Devolution might not have done much for ordinary Scots but it’s been a dripping roast for Scotland’s political elite. Take Humza Yousaf. He was First Minister for 13 months on an annual salary of almost £177,000 — more than the Prime Minister — of which £104,500 was for being FM (the balance was his MSP salary). He is now entitled to half his FM salary — £52,000 a year — FOR LIFE. Plus his MSP salary. Talk about snouts in the trough …"
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a policy designed to “stop the boats”. That’s a bit different to scaring those who’ve already got here to leave for Ireland. Which is what it might have done thus far. In doing so to cause a diplomatic bust up with our neighbours - but I guess that’s also a positive in Tory eyes, even though quite how it helps anyone resolve the issue I have no idea. Doubtless Tories think those Frogs and Paddies will see sense soon and change policy to suit us.
There was a meeting with the Irish and UK governments today when the UK rejected the idea of accepting returning asylum seekers without a similar agreement with France
This is not going away, and it is likely to be discussed at EU and French levels and maybe we could see a united attempt by all parties to stop the boats and address the wider issue of asylum seekers and Europe's own border problems
Am I alone in finding it morbidly funny that those who shout loudest about sending immigrants back to that "safe country" France are also the most indignant that the Irish might want their immigrants to come back here?
No, it’s the hypocrisy. First from the Irish/EU, who used the NI border to leverage as bad a deal for the UK as possible, making it a pressure point, and let’s not forget how Dublin demanded an Open Border! My God. Now they have an Open Border and suddenly they are less keen
Also the EU overall, esp France, which takes our money yet refuses to properly police the boat people (because France wants them gone, so the UK can pay) and now suddenly the EU wants the right to return refugees to the UK, from Ireland, a right the UK does not have with France/EU?
@TheScreamingEagles, you are certainly educating us with respect to Shakespeare...
"Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
To take the Shakespearean references one stage further... That line is what makes Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country one of the most well-structured and written films in the series. The historical and literary allusions are excellent. Christopher Plummer's recitation of "Tickle us..." as a Klingon is superb.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The solution to the issue always comes back to France (and Belgium too perhaps). If we want France to stop the boats we have to give them a reason too.
International co-operation with our neighbours in pursuit of common aims. If only there was an organisation we could all be members of to facilitate such agreements.
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Devolution might not have done much for ordinary Scots but it’s been a dripping roast for Scotland’s political elite. Take Humza Yousaf. He was First Minister for 13 months on an annual salary of almost £177,000 — more than the Prime Minister — of which £104,500 was for being FM (the balance was his MSP salary). He is now entitled to half his FM salary — £52,000 a year — FOR LIFE. Plus his MSP salary. Talk about snouts in the trough …"
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The solution to the issue always comes back to France (and Belgium too perhaps). If we want France to stop the boats we have to give them a reason too.
International co-operation with our neighbours in pursuit of common aims. If only there was an organisation we could all be members of to facilitate such agreements.
You're making my point for me. As long as the policy can be framed as international co-operation with our neighbours, then you don't care so much about the details.
Always been a Stuart Lewis fan, myself. Mystified that he doesn't poll better here. I don't think there's anyone better to unite the different factions of the SNP
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
They can't get from France to Ireland, except by going through the UK - you're not going to get a RIB that far.
I think you underestimate the ingenuity of desperate people and of those willing to exploit that desperation. I agree a small inflatable boat isn't an option from France to Ireland but there are no doubt those unscrupulous individuals already looking at other options.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a policy designed to “stop the boats”. That’s a bit different to scaring those who’ve already got here to leave for Ireland. Which is what it might have done thus far. In doing so to cause a diplomatic bust up with our neighbours - but I guess that’s also a positive in Tory eyes, even though quite how it helps anyone resolve the issue I have no idea. Doubtless Tories think those Frogs and Paddies will see sense soon and change policy to suit us.
There was a meeting with the Irish and UK governments today when the UK rejected the idea of accepting returning asylum seekers without a similar agreement with France
This is not going away, and it is likely to be discussed at EU and French levels and maybe we could see a united attempt by all parties to stop the boats and address the wider issue of asylum seekers and Europe's own border problems
Am I alone in finding it morbidly funny that those who shout loudest about sending immigrants back to that "safe country" France are also the most indignant that the Irish might want their immigrants to come back here?
I do not think that word morbidly means what you think it means. Secondly your point would be stronger if France and eire were different countries. They are effectively not, so these bona fide asylum seekers are merely coming home after briefly resting in the UK.
If Rwanda WORKS - and that is possible, but highly unlikely - it will be an incredible dilemma for Starmer. Will he really ditch an effective policy and then see the boat people return? Labour would go from triumphant to abhorred in a few weeks, and they would be looking at one term only, and much of that miserable
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a policy designed to “stop the boats”. That’s a bit different to scaring those who’ve already got here to leave for Ireland. Which is what it might have done thus far. In doing so to cause a diplomatic bust up with our neighbours - but I guess that’s also a positive in Tory eyes, even though quite how it helps anyone resolve the issue I have no idea. Doubtless Tories think those Frogs and Paddies will see sense soon and change policy to suit us.
There was a meeting with the Irish and UK governments today when the UK rejected the idea of accepting returning asylum seekers without a similar agreement with France
This is not going away, and it is likely to be discussed at EU and French levels and maybe we could see a united attempt by all parties to stop the boats and address the wider issue of asylum seekers and Europe's own border problems
Am I alone in finding it morbidly funny that those who shout loudest about sending immigrants back to that "safe country" France are also the most indignant that the Irish might want their immigrants to come back here?
No, it’s the hypocrisy. First from the Irish/EU, who used the NI border to leverage as bad a deal for the UK as possible, making it a pressure point, and let’s not forget how Dublin demanded an Open Border! My God. Now they have an Open Border and suddenly they are less keen
Also the EU overall, esp France, which takes our money yet refuses to properly police the boat people (because France wants them gone, so the UK can pay) and now suddenly the EU wants the right to return refugees to the UK, from Ireland, a right the UK does not have with France/EU?
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
I appreciate Liz Truss's downfall was more impactful and chaotic for Brits, but also she actually imploded while trying to do radical things she believed would improve things... Yousaf just sort of tripped up on his own shoelaces for no apparent reason
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
I doubt that will happen but if it did it would impact my opinion of the EU not of the morally sick policy.
If Rwanda WORKS - and that is possible, but highly unlikely - it will be an incredible dilemma for Starmer. Will he really ditch an effective policy and then see the boat people return? Labour would go from triumphant to abhorred in a few weeks, and they would be looking at one term only, and much of that miserable
If the policy is implemented, it will work.
Its been done before in other countries and is tried and tested as working.
People won't pay people smugglers in order to end up in a third country.
The Australian Labor Party scrapped Australia's equivalent of the scheme, only to then reintroduce it a couple of years later.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
I doubt that will happen but if it did it would impact my opinion of the EU not of the morally sick policy.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Crystal clear? Have things changed in the last couple of days?
'She wrote: "Let us get away from the language of who is and who is not acceptable to work with. For example, well before and during the Bute House Agreement, Patrick Harvie and I worked together – that is no secret. The question therefore isn’t whether my world is big enough to embrace the Greens – it is. The question is whether their world is big enough to embrace me. I hope and believe it is."'
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a policy designed to “stop the boats”. That’s a bit different to scaring those who’ve already got here to leave for Ireland. Which is what it might have done thus far. In doing so to cause a diplomatic bust up with our neighbours - but I guess that’s also a positive in Tory eyes, even though quite how it helps anyone resolve the issue I have no idea. Doubtless Tories think those Frogs and Paddies will see sense soon and change policy to suit us.
There was a meeting with the Irish and UK governments today when the UK rejected the idea of accepting returning asylum seekers without a similar agreement with France
This is not going away, and it is likely to be discussed at EU and French levels and maybe we could see a united attempt by all parties to stop the boats and address the wider issue of asylum seekers and Europe's own border problems
Am I alone in finding it morbidly funny that those who shout loudest about sending immigrants back to that "safe country" France are also the most indignant that the Irish might want their immigrants to come back here?
I do not think that word morbidly means what you think it means. Secondly your point would be stronger if France and eire were different countries. They are effectively not, so these bona fide asylum seekers are merely coming home after briefly resting in the UK.
A person who thinks France and Ireland are the same country is not really in a position to lecture on the meaning of 'morbidly'.
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
The lack of movement in the polls (we can rule out the basic MoE noise) suggests some notion there will be a mass damascene conversion to the Conservatives because the background environment is a little better for Sunak is just deluded. After all, in 1997 we had a strong economy and it made little or no difference.
This notion voters go into the polling station considering who will be the better Prime Minister and voting on that basis is nonsensical - first, most voters vote against someone or something rather than for it and the one thing we can see from the polls you deride is while there is little for enthusiasm there is huge antipathy for Sunak and the Conservatives.
You told us there would be a May election - now you're telling us it will be July. It won't. Winning a couple of Mayoral contests may be spun by CCHQ as a good result but if Houchen wins 55-45 instad of 73-27 that's still an 18% swing to Labour. Khan will probably beat Hall fairly comfortably though I think Andy Street, who has basically disassociated himself from the Conservative Party, might survive and kudos to him if so doing.
The local council results will tell their own story - I'm expecting 500 Conservative losses at least and where the Conservatives do hang on it will be as much to the inability of the opposition parties to field sufficient candidates or a Street-style disassociation by "local Conservatives".
The notional numbers won't be as dramatic as some of the recent national polling of course, they never are, but will continue to indicate a strong Labour performance.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
The Greens don't choose the SNP leader and FM, the SNP does that. The scenario we are discussing is the SNP has chosen Forbes. The Greens now have a choice to do a deal with Forbes while parliamentary arithmetic favours them or VoNC at any time, which would force an election where they stand to win seats and the SNP lose them. In this way they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Yes, Labour will underperform on NEV this week, because they always do. Crudely, because local Lib voters are mostly happy to be squeezed at a GE. Always have been. Any reason to think this year will be different?
As for Reform, yes some will be squeezed back into.the blue column- probably between a third and a half. There's a decent run of data on that as well.
The punchline (though the whole thread is worth it, and has nice charts)
A big question is what is the best-case scenario from here for the Tories. Gaining back half of DKs is reasonable, with half of Reform voters and a third of Labour voters optimistic. Combined with roughly 1m gains from other parties, gets you to 9.1m (around 31% of the vote).
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Devolution might not have done much for ordinary Scots but it’s been a dripping roast for Scotland’s political elite. Take Humza Yousaf. He was First Minister for 13 months on an annual salary of almost £177,000 — more than the Prime Minister — of which £104,500 was for being FM (the balance was his MSP salary). He is now entitled to half his FM salary — £52,000 a year — FOR LIFE. Plus his MSP salary. Talk about snouts in the trough …"
Off topic, but you may like this detail about Doug Burgum: "He attended North Dakota State University (NDSU) to earn his undergraduate degree in 1978. During his senior year at NDSU, he applied to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also started a chimney-sweeping business. "The newspaper wrote a story about me as a chimney sweep", he later recalled; it "ran a photo of me sitting on top of an icy chimney in below-freezing weather in Fargo. The story made the AP wire service. I was later told it caused quite a stir in the Stanford admissions office: 'Hey, there's a chimney sweep from North Dakota who's applied." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Burgum
He went on to become a very successful businessman and Microsoft executive, before becoming North Dakota governor.:
I met him when Microsoft bought Navision in Denmark. He seemed like a very smart, switched on guy.
Rwanda would definitely work if implemented rigorously. If every boat person was sent there straight away for a few weeks all the boats would stop entirely. No more drowned people. That’s a good thing
But that’s not what is being proposed. The Tories are desperately hoping the mere threat of Rwanda will be enough. A 1 in a 100 chance you get detained and sent to darkest Africa
I reckon it’s quite unlikely it will be that effective. But, it is not impossible. The Tories’ only hope of avoiding a total electoral extinction arguably depends on this - so I can see why they are so focused on it
Funny guy, wee Ben. Not as funny as him trying to pretend he didn’t say that migrants should be left to drown, mind. Question Time will still be inviting him on as a guest of course.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
That's not correct. The EPP manifesto says "In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite."
Funny guy, wee Ben. Not as funny as him trying to pretend he didn’t say that migrants should be left to drown, mind. Question Time will still be inviting him on as a guest of course.
Which mob is he deputy leader of? I'm not up to date.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
The Greens don't choose the SNP leader and FM, the SNP does that. The scenario we are discussing is the SNP has chosen Forbes. The Greens now have a choice to do a deal with Forbes while parliamentary arithmetic favours them or VoNC at any time, which would force an election where they stand to win seats and the SNP lose them. In this way they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
I am honestly not sure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing. I think Forbes is by far the best candidate but I do not think that the SNP can choose her at the present time for exactly the same reasons as Yousaf fell today. The price of stable government is compatibility with the Greens. Nicola has been shown to be right about that. I don't believe that is a price that Forbes can pay. I don't believe that the Greens would believe she would pay it even if she offered it. They are just miles apart.
This is not the Greens choosing the SNP leadership, it is much more the SNP having to choose someone who can work with their only natural partner given the extremely balanced situation in Holyrood.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
What a carload of cant. The EU is already paying to have migrants/asylumites kept in Libyan jails where some are sold into slavery
What is the bizarre ongoing leftist belief that EU = good and UK = bad?? It was perhaps understandable immediately after Brexit. An emotional overreaction. But we are now way beyond Brexit
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
I think you are demonstrating a terminological inexactitude.
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Crystal clear? Have things changed in the last couple of days?
'She wrote: "Let us get away from the language of who is and who is not acceptable to work with. For example, well before and during the Bute House Agreement, Patrick Harvie and I worked together – that is no secret. The question therefore isn’t whether my world is big enough to embrace the Greens – it is. The question is whether their world is big enough to embrace me. I hope and believe it is."'
Kate Forbes problem may not be the Greens, but large chunks of the SNP.
That's also true. Sturgeon's domination of Scottish labour and the central belt came with a lot of left of centre policies that a lot of Scots like.
I also think @Theuniondivvie's quote is a lot more ambiguous than he seems to think it is.
I was responding to you stating that she has absolutely no time for the Greens. That seemed entirely unambiguous to me but perhaps they do things differently in Lawyerland.
Anyway it’s great to see the PB Tory Unionist Forbesie caucus coming into being.
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Local elections are not national elections. There is considerable polling evidence that the Cons nationally are remarkably more unpopular than local conservatives. There is a reason so many candidates choose to identify themselves as just that, 'Local Conservatives'. There is a reason Mayoral candidates have been distancing themselves from the dreaded C-word, even with the local branding.
Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one. Remember when the story broke and when the 'campaign' ended. Any impact was minimal at best. It was also something of a one-shot pistol. An aspect of the failure of the Rayner allegations to move the polls is that Currygate turned out to be, how should we say this, a load of bollocks.
Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE. Well, probably. However, not inevitably. I think Lab will have to make a major mistake and that is not impossible. However, to assume it will happen is to seriously under-estimate Starmer. He does not have to be brilliant he just has to be better than his opponent and at the moment that opponent seems very likely to be Mr Rishi Sunak.
Think on that - have you seen any evidence that Mr Sunak can maintain a credible election campaign? Can you imagine him facing a 'job interview' style grilling from a serious journalist? Can you imagine him in a debate with Starmer? To have a chance of closing the gap to any meaningful degree he willl have to do all of those and do them well.
In my many GEs I have only ever voted Lab once. I am no fan-boy for Starmer. However, their (not so) secret weapons are going to be front and centre throughout the GE campaign whenever it comes. Their names - Mr Rishi Sunak and the truly pathetic record of the current Govt.
We can all hope for miracles but they hardly ever come.
If Rwanda WORKS - and that is possible, but highly unlikely - it will be an incredible dilemma for Starmer. Will he really ditch an effective policy and then see the boat people return? Labour would go from triumphant to abhorred in a few weeks, and they would be looking at one term only, and much of that miserable
Labour apparently won't be bringing any of those taken to Rwanda back. What's the point of them. They have the principles of a syphilis outbreak.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Sir Graham would like to deprive members of the final vote in leadership elections, but it does bother me that anyone not in the PCP gives his self-interested twaddle the time of day.
It was the PCP that gave the members Truss and Sunak to choose from. A deeply flawed leader and a flat out dud (choose which is which depending on taste). It was the PCP who gave members IDS and Kenneth Clarke to choose from. It's the PCP that fucks it up time and time again with their self-interested careerism. The members have chosen the least worst option in every case.
The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
That's not certain at all. While far too many are drowning and its inhumane, the individual risk is low.
If everyone who crosses the Channel on a boat is sent abroad, which is the way the Aussies handle it, then the crossings and thus the drownings will stop.
Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in the UK can be worthwhile. Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in Rwanda is not.
I find it hard to predict in advance what will tickle the fancy of a political party's membership.
With hindsight sometimes we can see why someone struck home, but we're a lot people anticipating just how supportive the Labour membership would go for the chap advancing bog standard leftist clichés in an sincerely unassuming way? That the Tory Brexiteers would adopt a former Remainer so tightly?
With Forbes all I can recall is she was the apparent change candidate to Yousaf's everything is fine candidate, then she imploded because if her social views but still ran him close. Was she perceived as some wunderkind before that?
In the end every advanced/powerful country will end up doing some form of Rwanda. Because it is the only thing that works, that is nonetheless humane. Everything else is either open borders, in effect, or - at the other extreme - murderous and barbaric
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think anyone we ship to Rwanda is going to stay there?
If Rwanda WORKS - and that is possible, but highly unlikely - it will be an incredible dilemma for Starmer. Will he really ditch an effective policy and then see the boat people return? Labour would go from triumphant to abhorred in a few weeks, and they would be looking at one term only, and much of that miserable
Labour apparently won't be bringing any of those taken to Rwanda back. What's the point of them. They have the principles of a syphilis outbreak.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Sir Graham would like to deprive members of the final vote in leadership elections, but it does bother me that anyone not in the PCP gives his self-interested twaddle the time of day.
It was the PCP that gave the members Truss and Sunak to choose from. A deeply flawed leader and a flat out dud (choose which is which depending on taste). It was the PCP who gave members IDS and Kenneth Clarke to choose from. It's the PCP that fucks it up time and time again with their self-interested careerism. The members have chosen the least worst option in every case.
I don't much care how they choose, I'm just curious if them talking about how to choose becomes more of a common thing.
In the bumfight that will follow a massive defeat I'm curious if one faction will set its sights of revamping party structures all over.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
The Greens don't choose the SNP leader and FM, the SNP does that. The scenario we are discussing is the SNP has chosen Forbes. The Greens now have a choice to do a deal with Forbes while parliamentary arithmetic favours them or VoNC at any time, which would force an election where they stand to win seats and the SNP lose them. In this way they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
I am honestly not sure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing. I think Forbes is by far the best candidate but I do not think that the SNP can choose her at the present time for exactly the same reasons as Yousaf fell today. The price of stable government is compatibility with the Greens. Nicola has been shown to be right about that. I don't believe that is a price that Forbes can pay. I don't believe that the Greens would believe she would pay it even if she offered it. They are just miles apart.
This is not the Greens choosing the SNP leadership, it is much more the SNP having to choose someone who can work with their only natural partner given the extremely balanced situation in Holyrood.
I see what you are saying. It's possible. I think Forbes could work with the Greens and still push through most of her agenda. But she may lack the necessary flexibility to work with others. Which is her big and possibly fatal weakness as a politician. Not just with the Greens.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think anyone we ship to Rwanda is going to stay there?
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Boats mostly float, and most people believe that theirs will.
Rwanda needs to be an inevitability, not a chance, if is to work. But it's not impossible for it become an inevitability.
A combination of: -Rwanda scaling up a bit to have more working spaces -People absconding from Rwanda very soon after arrival (almost everyone I'd predict) -The backlogue reducing due to people leaving the UK in advance of Rwanda -Future arrivals not making the boat journey because of Rwanda
The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
That's not certain at all. While far too many are drowning and its inhumane, the individual risk is low.
If everyone who crosses the Channel on a boat is sent abroad, which is the way the Aussies handle it, then the crossings and thus the drownings will stop.
Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in the UK can be worthwhile. Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in Rwanda is not.
We all know the Rwanda plan doesn't have the capacity to send all boat people
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
The Greens don't choose the SNP leader and FM, the SNP does that. The scenario we are discussing is the SNP has chosen Forbes. The Greens now have a choice to do a deal with Forbes while parliamentary arithmetic favours them or VoNC at any time, which would force an election where they stand to win seats and the SNP lose them. In this way they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
I am honestly not sure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing. I think Forbes is by far the best candidate but I do not think that the SNP can choose her at the present time for exactly the same reasons as Yousaf fell today. The price of stable government is compatibility with the Greens. Nicola has been shown to be right about that. I don't believe that is a price that Forbes can pay. I don't believe that the Greens would believe she would pay it even if she offered it. They are just miles apart.
This is not the Greens choosing the SNP leadership, it is much more the SNP having to choose someone who can work with their only natural partner given the extremely balanced situation in Holyrood.
James Kelly seems to think she'd be able to buy off the Tories.
James KellyApril 29, 2024 at 1:57 PM I don't agree with that. I think Kate Forbes would find a way of staving off an election. Remember an election isn't in the Tories' interests, so if she can give them some sort of way off the hook, they might well take it. And presumably she'd have the backing of Ash Regan.
Can't see SNP MSPs or the Tories going for this mind. A lot has changed since 2007.
The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
That's not certain at all. While far too many are drowning and its inhumane, the individual risk is low.
If everyone who crosses the Channel on a boat is sent abroad, which is the way the Aussies handle it, then the crossings and thus the drownings will stop.
Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in the UK can be worthwhile. Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in Rwanda is not.
We all know the Rwanda plan doesn't have the capacity to send all boat people
Yes it does.
Rwanda has the capacity to take thousands, or tens of thousands, if we pay them for it.
Especially since the number of people crossing on boats will drop down to the hundreds not tens of thousands if they knew it was a direct one-way ticket to Rwanda.
The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
No, no. Australia started turning back boats. It was the turnbacks not the 3rd party processing that made a difference.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
If Rwanda WORKS - and that is possible, but highly unlikely - it will be an incredible dilemma for Starmer. Will he really ditch an effective policy and then see the boat people return? Labour would go from triumphant to abhorred in a few weeks, and they would be looking at one term only, and much of that miserable
Labour apparently won't be bringing any of those taken to Rwanda back. What's the point of them. They have the principles of a syphilis outbreak.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Sir Graham would like to deprive members of the final vote in leadership elections, but it does bother me that anyone not in the PCP gives his self-interested twaddle the time of day.
It was the PCP that gave the members Truss and Sunak to choose from. A deeply flawed leader and a flat out dud (choose which is which depending on taste). It was the PCP who gave members IDS and Kenneth Clarke to choose from. It's the PCP that fucks it up time and time again with their self-interested careerism. The members have chosen the least worst option in every case.
I don't much care how they choose, I'm just curious if them talking about how to choose becomes more of a common thing.
In the bumfight that will follow a massive defeat I'm curious if one faction will set its sights of revamping party structures all over.
I assume you mean bunfight, though with the current intake perhaps your suggestion is likelier.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
Yes, of course. What we are seeing is a collision between morally narcissistic lefty delusions and reality. The reality is, Rwanda would work, if implemented. It is also humane, albeit unpleasant
Of course in an ideal world we’d take every boat person and give them a flat in Marylebone. The world is not ideal
So we do what we can, within the bounds of humanity. Sending some people to Rwanda - safely - so that the boats stop and we no longer see people drowning in the channel and the British taxpayer no longer has to cough up to house 300,000 people in hotels is the humane option
Rwanda would definitely work if implemented rigorously. If every boat person was sent there straight away for a few weeks all the boats would stop entirely. No more drowned people. That’s a good thing
But that’s not what is being proposed. The Tories are desperately hoping the mere threat of Rwanda will be enough. A 1 in a 100 chance you get detained and sent to darkest Africa
I reckon it’s quite unlikely it will be that effective. But, it is not impossible. The Tories’ only hope of avoiding a total electoral extinction arguably depends on this - so I can see why they are so focused on it
That's inbuilt though as no country - especially one with one of the highest population densities in the world will accept numbers on that scale - and even if one did the bill they would demand would be huge, and the risk of it going tits up and causing a disaster would be that too.
A far cheaper and less risky way of stopping the boats would be to spend that money on properly clearing the backlog of claims and sorting out return agreements again with Europe so there'd be little point in coming over at volume.
What's odd is that Sunak's one success on this has been getting an agreement with Albania, which reduced those coming here. It's a problem that can only be really solved by agreements, a newfound efficiency, or, if you went down the Rwanda/Gandalf 'Thou Shalt Not Pass' route by mountains of money that last time I checked, we don't have.
Focusing on Rwanda has been disastrous for them as it's both reminded the public of the problem and distracted them from trying to do things to solve it, while making them look both cruel and inept.
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Yes, Labour will underperform on NEV this week, because they always do. Crudely, because local Lib voters are mostly happy to be squeezed at a GE. Always have been. Any reason to think this year will be different?
As for Reform, yes some will be squeezed back into.the blue column- probably between a third and a half. There's a decent run of data on that as well.
The punchline (though the whole thread is worth it, and has nice charts)
A big question is what is the best-case scenario from here for the Tories. Gaining back half of DKs is reasonable, with half of Reform voters and a third of Labour voters optimistic. Combined with roughly 1m gains from other parties, gets you to 9.1m (around 31% of the vote).
Still, we'll know 10 pm Thursday, won't we? That's when the General Election exit poll is out, right?
Your post sounds like all your feathers are ruffled. Don’t shoot the messenger for merely pointing out to you what’s coming - how the narrative completely changes once starting gun is fired.
“gets you to 9.1m (around 31% of the vote).” Your guys are daft to use number of votes. 9.1m could even be 50% of all votes cast, no one can say for sure, except more than a hint from uninspired voters we should expect a shocking low turnout. A smart bet will be Starmer does not match the number of votes Boris got in 2019. Labours polling average is already under what Boris got last time, and Labour bound to maintain record of under perform it.
The Labour polling poorly. They are not inspiring the electorate. Starmer’s own rating is one of the worst for opposition leaders, it’s the level where opposition leaders have failed to win, but saved here by opponent polling much worse despite advantage of being PM. Sunak’s record bad headlines wins headlines, obscuring how bad Starmer is doing.
Labours leads are extraordinary for the fact it’s based on the fools gold of not being over a united centre right bloc, as is historically the case such as 1997. Labour only have double digit lead because Ref and Con are nearly perfectly sharing a bloc of votes that is normally united. If it unites, Labours lead is about 4% or 5%.
These are facts, but second guessing from them what happens in the real event coming isn’t fact. No one knows for sure what is going to happen. But if the narrative does change, on economy, Rwanda and migrants, putting Labour on the back foot for 6 weeks, we know from history that centre right bloc can unite, just like that in weeks not months.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
No, no. Australia started turning back boats. It was the turnbacks not the 3rd party processing that made a difference.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
You are completely wrong. It was the third party processing that made the difference, the turnbacks just mopped up the very few that weren't deterred and the third party processing worked to enable the turnbacks too since it was a case of saying to them when intercepted "you finish this journey and you'll be sent immediately abroad" in which case nobody finishes the journey.
Amazing how sticky the belief that Labour needs a 12% lead to form a majority is. With the Scottish polling a 38-38 tie between the big two sees 304 Labour MP's to 280 Cons.
Edit. And that's on UNS. There is substantial evidence that the swing to Labour is much smaller in big cities. Meaning they are putting on votes in precisely the places they need them. Remember. In 2015, the Tories didn't come anywhere near the lead they "needed" to win a majority. That's FPTP for you.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think anyone we ship to Rwanda is going to stay there?
Bless...
Where are they going to go? Burundi?
They will abscond very quickly, but that's good. They will either go home, try another country, or worst comes to worst, try the UK again and get sent back again. It will mean less space in Rwanda is needed.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
I think you are demonstrating a terminological inexactitude.
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
The EPP manifesto is just that . This isn’t an EU wide policy . And even the EPP say they’ll accept a quote of asylum seekers back who have passed the process in those third country’s .
‘Huge disruption’ anticipated from new Brexit border checks
Physical product inspections on flowers, cheese and more at UK ports from Tuesday may incur costs and increase supply chain delays, say business owners
On Tuesday physical inspections will be introduced at UK ports on animal products, plants and plant products coming from Europe.
All high-risk imports such as live animals, plants, eggs and seeds will be checked and up to a third of those deemed medium risk — dairy, wild caught fish and some cut flowers — will be subject to spot inspection.
As part of the new system all imports through the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel will be subject to a “common user charge” of up to £145 for each mixed consignment and there will be additional costs for every inspection carried out.
Given that she's the One Who Lost To Hamza Yousaf, wouldn't the omens for her ascension be pretty poor?
Not a fan, as I oppose her central, independence, policy, but I think she has colossal potential to be a very good leader. She only just lost to Yousef (52/48) which, given the flak she gets for her unfashionable views on 'personal conscience' matters, was pretty good.
Ask the question: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want and not want? I think they both don't want Forbes.
Ask the question: Who would you have if you want a really broad cross section of Scots to take independence seriously? For that I think she is in the frame.
She didn't lose to Yousaf, she lost to Nicola and her husband and their iron grip on the party at that time. That grip is now gone.
Like you I fundamentally oppose the independence policy but I still rate her highly. She seems competent in a sort of old fashioned way that we haven't seen for a while. I'd like to try competence, after all we have tried everything else.
Her problem is that she has made it crystal clear that she has absolutely no time for the Greens and it is mutual. What these last few days have shown is that in this Parliament at least you cannot have a stable government without them. Unless you can get one of the Unionist parties to play and I don't see how she sells that to her party. The Greens at least pretend to be for independence.
Forbes and the Greens will come to an understanding if both decide they need each other.
If Forbes is as smart as you say she is she won't repeat precisely the same unforced error that brought Yousaf down literally hours ago. The Greens are in a powerful position and can name their price. That looks like a basis for a deal.
Their price is a leader that they think that they can work with. That's not Yousaf but its not Forbes either. She is about as far from their position on transgender issues as it is possible to get. When she took maternity leave as Finance Minister she made it clear that no Green was to have a role in the department. She seriously (understandably given her constituency) disagrees with their positions of the dualling of the A9 and the A96. (As someone who struggled up the A9 this morning stuck behind trails of lorries at 50 I am with her on that 100%). She is not sceptical about climate change (AIUI) but like Sunak is very concerned about its implications for growth and jobs. She is concerned about the investment implications of Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK. There is very little that they could agree on.
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
The Greens don't choose the SNP leader and FM, the SNP does that. The scenario we are discussing is the SNP has chosen Forbes. The Greens now have a choice to do a deal with Forbes while parliamentary arithmetic favours them or VoNC at any time, which would force an election where they stand to win seats and the SNP lose them. In this way they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
I am honestly not sure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing. I think Forbes is by far the best candidate but I do not think that the SNP can choose her at the present time for exactly the same reasons as Yousaf fell today. The price of stable government is compatibility with the Greens. Nicola has been shown to be right about that. I don't believe that is a price that Forbes can pay. I don't believe that the Greens would believe she would pay it even if she offered it. They are just miles apart.
This is not the Greens choosing the SNP leadership, it is much more the SNP having to choose someone who can work with their only natural partner given the extremely balanced situation in Holyrood.
James Kelly seems to think she'd be able to buy off the Tories.
James KellyApril 29, 2024 at 1:57 PM I don't agree with that. I think Kate Forbes would find a way of staving off an election. Remember an election isn't in the Tories' interests, so if she can give them some sort of way off the hook, they might well take it. And presumably she'd have the backing of Ash Regan.
Can't see SNP MSPs or the Tories going for this mind. A lot has changed since 2007.
I agree with the last bit. Salmond was able to come to understandings with the Tories but he had a very different SNP to that that Nicola left behind. Salmond was much more focused on independence than creating a socialist utopia through devolved powers. That focus made him interested in how the Scottish economy actually fared in the real world, a focus Forbes shares. I was honestly surprised that Forbes got 48% of the vote the last time.
Now, I suspect that Forbes would lose at least as many votes to the left as she gained to the right with such manoeuvres. Our politics are far more polarised and not for the better. I fear Forbes has as much chance of leading the current SNP as Ken Clarke did the Tories.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
Yes, of course. What we are seeing is a collision between morally narcissistic lefty delusions and reality. The reality is, Rwanda would work, if implemented. It is also humane, albeit unpleasant
Of course in an ideal world we’d take every boat person and give them a flat in Marylebone. The world is not ideal
So we do what we can, within the bounds of humanity. Sending some people to Rwanda - safely - so that the boats stop and we no longer see people drowning in the channel and the British taxpayer no longer has to cough up to house 300,000 people in hotels is the humane option
There is nothing humane in letting people smugglers carry people across one of the most dangerous and deadly stretches of water on the planet in dinghies resulting in regular drownings.
Rwanda would definitely work if implemented rigorously. If every boat person was sent there straight away for a few weeks all the boats would stop entirely. No more drowned people. That’s a good thing
But that’s not what is being proposed. The Tories are desperately hoping the mere threat of Rwanda will be enough. A 1 in a 100 chance you get detained and sent to darkest Africa
I reckon it’s quite unlikely it will be that effective. But, it is not impossible. The Tories’ only hope of avoiding a total electoral extinction arguably depends on this - so I can see why they are so focused on it
That's inbuilt though as no country - especially one with one of the highest population densities in the world will accept numbers on that scale - and even if one did the bill they would demand would be huge, and the risk of it going tits up and causing a disaster would be that too.
A far cheaper and less risky way of stopping the boats would be to spend that money on properly clearing the backlog of claims and sorting out return agreements again with Europe so there'd be little point in coming over at volume.
What's odd is that Sunak's one success on this has been getting an agreement with Albania, which reduced those coming here. It's a problem that can only be really solved by agreements, a newfound efficiency, or, if you went down the Rwanda/Gandalf 'Thou Shalt Not Pass' route by mountains of money that last time I checked, we don't have.
Focusing on Rwanda has been disastrous for them as it's both reminded the public of the problem and distracted them from trying to do things to solve it, while making them look both cruel and inept.
Utter nonsense
The uk is right now spending billions - billions - to house all the asylum seekers in hotels. It is insane. And we can’t sustain it
We can spend these billions housing them in much cheaper places abroad and they will welcome the money, and of course in short order the boats will stop anyway, when they realise they are heading to Africa not Europe
I say again and for the last time, as I want to go see 3 body problem then sleep, in the end every advanced country will end up doing some form of Rwanda. It is the only humane option between the two appalling poles of open borders or sink the boats
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
No, no. Australia started turning back boats. It was the turnbacks not the 3rd party processing that made a difference.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
Correct, their off shoring to PNG and Nauru started in 2012 and in the following year there were record arrivals. So Australia abandoned off shoring and switched to interception and towbacks, and that is what worked.
"The war of words has intensified between the UK and Irish governments over the possible effects of the Rwanda policy.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister said people are crossing the border from Northern Ireland as they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda.
The Irish government is preparing emergency legislation that will allow people to be sent back to the UK.
But Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had arrived from France."
ITV news tonight interviewed asylum seekers in Ireland and they were unanimous about their fear of Rwanda
ITV also said a Labour party spokesperson confirmed they would scrap the scheme on election notwithstanding this developments
This is a classic example of trying to move a problem without resolving it. Presumably said migrants can enter Ireland from France so we might end up having refugee camps on the Irish border instead of Calais which will presuambly mean we'll have to waste time and resources strengthening that border as migrants use that as another option.
Perhaps we'll need naval patrols in the Irish Sea to deter those trying to cross from Ireland.
What is the "plan"? Deterrence presumably but if we get hundreds coming in during the summer from France AND Ireland along with those already here how many are we realistically going to be able to send to Kigali?
Migrants in France can't get to Ireland by sea, and as Ireland is not in Shengen, their best route has always been via UK.
Then Ireland should put pressure on France to 'stop the boats'.
Something like the Rwanda scheme could well end up as an EU-wide policy, and all the people who are calling it unconscionable will suddenly decide that it's sensible and the right thing to do.
The use of a third party nation is not the problem, so the EU may use third party locations. That is almost inevitable by the political clamour in Europe. The problem is the use of an unsafe third party nation, which by diktat we have deemed safe. A nation where six years ago asylum seekers were gunned down for complaining about their rations.
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
Yes and the EU will still accept asylum seekers back from those third countries who have their applications accepted . The UK policy is to not process anyone who comes on a boat .
I think you are demonstrating a terminological inexactitude.
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
The EPP manifesto is just that . This isn’t an EU wide policy . And even the EPP say they’ll accept a quote of asylum seekers back who have passed the process in those third country’s .
Which will probably be some tiny fraction of those sent.
Amazing how sticky the belief that Labour needs a 12% lead to form a majority is. With the Scottish polling a 38-38 tie between the big two sees 304 Labour MP's to 280 Cons.
🎶It don't mean a thing, If it's uniform swing Do wop, do wop, do wop, do wop, do wop...
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
No, no. Australia started turning back boats. It was the turnbacks not the 3rd party processing that made a difference.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
You are completely wrong. It was the third party processing that made the difference, the turnbacks just mopped up the very few that weren't deterred and the third party processing worked to enable the turnbacks too since it was a case of saying to them when intercepted "you finish this journey and you'll be sent immediately abroad" in which case nobody finishes the journey.
Did Australia’s offshore asylum scheme reduce ‘illegal maritime arrivals’?
At first glance, the answer appears to be yes. The number of people arriving by boat on Australian shores is now significantly lower than it was in the years before offshoring was introduced.
But on closer inspection, the picture is less clear.
In the year after offshore processing began, the number of arrivals did not decline – it increased. Some 25,173 people arrived by boat between July 2012 and July 2013 – three times more than the number who crossed in the previous 12 months...
The first turnbacks – part of Operation Sovereign Borders – began on 17 December 2013. This coincides more closely with the drop in boat arrivals than the introduction of the offshoring policy in 2012.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
Yes, of course. What we are seeing is a collision between morally narcissistic lefty delusions and reality. The reality is, Rwanda would work, if implemented. It is also humane, albeit unpleasant
Of course in an ideal world we’d take every boat person and give them a flat in Marylebone. The world is not ideal
So we do what we can, within the bounds of humanity. Sending some people to Rwanda - safely - so that the boats stop and we no longer see people drowning in the channel and the British taxpayer no longer has to cough up to house 300,000 people in hotels is the humane option
There is nothing humane in letting people smugglers carry people across one of the most dangerous and deadly stretches of water on the planet in dinghies resulting in regular drownings.
The drownings have to be stopped.
I agree completely. The left is so demented it seems to prefer people drowning - in the channel or the med - to an actually effective, humane if ruthless migration policy. I guess it’s all about virtue signalling and associated social status, as ever
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
How many boats has it stopped?
Oh...
How many planes have taken off?
Oh...
Assuming Sunak manages to get a few dozen planes to Rwanda through the summer, do you think that will affect the boat numbers?
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
Yes, I think if planes are taking off then it would stop the boats and thus stop the drownings at sea at the hands of people smugglers.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Personally, I'm pretty sure a plane will take off, but we shall see.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Strong disagree. The drowning risk is less than 0.1%. The danger of having a shit time in a foreign third world country, with no money and no family support, is 100%.
You think all 30,000+ boat migrants expected this year are going to be flown to Rwanda?
Its a bit like Catch 22.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
No, no. Australia started turning back boats. It was the turnbacks not the 3rd party processing that made a difference.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
Correct, their off shoring to PNG and Nauru started in 2012 and in the following year there were record arrivals. So Australia abandoned off shoring and switched to interception and towbacks, and that is what worked.
Complete nonsense.
The offshoring began as a trial and was then expanded to being applied to everyone as a rule and the boat crossings almost entirely stopped.
Interception happened with next to no boats, since they weren't coming anymore, and turnaround worked because when the occupants were told the choice was to go back or end up in Nauru, they chose of their own volition to turn around.
Comments
Also the EU overall, esp France, which takes our money yet refuses to properly police the boat people (because France wants them gone, so the UK can pay) and now suddenly the EU wants the right to return refugees to the UK, from Ireland, a right the UK does not have with France/EU?
Fuck em
International co-operation with our neighbours in pursuit of common aims. If only there was an organisation we could all be members of to facilitate such agreements.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
To be honest, its one of the reasons I like her.
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
@christiancalgie
I appreciate Liz Truss's downfall was more impactful and chaotic for Brits, but also she actually imploded while trying to do radical things she believed would improve things... Yousaf just sort of tripped up on his own shoelaces for no apparent reason
Its been done before in other countries and is tried and tested as working.
People won't pay people smugglers in order to end up in a third country.
The Australian Labor Party scrapped Australia's equivalent of the scheme, only to then reintroduce it a couple of years later.
I also think @Theuniondivvie's quote is a lot more ambiguous than he seems to think it is.
This notion voters go into the polling station considering who will be the better Prime Minister and voting on that basis is nonsensical - first, most voters vote against someone or something rather than for it and the one thing we can see from the polls you deride is while there is little for enthusiasm there is huge antipathy for Sunak and the Conservatives.
You told us there would be a May election - now you're telling us it will be July. It won't. Winning a couple of Mayoral contests may be spun by CCHQ as a good result but if Houchen wins 55-45 instad of 73-27 that's still an 18% swing to Labour. Khan will probably beat Hall fairly comfortably though I think Andy Street, who has basically disassociated himself from the Conservative Party, might survive and kudos to him if so doing.
The local council results will tell their own story - I'm expecting 500 Conservative losses at least and where the Conservatives do hang on it will be as much to the inability of the opposition parties to field sufficient candidates or a Street-style disassociation by "local Conservatives".
The notional numbers won't be as dramatic as some of the recent national polling of course, they never are, but will continue to indicate a strong Labour performance.
they destroy her government. This is precisely the equation Yousaf didn't think through when he dumped the Greens a couple of days ago. Where is he now?
1:05 minutes in - https://youtu.be/6_0VBS9AOhE?si=9UckOLaYxeN4W7ho
https://beyondthetopline.substack.com/p/forget-the-party-spin-what-does-history
As for Reform, yes some will be squeezed back into.the blue column- probably between a third and a half. There's a decent run of data on that as well.
The punchline (though the whole thread is worth it, and has nice charts)
A big question is what is the best-case scenario from here for the Tories. Gaining back half of DKs is reasonable, with half of Reform voters and a third of Labour voters optimistic. Combined with roughly 1m gains from other parties, gets you to 9.1m (around 31% of the vote).
https://twitter.com/Dylan_Difford/status/1784522718273995057
Still, we'll know 10 pm Thursday, won't we? That's when the General Election exit poll is out, right?
Not a flight has left the ground and the client media and PB Tory rampers are calling the win. A win is a win.
I wish I'd known about the chimney sweep story
Oh...
Oh...
But that’s not what is being proposed. The Tories are desperately hoping the mere threat of Rwanda will be enough. A 1 in a 100 chance you get detained and sent to darkest Africa
I reckon it’s quite unlikely it will be that effective. But, it is not impossible. The Tories’ only hope of avoiding a total electoral extinction arguably depends on this - so I can see why they are so focused on it
Question Time will still be inviting him on as a guest of course.
But she is rather good.
Don't worry about the boats.
How will the policy look if by the election the 2024 boat numbers are mirroring 2022?
This is not the Greens choosing the SNP leadership, it is much more the SNP having to choose someone who can work with their only natural partner given the extremely balanced situation in Holyrood.
What is the bizarre ongoing leftist belief that EU = good and UK = bad?? It was perhaps understandable immediately after Brexit. An emotional overreaction. But we are now way beyond Brexit
Anyone applying for asylum in the EU could also be transferred to a safe third country and undergo the asylum process there. In the case of a positive outcome, the safe third country will grant protection to the applicant onsite.
Currently its not much of a deterrent as there's no real expectation for a plane to actually take off.
Look at my avatar. The lectern does not say 'affect the numbers'...
Anyway it’s great to see the PB Tory Unionist Forbesie caucus coming into being.
If the prospect of drowning isn't a deterrent the chance of being flown to Rwanda certainly won't be.
Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one. Remember when the story broke and when the 'campaign' ended. Any impact was minimal at best. It was also something of a one-shot pistol. An aspect of the failure of the Rayner allegations to move the polls is that Currygate turned out to be, how should we say this, a load of bollocks.
Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE. Well, probably. However, not inevitably. I think Lab will have to make a major mistake and that is not impossible. However, to assume it will happen is to seriously under-estimate Starmer. He does not have to be brilliant he just has to be better than his opponent and at the moment that opponent seems very likely to be Mr Rishi Sunak.
Think on that - have you seen any evidence that Mr Sunak can maintain a credible election campaign? Can you imagine him facing a 'job interview' style grilling from a serious journalist? Can you imagine him in a debate with Starmer? To have a chance of closing the gap to any meaningful degree he willl have to do all of those and do them well.
In my many GEs I have only ever voted Lab once. I am no fan-boy for Starmer. However, their (not so) secret weapons are going to be front and centre throughout the GE campaign whenever it comes. Their names - Mr Rishi Sunak and the truly pathetic record of the current Govt.
We can all hope for miracles but they hardly ever come.
There hasn't been a single drowning by a refugee heading to Australia in over a decade now due to the boats stopping.
How many fatalities have their been in Channel in the past week alone, let alone the last decade?
It doesn't surprise me at all that Sir Graham would like to deprive members of the final vote in leadership elections, but it does bother me that anyone not in the PCP gives his self-interested twaddle the time of day.
It was the PCP that gave the members Truss and Sunak to choose from. A deeply flawed leader and a flat out dud (choose which is which depending on taste). It was the PCP who gave members IDS and Kenneth Clarke to choose from. It's the PCP that fucks it up time and time again with their self-interested careerism. The members have chosen the least worst option in every case.
A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/home-office-lost-contact-thousands-migrants-rwanda-flights-psc2grw7b
If everyone who crosses the Channel on a boat is sent abroad, which is the way the Aussies handle it, then the crossings and thus the drownings will stop.
Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in the UK can be worthwhile.
Risking your life and paying people smugglers to end up in Rwanda is not.
With hindsight sometimes we can see why someone struck home, but we're a lot people anticipating just how supportive the Labour membership would go for the chap advancing bog standard leftist clichés in an sincerely unassuming way? That the Tory Brexiteers would adopt a former Remainer so tightly?
With Forbes all I can recall is she was the apparent change candidate to Yousaf's everything is fine candidate, then she imploded because if her social views but still ran him close. Was she perceived as some wunderkind before that?
George Mann
@sgfmann
·
2m
The i: PIP disability benefit could be cut using new system with six ‘tiers’ #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
WTF!!!!! Tiers aren't even mentioned in the new DWP Green Paper.
Bless...
In the bumfight that will follow a massive defeat I'm curious if one faction will set its sights of revamping party structures all over.
Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
If you implement the policy that all are sent to Rwanda, then the crossings will stop, so you don't need to send many to Rwanda.
That's exactly what happened in Australia. Not theoretical discussion, actual facts.
Rwanda needs to be an inevitability, not a chance, if is to work. But it's not impossible for it become an inevitability.
A combination of:
-Rwanda scaling up a bit to have more working spaces
-People absconding from Rwanda very soon after arrival (almost everyone I'd predict)
-The backlogue reducing due to people leaving the UK in advance of Rwanda
-Future arrivals not making the boat journey because of Rwanda
could see it very close to working.
James KellyApril 29, 2024 at 1:57 PM
I don't agree with that. I think Kate Forbes would find a way of staving off an election. Remember an election isn't in the Tories' interests, so if she can give them some sort of way off the hook, they might well take it. And presumably she'd have the backing of Ash Regan.
Can't see SNP MSPs or the Tories going for this mind. A lot has changed since 2007.
Rwanda has the capacity to take thousands, or tens of thousands, if we pay them for it.
Especially since the number of people crossing on boats will drop down to the hundreds not tens of thousands if they knew it was a direct one-way ticket to Rwanda.
Immigration to Europe needs to be dealt with at a European level. Sadly we've turned our back on cooperation with our European neighbours.
Of course in an ideal world we’d take every boat person and give them a flat in Marylebone. The world is not ideal
So we do what we can, within the bounds of humanity. Sending some people to Rwanda - safely - so that the boats stop and we no longer see people drowning in the channel and the British taxpayer no longer has to cough up to house 300,000 people in hotels is the humane option
A far cheaper and less risky way of stopping the boats would be to spend that money on properly clearing the backlog of claims and sorting out return agreements again with Europe so there'd be little point in coming over at volume.
What's odd is that Sunak's one success on this has been getting an agreement with Albania, which reduced those coming here. It's a problem that can only be really solved by agreements, a newfound efficiency, or, if you went down the Rwanda/Gandalf 'Thou Shalt Not Pass' route by mountains of money that last time I checked, we don't have.
Focusing on Rwanda has been disastrous for them as it's both reminded the public of the problem and distracted them from trying to do things to solve it, while making them look both cruel and inept.
“gets you to 9.1m (around 31% of the vote).”
Your guys are daft to use number of votes. 9.1m could even be 50% of all votes cast, no one can say for sure, except more than a hint from uninspired voters we should expect a shocking low turnout. A smart bet will be Starmer does not match the number of votes Boris got in 2019. Labours polling average is already under what Boris got last time, and Labour bound to maintain record of under perform it.
The Labour polling poorly. They are not inspiring the electorate. Starmer’s own rating is one of the worst for opposition leaders, it’s the level where opposition leaders have failed to win, but saved here by opponent polling much worse despite advantage of being PM. Sunak’s record bad headlines wins headlines, obscuring how bad Starmer is doing.
Labours leads are extraordinary for the fact it’s based on the fools gold of not being over a united centre right bloc, as is historically the case such as 1997. Labour only have double digit lead because Ref and Con are nearly perfectly sharing a bloc of votes that is normally united. If it unites, Labours lead is about 4% or 5%.
These are facts, but second guessing from them what happens in the real event coming isn’t fact. No one knows for sure what is going to happen. But if the narrative does change, on economy, Rwanda and migrants, putting Labour on the back foot for 6 weeks, we know from history that centre right bloc can unite, just like that in weeks not months.
With the Scottish polling a 38-38 tie between the big two sees 304 Labour MP's to 280 Cons.
Edit.
And that's on UNS. There is substantial evidence that the swing to Labour is much smaller in big cities. Meaning they are putting on votes in precisely the places they need them.
Remember. In 2015, the Tories didn't come anywhere near the lead they "needed" to win a majority.
That's FPTP for you.
This great @rhodium_group report on EU tariff calculations for Chinese EVs has been making headlines.
The cost breakdown for BYD's Seal U shows a hefty €14,000+ profit on each unit sold in the EU at current tariff rates, even after shipping.
https://twitter.com/kyleichan/status/1785043428977352725
Physical product inspections on flowers, cheese and more at UK ports from Tuesday may incur costs and increase supply chain delays, say business owners
On Tuesday physical inspections will be introduced at UK ports on animal products, plants and plant products coming from Europe.
All high-risk imports such as live animals, plants, eggs and seeds will be checked and up to a third of those deemed medium risk — dairy, wild caught fish and some cut flowers — will be subject to spot inspection.
As part of the new system all imports through the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel will be subject to a “common user charge” of up to £145 for each mixed consignment and there will be additional costs for every inspection carried out.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-border-checks-eu-uk-europe-2ch90kdk7
Now, I suspect that Forbes would lose at least as many votes to the left as she gained to the right with such manoeuvres. Our politics are far more polarised and not for the better. I fear Forbes has as much chance of leading the current SNP as Ken Clarke did the Tories.
The drownings have to be stopped.
The uk is right now spending billions - billions - to house all the asylum seekers in hotels. It is insane. And we can’t sustain it
We can spend these billions housing them in much cheaper places abroad and they will welcome the money, and of course in short order the boats will stop anyway, when they realise they are heading to Africa not Europe
I say again and for the last time, as I want to go see 3 body problem then sleep, in the end every advanced country will end up doing some form of Rwanda. It is the only humane option between the two appalling poles of open borders or sink the boats
If it's uniform swing
Do wop, do wop, do wop, do wop, do wop...
At first glance, the answer appears to be yes. The number of people arriving by boat on Australian shores is now significantly lower than it was in the years before offshoring was introduced.
But on closer inspection, the picture is less clear.
In the year after offshore processing began, the number of arrivals did not decline – it increased. Some 25,173 people arrived by boat between July 2012 and July 2013 – three times more than the number who crossed in the previous 12 months...
The first turnbacks – part of Operation Sovereign Borders – began on 17 December 2013. This coincides more closely with the drop in boat arrivals than the introduction of the offshoring policy in 2012.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-did-australian-offshore-asylum-system-reduce-boat-crossings
And on that note, good night, good night
The offshoring began as a trial and was then expanded to being applied to everyone as a rule and the boat crossings almost entirely stopped.
Interception happened with next to no boats, since they weren't coming anymore, and turnaround worked because when the occupants were told the choice was to go back or end up in Nauru, they chose of their own volition to turn around.
The two policies aren't alternatives.