacity to cause further chaos in the SNP ranks and there is the not so small matter of the SNP being broke and having almost no money at all to fight a campaign. Labour, in contrast, are likely to spend pretty heavily in Scotland given the low lying fruit available to them.
    Yes. When people start talking about Scotland I have to ask which Scotland? Central Belt? Or everywhere else.

    Central Belt looks fairly straight forward. Labour are going to steamroller the SNP. Outside the central belt? Tory vote collapsing faster than the SNP vote but with no real enthusiasm for either of them outside their core vote I expect a lot of entropy. Prospect of various LD gains, Labour in the Western Isles, but won't be as exciting as the central belt.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    DavidL said:

    On topic, I don't expect the SCons to be wiped out north of the border c.1997 - but I do expect a decent number of Labour gains from the SNP.

    However, I think they will hold most of their seats, which will no doubt be presented as a triumph, because they'd have to get really low vote tallies with Labour picking up all the slack to go back to the levels of the 1990s.

    I am not sure about most of their seats. The disadvantage that the SNP have is that their vote is fairly even across the whole country whilst the Labour vote is much more focused on the central belt. This means that there are a fairly large swathe of seats that can fall to Labour, even if the SNP are matching them in terms of share of the vote.

    That broadly is what I expect to happen. The SNP may well gain some Tory seats because their vote has fallen even further but I expect them to lose 20-30 seats to Labour.

    There are a few other variables. Obviously operation Branchform has the capacity to cause further chaos in the SNP ranks and there is the not so small matter of the SNP being broke and having almost no money at all to fight a campaign. Labour, in contrast, are likely to spend pretty heavily in Scotland given the low lying fruit available to them.
    I think that's at the high end.

    I expect the SNP to be a little more resilient and clock votes in spite of their behaviour rather than lose them because of it.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,609

    Ouch.

    8% of people say they are favourable to Liz Truss. Some 24% also believe the devil exists.

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780837733834854670

    Bit harsh calling Truss the devil. But I'm surprised more don't think she exists.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177
    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706
    edited April 18
    Joe Biden urging Congress to pass aid for both Israel and Ukraine: https://www.wsj.com/articles/moment-of-truth-on-ukraine-and-israel-war-ammo-aid-package-iran-russia-7ed30288?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

    Meanwhile, the GOP in Congress has been focused on passing articles of impeachment for Mayorkas, who is Homeland Security Secretary and responsible for the US/Mexico border. Yesterday, the Senate voted to not even commence the trial that the GOP in Congress was asking for.

    The GOP under Johnson is the most hapless and hopeless party I can recall. Even the current Tory party, even the SNP, are not so hamstrung by internal dissent and sheer lunacy. The malevolent hand of a somewhat distracted Trump plays a large part in this. There is now talk of some Republicans supporting the Democrats in forcing a vote on the Senate bill authorising aid for Ukraine. We can only hope that they do and that it is soon enough.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,488
    edited April 18
    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    From your link:

    "The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages..."

    That sentence, and others then go on to describe some ways in which Brexit may exacerbate the problem.

    Not sure "Its not entirely due to Brexit" is a very fair summary, giving the impression it mostly is.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Of course it's complex, but Brexit is an exacerbating factor.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    @hzeffman

    Not exactly the most important thing, but Mark Menzies's suspension as a Conservative MP means the threshold for triggering a confidence vote in Rishi Sunak has fallen from 53 MPs writing letters to 52
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 877
    Cicero said:

    ydoethur said:

    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?

    Their vote is very concentrated geographically, so quite difficult for pollsters to pick up. Unquestionably they are on the up in the North East, and doing well in Edinburgh. Could also see a couple of Highlands seats in play. FPTP could be kind or cruel, but they are in a better position overall than in 2019.
    If the Lib Dems want to take Highland seats they need good local candidates. If you look at the voting in 2015 in Inverness etc etc and Ross etc etc the Lib Dem vote held up okay, despite losing the seats, because the candidates (Charles Kennedy and Danny Alexander) were good local lads. 2017 is when the Lib Dems totally collapsed and I believe it was the lack of well known local candidates. That local link is crucial in these seats.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    ...
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,795

    Good morning

    I still expect a poor night for the SNP and labour to do well

    Another morning, another conservative mp losing the whip.

    Please end this and hold the GE

    On a personal note I still have some health issues to address according to my consultants, notwithstanding my pacemaker but then it is to be expected at 80+.

    However, my clinic yesterday was in the cancer centre, though I do not have cancer, and my wife and I sat next to a lovely couple in the waiting room and they said he has been told he has stage 4 cancer and the medics cannot do anything more for him (he is 66) and that he only has a few weeks to live and she has given up her work to be with him for their precious last days

    We can argue and debate about politics all day, but when you come in contact with the raw reality in life it is remarkably humbling and makes you just grateful for everything you do have

    May their 'God' go with them and everyone who is suffering similar trauma

    My neighbour and his wife are both in their 90s, live independently, and potter about with a smile. I see him more than I do her, and he's an inspiration. Living the "every day is a gift" mentality, make every day count for something like its your last. Even if that something is walk down your lengthy driveway to stand on the corner watching the world go by.
  • RattersRatters Posts: 1,058

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Of course it's complex, but Brexit is an exacerbating factor.
    Indeed, it doesn't help. Pharmaceutical non-tariff barriers are of course not an essential part of Brexit in any case, and maintaining a free flow of pharmaceuticals part of a post Brexit ingredient.

    The problems are worldwide, and covid had a part to play, but started before the pandemic, so that too is not a sole cause. In part it is the general fragility of increasingly international supply chains.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,729
    Unpopular said:

    Cicero said:

    ydoethur said:

    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?

    Their vote is very concentrated geographically, so quite difficult for pollsters to pick up. Unquestionably they are on the up in the North East, and doing well in Edinburgh. Could also see a couple of Highlands seats in play. FPTP could be kind or cruel, but they are in a better position overall than in 2019.
    If the Lib Dems want to take Highland seats they need good local candidates. If you look at the voting in 2015 in Inverness etc etc and Ross etc etc the Lib Dem vote held up okay, despite losing the seats, because the candidates (Charles Kennedy and Danny Alexander) were good local lads. 2017 is when the Lib Dems totally collapsed and I believe it was the lack of well known local candidates. That local link is crucial in these seats.
    They'll most likely win 5 seats. They'll obviously retain Orkney/Shetland and Edinburgh W. Fife NE and Caithness/Sutherland have, due to boundary changes, become notionally SNP, but with sitting MPs there will win those. That just leaves Jo Swinson's old seat in Dunbartonshire - again, unhelpfully changed in the boundary revisions,but I suspect they'll take it. So 5. Struggling to see any others but the new Inverness seat is an outside chance.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    @AdamBienkov

    Grant Shapps, whose party has spent weeks suggesting Angela Rayner is a tax-dodging criminal, now says we shouldn't rush to judgement about suspended Conservative MP Mark Menzies

    "Just because an accusation is made, or something is written, doesn't mean it is necessarily proven"
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,795

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Absolutism. Nobody has claimed that its "all down to Brexit". But you said the article explicitly says its not down to Brexit. And yet:

    "The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to significantly weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages."

    Brexit - more specifically the choices we have made after Brexit" is "explicitly" as you put it responsible for making our position worse than the EU nations. Would we have shortages if we hadn't done what we have done since Brexit? Yes, absolutely. But we have made those shortages *worse*.

    And not just shortages. "The UK has been slower to approve drugs than the EU for new drugs that are authorised centrally. Of drugs authorised in the year to December 2023, 56 drugs authorised in Europe were approved later in the UK and eight have not been approved. Four were approved faster."

    So please. Stop trying to make this black and white where everything or nothing is Brexit, everything is impossible so it must be nothing. It isn't nothing. Read the article again.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080
    What do the Conservatives have to offer an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist?

    They made her Prime Minister.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477
    MENZIES.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706

    Unpopular said:

    Cicero said:

    ydoethur said:

    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?

    Their vote is very concentrated geographically, so quite difficult for pollsters to pick up. Unquestionably they are on the up in the North East, and doing well in Edinburgh. Could also see a couple of Highlands seats in play. FPTP could be kind or cruel, but they are in a better position overall than in 2019.
    If the Lib Dems want to take Highland seats they need good local candidates. If you look at the voting in 2015 in Inverness etc etc and Ross etc etc the Lib Dem vote held up okay, despite losing the seats, because the candidates (Charles Kennedy and Danny Alexander) were good local lads. 2017 is when the Lib Dems totally collapsed and I believe it was the lack of well known local candidates. That local link is crucial in these seats.
    They'll most likely win 5 seats. They'll obviously retain Orkney/Shetland and Edinburgh W. Fife NE and Caithness/Sutherland have, due to boundary changes, become notionally SNP, but with sitting MPs there will win those. That just leaves Jo Swinson's old seat in Dunbartonshire - again, unhelpfully changed in the boundary revisions,but I suspect they'll take it. So 5. Struggling to see any others but the new Inverness seat is an outside chance.
    And actually, for all their moaning about FPTP, that will fairly fully represent their vote north of the border. My concern is that there will be a splintering of the Unionist vote, both in the borders and the north east, with enough voters who held their noses to vote Conservatives in the past not doing so and allowing the SNP to gain the seats.

  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477
    Scott_xP said:

    @AdamBienkov

    Grant Shapps, whose party has spent weeks suggesting Angela Rayner is a tax-dodging criminal, now says we shouldn't rush to judgement about suspended Conservative MP Mark Menzies

    "Just because an accusation is made, or something is written, doesn't mean it is necessarily proven"

    Lol.

    Chickens coming home to roost.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,729

    DavidL said:

    On topic, I don't expect the SCons to be wiped out north of the border c.1997 - but I do expect a decent number of Labour gains from the SNP.

    However, I think they will hold most of their seats, which will no doubt be presented as a triumph, because they'd have to get really low vote tallies with Labour picking up all the slack to go back to the levels of the 1990s.

    I am not sure about most of their seats. The disadvantage that the SNP have is that their vote is fairly even across the whole country whilst the Labour vote is much more focused on the central belt. This means that there are a fairly large swathe of seats that can fall to Labour, even if the SNP are matching them in terms of share of the vote.

    That broadly is what I expect to happen. The SNP may well gain some Tory seats because their vote has fallen even further but I expect them to lose 20-30 seats to Labour.

    There are a few other variables. Obviously operation Branchform has the capacity to cause further chaos in the SNP ranks and there is the not so small matter of the SNP being broke and having almost no money at all to fight a campaign. Labour, in contrast, are likely to spend pretty heavily in Scotland given the low lying fruit available to them.
    Yes. When people start talking about Scotland I have to ask which Scotland? Central Belt? Or everywhere else.

    Central Belt looks fairly straight forward. Labour are going to steamroller the SNP. Outside the central belt? Tory vote collapsing faster than the SNP vote but with no real enthusiasm for either of them outside their core vote I expect a lot of entropy. Prospect of various LD gains, Labour in the Western Isles, but won't be as exciting as the central belt.
    But is the Tory vote collapsing faster than the SNP? In the only actual votes we have seen - council by-elections - it is proving remarkably resilient compared to the SNP. Overall the Tory vote will undoubtedly haemorrhage in the Central Belt but in the bits which matter to them, and it's a a straight fight with Humza, not so sure. Anyway, we'll see.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,599
    Scott_xP said:

    @hzeffman

    Not exactly the most important thing, but Mark Menzies's suspension as a Conservative MP means the threshold for triggering a confidence vote in Rishi Sunak has fallen from 53 MPs writing letters to 52

    The important question is who shopped Menzies?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
    Looking at the expansion of the Addenbrookes/Cambridge Biomedical Campus, I don't really see much impact on the ground, as it were.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,200

    Scott_xP said:

    @AdamBienkov

    Grant Shapps, whose party has spent weeks suggesting Angela Rayner is a tax-dodging criminal, now says we shouldn't rush to judgement about suspended Conservative MP Mark Menzies

    "Just because an accusation is made, or something is written, doesn't mean it is necessarily proven"

    Lol.

    Chickens coming home to roost.
    Shapps expects us to believe that new information came to light only yesterday and that’s why the whip was removed . ! The truth is more likely to be that the Times printed the story and they’ve been found out for covering this up for 3 months . Meanwhile all they can talk about is Angela Rayner.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,270

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Absolutism. Nobody has claimed that its "all down to Brexit". But you said the article explicitly says its not down to Brexit. And yet:

    "The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to significantly weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages."

    Brexit - more specifically the choices we have made after Brexit" is "explicitly" as you put it responsible for making our position worse than the EU nations. Would we have shortages if we hadn't done what we have done since Brexit? Yes, absolutely. But we have made those shortages *worse*.

    And not just shortages. "The UK has been slower to approve drugs than the EU for new drugs that are authorised centrally. Of drugs authorised in the year to December 2023, 56 drugs authorised in Europe were approved later in the UK and eight have not been approved. Four were approved faster."

    So please. Stop trying to make this black and white where everything or nothing is Brexit, everything is impossible so it must be nothing. It isn't nothing. Read the article again.
    Your last point on approval is meaningless without context. What is the cause of the delays? Is it because testing is more stringent? The fact that 8 drugs approved by the EU have not been approved by the UK coud be because there are concerns in the UK about them. The automatic presumption that because they were approved by the EU they must be fine is incorrect. There are numerous drugs approved by one set of testing authorities in one part of the world that do not obtain approval in others. Just look at the differences between the EU and the US for that.

    Also what time scale are we talking about? Is it weeks, months or years? Without all this analysis your claims are, as I say, meaningless.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513
    Foxy said:

    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Of course it's complex, but Brexit is an exacerbating factor.
    Indeed, it doesn't help. Pharmaceutical non-tariff barriers are of course not an essential part of Brexit in any case, and maintaining a free flow of pharmaceuticals part of a post Brexit ingredient.

    The problems are worldwide, and covid had a part to play, but started before the pandemic, so that too is not a sole cause. In part it is the general fragility of increasingly international supply chains.
    Another and harder to address problem (without the intervention of western governments) is the increasing dominance of China in basic materials supply chains for pharmaceuticals.

    Something similar is happening with chip manufacturing, where massive subsidies are producing a glut of low end or 'legacy' chips, which is likely to drive a lot of western manufacturers out of that end of the business.
    Not a problem that bothers us now, but could be when they're effectively the sole producer.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,599
    Ratters said:

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
    It is about time someone told them The Thick of It is a comedy, not an instruction manual.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,270
    Ratters said:

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
    I would assume that the #declineandfall tag indicates a record low Tory figure.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,729
    DavidL said:

    Unpopular said:

    Cicero said:

    ydoethur said:

    Are the Lib Dems not even the Fourth Horseman of the Ajockalypse?

    Their vote is very concentrated geographically, so quite difficult for pollsters to pick up. Unquestionably they are on the up in the North East, and doing well in Edinburgh. Could also see a couple of Highlands seats in play. FPTP could be kind or cruel, but they are in a better position overall than in 2019.
    If the Lib Dems want to take Highland seats they need good local candidates. If you look at the voting in 2015 in Inverness etc etc and Ross etc etc the Lib Dem vote held up okay, despite losing the seats, because the candidates (Charles Kennedy and Danny Alexander) were good local lads. 2017 is when the Lib Dems totally collapsed and I believe it was the lack of well known local candidates. That local link is crucial in these seats.
    They'll most likely win 5 seats. They'll obviously retain Orkney/Shetland and Edinburgh W. Fife NE and Caithness/Sutherland have, due to boundary changes, become notionally SNP, but with sitting MPs there will win those. That just leaves Jo Swinson's old seat in Dunbartonshire - again, unhelpfully changed in the boundary revisions,but I suspect they'll take it. So 5. Struggling to see any others but the new Inverness seat is an outside chance.
    And actually, for all their moaning about FPTP, that will fairly fully represent their vote north of the border. My concern is that there will be a splintering of the Unionist vote, both in the borders and the north east, with enough voters who held their noses to vote Conservatives in the past not doing so and allowing the SNP to gain the seats.

    It will partly be down to resources, and if the Scot Tories can throw enough stuff at their critical seats (and Labour/LibDems don't). The good news for Tories is that I doubt the SNP will have all that much spare cash given they have so many seats to defend from SLAB with, I imagine, sitting MPs being pretty insistent that they are prioritised. Plus, I just don't think a Humza-led SNP is going to fly in the kind of seats the Tories are defending which are socially conservative, small town/rural sorts of places.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706
    edited April 18
    Somewhat on topic the site WingsoverScotland is offline this morning with a message coming up "503 Backend fetch failed." Not seen that before.

    There was a new post yesterday about the First Minister's latest idiocy but today, nothing.

    Edit, and its back.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    One interesting snippet from this kind of research. Having younger voters is an advantage because they don't die on you. A particular problem for the Conservatives. Labour does well on this.

    Looks like a more or less straight fight between Labour and SNP at the next Westminster election on this analysis. SNP support is more evenly distributed than Labour, which means a sudden switch from SNP winning most seats to losing most seats on these kind of numbers.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477

    Ratters said:

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
    I would assume that the #declineandfall tag indicates a record low Tory figure.
    My guess is that #Raynergate has cut through and the Tory and Labour scores have flipped, with TRUSS seen as the heir apparent:

    Conservative 75
    Others 25
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    DavidL said:

    Somewhat on topic the site WingsoverScotland is offline this morning with a message coming up "503 Backend fetch failed." Not seen that before.

    Sums up the website content, really.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
    It is very hard to raise money in the U.K. for going from TRL1 to TRL9. For anything.

    https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/technology-readiness-levels/

    That is, turning an experiment in a lab into commercial product.

    This is (in part) because Everyone Knows that The Smart Money is in property. After 30 years of it being a one way punt…
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    The unbearable Liz Truss is one of the few things Starmer and Sunak agree on.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080
    edited April 18
    The Labour candidate for the Rochdale by-election repeated an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and apologised for doing so when later challenged. It might have taken a day or two, but Starmer decided he had to disown the candidate.

    Liz Truss repeats an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in her book. What is she going to do? Will she apologise? Will she remove it from sale?

    What is Sunak going to do? He has the grace of the day or so that Starmer took to deliberate in similar circumstances, but surely the outcome isn't in doubt? Is it?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
    Looking at the expansion of the Addenbrookes/Cambridge Biomedical Campus, I don't really see much impact on the ground, as it were.
    There's an impact in terms of growing UK businesses in the UK.

    UK bioscience is one of our strongest sectors, and benefits from considerable government funding. But in terms of reaping the commercial benefits of UK drug discovery for the UK, things are trending for the worse rather than the better.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    DavidL said:

    Joe Biden urging Congress to pass aid for both Israel and Ukraine: https://www.wsj.com/articles/moment-of-truth-on-ukraine-and-israel-war-ammo-aid-package-iran-russia-7ed30288?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

    Meanwhile, the GOP in Congress has been focused on passing articles of impeachment for Mayorkas, who is Homeland Security Secretary and responsible for the US/Mexico border. Yesterday, the Senate voted to not even commence the trial that the GOP in Congress was asking for.

    The GOP under Johnson is the most hapless and hopeless party I can recall. Even the current Tory party, even the SNP, are not so hamstrung by internal dissent and sheer lunacy. The malevolent hand of a somewhat distracted Trump plays a large part in this. There is now talk of some Republicans supporting the Democrats in forcing a vote on the Senate bill authorising aid for Ukraine. We can only hope that they do and that it is soon enough.

    There's a lot of speculation about why Mike Johnson has decided to push the Ukraine aid bill through now. My suspicion he realised he literally cannot work with his own party so he's decided to work with the Democrats instead.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    DavidL said:

    Somewhat on topic the site WingsoverScotland is offline this morning with a message coming up "503 Backend fetch failed." Not seen that before.

    There was a new post yesterday about the First Minister's latest idiocy but today, nothing.

    That sounds quite painful.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,412

    The Labour candidate for the Rochdale by-election repeated an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and apologised for doing so when later challenged. It might have taken a day or two, but Starmer decided he had to disown the candidate.

    Liz Truss repeats an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in her book. What is she going to do? Will she apologise? Will she remove it from sale?

    What is Sunak going to do? He has the grace of the day or so that Starmer took to deliberate in similar circumstances, but surely the outcome isn't in doubt? Is it?

    Do you really think she is repeating the conspiracy from the anti-semitism angle or more likely trying to make a clumsy point about controlling money being more important than laws because she’s a bit too intellectually lazy to examine the theories and background of things she’s read that she has allowed to shape her worldview.

    I doubt for one minute there is an antisemitic bone in her body to be fair to her.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069

    Ratters said:

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
    It is about time someone told them The Thick of It is a comedy, not an instruction manual.
    I dunno.

    The characters in TTOI were largely incompetent and did malign things, but they gave the impression of believing in something. Even Ollie. Even Cal.

    That's a step up from the government we currently have.

    Baby steps.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    edited April 18

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    The more useful discussion is what the UK's going to do about the medicines shortage given it is no longer part of the EU? The EU is putting mitigations in place. It seems the UK hasn't, so far.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    I'm not saying it is a 'must read' but I do think your life will be better for reading it. It contains some absolutely gorgeous moments of stylistic richness and real pathos where you feel completely placed inside the lives and insecurities of some shockingly real-feeling characters. Any plot sounds deranged if you put it a certain way. "Son who wants to sleep with his sister blows up Dad's giant metal moon" for example.
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,639
    edited April 18
    With wearying inevitability the shrunken, increasingly beleaguered rump of Brexit true believers stir themselves into action into deny Brexit is making things worse for Britain.

    Today it’s access to medicines - a global problem uniquely enhanced and intensified by Brexit. Add it to the ever-growing pile of problems that are clearly made worse thanks to the fantastical lies of the wreckers and their insane project of self-immolation and ideological fervour.

    Absolutism will reign. Pearls will be clutched. Stark reality will be denied. Expert research and opinion blithely dismissed.

    The reckoning is coming. The omertà will break. The Tories will receive their kicking. Brexit, to paraphrase Carlin, will be shaken off like a dog shakes off a bad case of fleas. Tick tock.

    I mean, us bitter Remoaners might at least shut the fuck up if there were any real Brexit benefits that have improved the lives of normal people you could shove in our faces. But there aren’t any, other than some arcane gibbering about sovereignty. Everything is just worse, thanks to the lunatics and their lies.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,720

    Ratters said:

    I love Ben Page of Ipsos but I hate it when pollsters tease polls and don't send me an embargoed copy.

    Good morning. British #politics continues to delight. Some record breaking numbers out later!!! #declineandfall

    https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1780830034065760676

    The last poll from Ipos had Labour 47%, Tories 20%, Lib Dem 9%, Reform 8%.

    So my guess is either:
    - record low Tory vote share (18% or lower)
    - record Labour lead (above 30%?)
    It is about time someone told them The Thick of It is a comedy, not an instruction manual.
    Tory 18% is a good call. They’ve been 19% once or twice on other pollsters already. Ipsos generally has minor parties low so perhaps Ref up to 11 or 12
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Ulysses is hard going and not for everyone. I would, however, recommend Dubliners, which has some of the most sublimely beautiful prose you’ll ever encounter.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
    It is very hard to raise money in the U.K. for going from TRL1 to TRL9. For anything.

    https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/technology-readiness-levels/

    That is, turning an experiment in a lab into commercial product.

    This is (in part) because Everyone Knows that The Smart Money is in property. After 30 years of it being a one way punt…
    And if you do find a way of making money out of technology in the Cambridge area, a large slice of that will go to your landlord.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    It has its points, and much of the first half is fascinating if taken over slow time. No-one (as Lord David Cecil pointed out in about 1930) ever read it breathlessly turning the pages eager to discover what happens next. Harry Blamires 'The Bloomsday Book' is an excellent guide, and the Joyce project website is amazing.

    https://www.joyceproject.com/

    What should not be missed by those without months to spare (sadly I read Ulysses for the third time earlier this year, but I'm retired) is Joyce's short story in The Dubliners, 'The Dead'. Along with Wodehouse's 'Uncle Fred Flits By' and 'The Great Sermon Handicap', 'The Dead' is arguably the greatest short story ever.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,720
    edited April 18
    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    They were huge, and with much of this stuff those impacts aren't obvious to the man in the street. As you know my wife was responsible for UK drug safety in one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies. The European regulatory authority was UK based. The loss of that had a knock on effect to UK based pharmaceutical employment. Much moving to Europe and other stuff outsourced to India being cheaper and now a reason for being UK based has now been removed. The Irish subsidiary of my wife's company was going to moved to the UK. That was abandoned. The labelling regulations was a nightmare with the Northern Ireland issue as the arrangements meant the labelling and safety instructions were different and in some places contradictory. The industry was tearing its hair out for decisions. Regulation is now duplicated and unlike other industries the regulation costs are huge. Regulation audits are frequent and sometimes performed by surprise or at very short notice. This is non trivial as the consequence of these audits are huge. My wife was on the sharp end of them. They are not like financial audits. It is a different league.

    But of course the man in the street is unaware of these impacts.
    I was well aware of all of that as I spent much of 2017-2020 advising pharma companies on restructuring for Brexit (no idea if your wife’s company was one of them but they one or two did have an Irish trading HQs that had been looked at for a move to the UK.

    In the end the issues were all surmountable but they didn’t half cost a fortune to fix, and there were several permanent losses of regional HQ functions from the UK.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,575

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Not "one day in 1904", it is Ascot Gold Cup day in 1904.
    http://m.joyceproject.com/notes/050057goldcup.html

    Literary types love Ulysses because they can re-read it every year and discover new aspects, facets and allusions.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Ulysses is hard going and not for everyone. I would, however, recommend Dubliners, which has some of the most sublimely beautiful prose you’ll ever encounter.
    'The Dead' in Dubliners is the greatest of the great.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    That's the first time I've seen "DEAD" in these sorts of analyses. Is it usually there and I've just not noticed before?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Ulysses is hard going and not for everyone. I would, however, recommend Dubliners, which has some of the most sublimely beautiful prose you’ll ever encounter.
    Sounds boring. I'm not particularly interested in fiction anyway, unless it's a very good Thriller, so it having some passages of sublimely beautiful prose doesn't attract me.

    It's a bit like The Deerhunter, which people banged on for years was one of the best films ever made and a "must see", whereas I thought it awfully tedious and that the director had disappeared up his own arse.

    It all gets a bit Emperors New Clothes where everyone knows they are expected to like it and appreciate it, so all say they do lest they come across like a philistine.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    This is the link to the original report. Its not entirely due to Brexit, but that has added to the complexities over drug shortages.

    https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit

    Certainly there have been increasing problems with drugs being unavailable in recent years, often fairly longstanding generic ones included.
    Fucks sake people, the article explicitly says that the recent spike is NOT due to Brexit.

    There are many issues. It’s complex. Can we not resort to the same trivial shit of its all down to being in the EU (pre 2016) and it’s all down to Brexit (post 2016). Seriously Scott, move on.
    Absolutism. Nobody has claimed that its "all down to Brexit". But you said the article explicitly says its not down to Brexit. And yet:

    "The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to significantly weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages."

    Brexit - more specifically the choices we have made after Brexit" is "explicitly" as you put it responsible for making our position worse than the EU nations. Would we have shortages if we hadn't done what we have done since Brexit? Yes, absolutely. But we have made those shortages *worse*.

    And not just shortages. "The UK has been slower to approve drugs than the EU for new drugs that are authorised centrally. Of drugs authorised in the year to December 2023, 56 drugs authorised in Europe were approved later in the UK and eight have not been approved. Four were approved faster."

    So please. Stop trying to make this black and white where everything or nothing is Brexit, everything is impossible so it must be nothing. It isn't nothing. Read the article again.
    Your last point on approval is meaningless without context. What is the cause of the delays? Is it because testing is more stringent? The fact that 8 drugs approved by the EU have not been approved by the UK coud be because there are concerns in the UK about them. The automatic presumption that because they were approved by the EU they must be fine is incorrect. There are numerous drugs approved by one set of testing authorities in one part of the world that do not obtain approval in others. Just look at the differences between the EU and the US for that.

    Also what time scale are we talking about? Is it weeks, months or years? Without all this analysis your claims are, as I say, meaningless.

    Yebbut. The cause and effect is clear, which is the point RP is making, even if we don't know the root cause.

    My suspicion FWIW is that drugs companies are slower in processing the years long expensive approvals process for a relatively small market compared with one of their two key markets. That's the main reason why the UK has approved fewer new machines, not because it lacks certification capability.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Not "one day in 1904", it is Ascot Gold Cup day in 1904.
    http://m.joyceproject.com/notes/050057goldcup.html

    Literary types love Ulysses because they can re-read it every year and discover new aspects, facets and allusions.
    The Gold Cup 1904, and the place of the winner in the novel, is the link between Ulysses and a betting website. Joyce would have enjoyed this, while seething at the discussions of UK politics.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    algarkirk said:

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    It has its points, and much of the first half is fascinating if taken over slow time. No-one (as Lord David Cecil pointed out in about 1930) ever read it breathlessly turning the pages eager to discover what happens next. Harry Blamires 'The Bloomsday Book' is an excellent guide, and the Joyce project website is amazing.

    https://www.joyceproject.com/

    What should not be missed by those without months to spare (sadly I read Ulysses for the third time earlier this year, but I'm retired) is Joyce's short story in The Dubliners, 'The Dead'. Along with Wodehouse's 'Uncle Fred Flits By' and 'The Great Sermon Handicap', 'The Dead' is arguably the greatest short story ever.
    The Wiki plot summary alone bored me. I doubt I could make it past the first 5 pages.

    Glad you enjoyed it, but it's not for me.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Ulysses is hard going and not for everyone. I would, however, recommend Dubliners, which has some of the most sublimely beautiful prose you’ll ever encounter.
    Sounds boring. I'm not particularly interested in fiction anyway, unless it's a very good Thriller, so it having some passages of sublimely beautiful prose doesn't attract me.

    It's a bit like The Deerhunter, which people banged on for years was one of the best films ever made and a "must see", whereas I thought it awfully tedious and that the director had disappeared up his own arse.

    It all gets a bit Emperors New Clothes where everyone knows they are expected to like it and appreciate it, so all say they do lest they come across like a philistine.
    I don’t think that’s true of Ulysses at all. People (literary types and the public)have been debating its merits since it was published. “I don’t like Ulysses” is hardly a dangerously heterodox opinion!
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,609
    edited April 18
    kinabalu said:

    That's the first time I've seen "DEAD" in these sorts of analyses. Is it usually there and I've just not noticed before?

    I guess they can be safely included in 'would not vote' :wink:

    (This kind of tracking is not that common, I think - usually these, often as alluvial plots, are based on a current sample - not dead! - and either recall or previously recorded information. This presumably either requires linkage to deaths data, which may be possible from e.g. BES, or is just based on assumptions based on age, SES etc of previous respondents)

    ETA: Sorry - BES = British Election Study; SES = socio-economic status
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    edited April 18
    ...

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
    I heard an interview with her yesterday about her childhood, after commenting that she had been brought up by Soviet sympathetic, CND supporting, ECO voting parents who took her to live in, behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, she explained why she became a Conservative. Her narrative and her tone was beautifully child-like. If one didn't recognise the voice, one could be forgiven for thinking she was a youngster about to embark on a new adventure at "big school".
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    ...

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
    I heard an interview with her yesterday about why, after being brought up by Soviet sympathetic, CND supporting, ECO voting parents who took her to live in, behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, she explained why she became a Conservative. Her narrative and her tone was beautifully child-like. If one didn't recognise the voice, one could be forgiven for thinking she was a youngster about to embark on a new adventure at "big school".
    Maybe she's inherited their dogma and fanaticism but simply decided to apply it elsewhere.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    algarkirk said:

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    Not "one day in 1904", it is Ascot Gold Cup day in 1904.
    http://m.joyceproject.com/notes/050057goldcup.html

    Literary types love Ulysses because they can re-read it every year and discover new aspects, facets and allusions.
    The Gold Cup 1904, and the place of the winner in the novel, is the link between Ulysses and a betting website. Joyce would have enjoyed this, while seething at the discussions of UK politics.
    Blink and you'll miss it. It's a Thowaway point.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753
    edited April 18

    I read the plot summary of James Joyce's Ulysses on Wiki last night and I thought it sounded deranged.

    I've little to no interest in reading the rambling monologues of three individuals who happen to bumble around Dublin on one day in 1904, even if it does contain a handful of great quotes.

    It's one book I'm confident I'll never read, and I don't think my life will be any the worse for it.

    LOL

    Could be a pb competition. Sum up magnificent works of art in blithe, uninformed, yet pithy soundbites.

    Ignorance is nothing to be proud of. Hang your head that you are not going to subject yourself to this masterpiece.

    Finnegan's Wake, however...
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,575

    ...

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
    I heard an interview with her yesterday about why, after being brought up by Soviet sympathetic, CND supporting, ECO voting parents who took her to live in, behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, she explained why she became a Conservative. Her narrative and her tone was beautifully child-like. If one didn't recognise the voice, one could be forgiven for thinking she was a youngster about to embark on a new adventure at "big school".
    Maybe she's inherited their dogma and fanaticism but simply decided to apply it elsewhere.
    Or she is a long term communist sleeper agent who has achieved her goal of bringing down the country, monarchy and Conservative Party. Liz Truss, Hero of the Soviet Union.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360

    ...

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
    I heard an interview with her yesterday about why, after being brought up by Soviet sympathetic, CND supporting, ECO voting parents who took her to live in, behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, she explained why she became a Conservative. Her narrative and her tone was beautifully child-like. If one didn't recognise the voice, one could be forgiven for thinking she was a youngster about to embark on a new adventure at "big school".
    Maybe she's inherited their dogma and fanaticism but simply decided to apply it elsewhere.
    This is pretty important in trying to understand a lot of people in the political realm. They are dogmatic and fanatical. Getting their way, and having attention, and controlling others matters much more than what particular cause it is they happen to be fanatical and dogmatic about.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753
    edited April 18
    On some kind of topic I have just stuck a fiver on David Cameron next Cons leader at 19s (bf).

    Will the Cons go bonkerser after the GE or will they try to claw back some sanity. Obvs it will likely be the former but as they form a circular firing squad perhaps the problem will solve itself.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    edited April 18
    ...

    ...

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    I can only conclude that she's being extremely well paid.
    I heard an interview with her yesterday about why, after being brought up by Soviet sympathetic, CND supporting, ECO voting parents who took her to live in, behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, she explained why she became a Conservative. Her narrative and her tone was beautifully child-like. If one didn't recognise the voice, one could be forgiven for thinking she was a youngster about to embark on a new adventure at "big school".
    Maybe she's inherited their dogma and fanaticism but simply decided to apply it elsewhere.
    Or she is a long term communist sleeper agent who has achieved her goal of bringing down the country, monarchy and Conservative Party. Liz Truss, Hero of the Soviet Union.
    That is certainly the most credible explanation for her premiership.

    Her support for that other hero of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump is telling.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,125
    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    Joe Biden urging Congress to pass aid for both Israel and Ukraine: https://www.wsj.com/articles/moment-of-truth-on-ukraine-and-israel-war-ammo-aid-package-iran-russia-7ed30288?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

    Meanwhile, the GOP in Congress has been focused on passing articles of impeachment for Mayorkas, who is Homeland Security Secretary and responsible for the US/Mexico border. Yesterday, the Senate voted to not even commence the trial that the GOP in Congress was asking for.

    The GOP under Johnson is the most hapless and hopeless party I can recall. Even the current Tory party, even the SNP, are not so hamstrung by internal dissent and sheer lunacy. The malevolent hand of a somewhat distracted Trump plays a large part in this. There is now talk of some Republicans supporting the Democrats in forcing a vote on the Senate bill authorising aid for Ukraine. We can only hope that they do and that it is soon enough.

    There's a lot of speculation about why Mike Johnson has decided to push the Ukraine aid bill through now. My suspicion he realised he literally cannot work with his own party so he's decided to work with the Democrats instead.
    How does that work? Mike Johnson is a religious fundamentalist who tried to overturn Biden's 2020 election win, doesn't believe climate change is caused by humans (or at least is paid lots of money by fossil fuel companies to say this), and doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. He wants to recriminalise sex between consenting adults who are the same sex. And claims all his policies are from the Bible.

    Doesn't seem keen on democracy either:
    https://newrepublic.com/post/176497/speaker-mike-johnson-warned-dangers-living-democracy
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637
    Selebian said:

    kinabalu said:

    That's the first time I've seen "DEAD" in these sorts of analyses. Is it usually there and I've just not noticed before?

    I guess they can be safely included in 'would not vote' :wink:

    Not according to Trump
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I always said we would rejoin the EU when we were once again "the sick man of Europe", but this is not exactly what I had in mind...

    @rolandmcs

    "Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns"

    https://t.co/LjId5maIWU

    I remember being told at a pharmaceutical conference in 2017 (I think) that cutting ourselves adrift from Europe would have adverse pharmaceutical consequences.
    It had very serious consequences in 2020.

    When we first to develop a vaccine and inoculate our population.
    That's to confuse the depth of our science base with the diminution in our access to European markets.
    The latter is behind, for example, AZN building a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.

    Obviously we haven't destroyed bioscience in the UK, but we have made it more difficult commercially.

    There's a perhaps similar problem with our capital markets, with small UK drug discovery companies finding raising funds in the UK very difficult (see yesterday's interview with the CEO of C4X Discovery) - though that's an even more complicated issue.
    It is very hard to raise money in the U.K. for going from TRL1 to TRL9. For anything.

    https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/technology-readiness-levels/

    That is, turning an experiment in a lab into commercial product.

    This is (in part) because Everyone Knows that The Smart Money is in property. After 30 years of it being a one way punt…
    And if you do find a way of making money out of technology in the Cambridge area, a large slice of that will go to your landlord.
    And BritVolt was largely a property deal - the bit that management actually were interested in and had some skill in.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,316
    TOPPING said:

    On some kind of topic I have just stuck a fiver on David Cameron next Cons leader at 19s (bf).

    Will the Cons go bonkerser after the GE or will they try to claw back some sanity. Obvs it will likely be the former but as they form a circular firing squad perhaps the problem will solve itself.

    You could see how he could be an interim steady the ship type like Michael Howard, but he couldnt lead them in to an election.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    DavidL said:

    Joe Biden urging Congress to pass aid for both Israel and Ukraine: https://www.wsj.com/articles/moment-of-truth-on-ukraine-and-israel-war-ammo-aid-package-iran-russia-7ed30288?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

    Meanwhile, the GOP in Congress has been focused on passing articles of impeachment for Mayorkas, who is Homeland Security Secretary and responsible for the US/Mexico border. Yesterday, the Senate voted to not even commence the trial that the GOP in Congress was asking for.

    The GOP under Johnson is the most hapless and hopeless party I can recall. Even the current Tory party, even the SNP, are not so hamstrung by internal dissent and sheer lunacy. The malevolent hand of a somewhat distracted Trump plays a large part in this. There is now talk of some Republicans supporting the Democrats in forcing a vote on the Senate bill authorising aid for Ukraine. We can only hope that they do and that it is soon enough.

    I mean, I don't think that Johnson is specifically the issue - the House GOP cohort is just ungovernable (in part because much of their ideology doesn't really believe in governing). I'm not really sure why Johnson is interested in doing anything over not (Mitch McConnell was more than happy with pure obstructionism), but it's probably because the money people want aid getting to Israel and Ukraine because military spending is big $$$.
This discussion has been closed.