7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I assume Rwanda gets paid a fixed fee, not per person, so they're not getting antsy about things?
Not fixed at all. Rwanda extracts an ever increasing account of money from a desperate UK government in exchange for doing as little as possible. They still have quite some way to go if Australia is a guide. Nauru currently charges Australia $AUS 22 million per refugee per year.
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.
Awful reporting from Channel 4, missing the fact that the policy was changed in late 2013 to being all arrivals by boats would be sent abroad, no exceptions, and when that change was implemented was when the collapse in numbers happened.
Worth putting yourself in the shoes of an asylum seeker here when trying to guess whether the scheme will work or not. This is personal risk-reward trade off stuff. Behavioural psychology.
My parents volunteer a reception centre in the midlands and some of the stories are quite something. Full of risk-reward trade off decisions. One family, Iranian Christians (practising before leaving Iran, not one of those sudden post arrival converts) came by small boat with their extremely bright young daughter and have talked a lot about the journey and experience. It’s quite an epic tale, including the imprisonment and torture that led to their fleeing. They came to the UK because of family connections here.
Currently (pre-Rwanda) it seems the good reasons to get to the UK on a boat include, in descending order: friends and relatives here; wider migrant community; English speaking; relatively easy to get unskilled work; people smugglers willing to take you; lingering UK soft power and reputation (particularly in Iran if you’re anti government)
Risks are: danger of drowning; asylum application may be refused (but stats suggest relatively low risk); traffickers do you over and nick your money and possessions.
To these are now added: you might get sent to Rwanda.
What do you do? I think it depends on your other trade offs. If you have friends and relatives in France or Germany or NL and a strong asylum case can speak the language maybe you don’t bother with UK anymore. If you’re young and think you can slip in and live and work illegally, maybe you still do it but this time just skip the asylum claim bit. Or you maybe wait a bit and see what those who’ve gone before you do.
This thing will evolve over time and no doubt the rumours will swirl around Calais, one way or the other.
I assume Rwanda gets paid a fixed fee, not per person, so they're not getting antsy about things?
Not fixed at all. Rwanda extracts an ever increasing account of money from a desperate UK government in exchange for doing as little as possible. They still have quite some way to go if Australia is a guide. Nauru currently charges Australia $AUS 22 million per refugee per year.
That's a bargain for Australia, considering that Australia hasn't had to send anyone to Nauru for a decade as the crossings stopped because of the fact that everyone who crosses would go to Nauru.
People don't cross if that's the destination, and so the payment shouldn't be considered as a cost per person sent but per life saved, deterrence, etc and it has unambiguously worked.
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.
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.
Wouldn’t she feel more at home in Alabama . She can’t run away from her social views .
Pathetic and bigoted
Whose the bigot . I’m not the one judging what people do in their private lives . Forbes seems happy to look down on those who dare to have sex before marriage , is anti-abortion and anti gay marriage . She can suck up the consequences to making those opinions public . She can drone on about her principled stand , her principles thankfully aren’t shared by the majority .
Utter bollox , she has not droned on about anything, she was asked a question once and answered truthfully , unlike your average politician. She is entitled to her opinion which is at least as good as your opinion and your pathetic attempt at stating you know it is the majority just shows you are not right in the head. Typical nasty bigot.
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.
Awful reporting from Channel 4, missing the fact that the policy was changed in late 2013 to being all arrivals by boats would be sent abroad, no exceptions, and when that change was implemented was when the collapse in numbers happened.
Our policy is not to send all migrants to Rwanda, it is to send several hundred. Not even the weekend arrivals worth.
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.
There is absolutely no way the Tories would ever negotiate a deal with the SNP that would put them in power. The days of Annabel Goldie and Alex Salmond are long gone, and Tory members would not wear it. If there is a unionist majority next time the only possible outcome is a Labour/LibDem minority administration assuming the Tories get a reasonable return.
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...
You two! I’m talking about a 12% NEV needed this week as not to hopelessly underperform the polls in real votes.
Put your do wops away and tell us what NEV Labour need from local elections to prove the are on for majority? 4%? 8%?
You tell us right now what NEV result is par, so we know what NEV is blow or above par, so you don’t try to call any old dogs dinner of results a fantastic result like you normally do.
Btw Deano, sorry to hear how poorly your treated by employer.
I assume Rwanda gets paid a fixed fee, not per person, so they're not getting antsy about things?
Not fixed at all. Rwanda extracts an ever increasing account of money from a desperate UK government in exchange for doing as little as possible. They still have quite some way to go if Australia is a guide. Nauru currently charges Australia $AUS 22 million per refugee per year.
That's a bargain for Australia, considering that Australia hasn't had to send anyone to Nauru for a decade as the crossings stopped because of the fact that everyone who crosses would go to Nauru.
People don't cross if that's the destination, and so the payment shouldn't be considered as a cost per person sent but per life saved, deterrence, etc and it has unambiguously worked.
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.
Awful reporting from Channel 4, missing the fact that the policy was changed in late 2013 to being all arrivals by boats would be sent abroad, no exceptions, and when that change was implemented was when the collapse in numbers happened.
Our policy is not to send all migrants to Rwanda, it is to send several hundred. Not even the weekend arrivals worth.
Policies evolve.
No point paying Rwanda to take all, until they're up and running taking some.
That's exactly how it worked with the Australian system. It started with Nauru taking some, then ended with them taking all once it was up and running. It didn't start with them taking all.
And the numbers collapsed immediately once it was all going. The policy that all would go was only announced in July 2013 and was only implemented after that, but as it happens Aussie data runs on a July-June fiscal year and the numbers collapsed between year ending June 2013 and year beginning July 2013. At the same time as the policy to send all was agreed.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
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.
Good thing too, we need probable high testosterone go getters like that out and about in the country to help address our decline.
Replacing the Home Office with them would be a start.
Hence my plan - based on paying lots of money to undocumented workers to find the employers.
They’ll be on the case, 100 hours a week.
Once they have been granted Leave to Remain they will be legal to employ.
That's part of the plan
1) Anyone who gives evidence leading to a conviction for employing undocumented workers/deliberately paying below minimum wage gets 50% of the £100K fine. Tax free. 2) Directors of companies will be personally liable - so the game of a Ltd company that only owns debt won't work. 3) If you are undocumented, upon the conviction of the employer, you get indefinite leave to remain.
Between ambulance chasing solicitors and the badly treated employees, I think we should have about 100% of the employers by lunch on the first day.
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.
No. The bottom line is the Tories should never have got into bed with the independence seeking nationalists in the first place, even if the rest of the policy was no different than their own thinking (which it wasn’t).
In Salmond and Sturgeon it’s the Tory Party recreated oddjob and oddbod from carry on screaming, like Frankenstein created a monster.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
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.
Good thing too, we need probable high testosterone go getters like that out and about in the country to help address our decline.
Replacing the Home Office with them would be a start.
Hence my plan - based on paying lots of money to undocumented workers to find the employers.
They’ll be on the case, 100 hours a week.
Once they have been granted Leave to Remain they will be legal to employ.
That's part of the plan
1) Anyone who gives evidence leading to a conviction for employing undocumented workers/deliberately paying below minimum wage gets 50% of the £100K fine. Tax free. 2) Directors of companies will be personally liable - so the game of a Ltd company that only owns debt won't work. 3) If you are undocumented, upon the conviction of the employer, you get indefinite leave to remain.
Between ambulance chasing solicitors and the badly treated employees, I think we should have about 100% of the employers by lunch on the first day.
Yes but asylum seekers are not undocumented workers. Illegal migration is a separate issue.
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
Yes, the cost of housing asylum seekers is out of hand - it's projected to reach around £11bn in a few years. But that's in part a function of having a massive backlog, and no returns agreements with the EU. Once you've processed them they can either work, get on with life and start paying taxes, or be sent back to their home country or a third country.
Rwanda, an estimate of the costs of sending the first 20,000 is estimated to reach around £4 bn (IPPR Report) - and that's not including other associated costs. Or around £200,000 per claimant - much more than we spend housing and feeding someone over two years. Even supporters say to cover its costs it has to act a deterrent (a very dubious claim).
And that's of course not sending at large volume - as you'd have to do with the "you arrive, you get on a plane" plan which would require much more of the country absorbing the migrants, and thus they would strike a harder deal. There's a reason countries were hardly queuing up to get involved.
As I say, the single best thing you can do to reduce that bill is to actually clear the backlog of claims so you're processing them to resolution speedily and given our situation agreements to return people to European countries if they've not got a good reason to make a claim in the UK. Especially as the longer someone's lost in the system, the more likely you are to lose them if that's their intention.
We don't actually have to deal with the numbers some other European countries do, we're just unbelievably crap at it after years of an approach whereby the government's policy was essentially trying to be obstructive in the hope they'd go away. But of course people don't.
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.
Wouldn’t she feel more at home in Alabama . She can’t run away from her social views .
Pathetic and bigoted
Whose the bigot . I’m not the one judging what people do in their private lives . Forbes seems happy to look down on those who dare to have sex before marriage , is anti-abortion and anti gay marriage . She can suck up the consequences to making those opinions public . She can drone on about her principled stand , her principles thankfully aren’t shared by the majority .
Utter bollox , she has not droned on about anything, she was asked a question once and answered truthfully , unlike your average politician. She is entitled to her opinion which is at least as good as your opinion and your pathetic attempt at stating you know it is the majority just shows you are not right in the head. Typical nasty bigot.
I never said she wasn’t entitled to her opinion. But you seem to be on a site discussing politics and refuse to accept that her opinions matter when you want to lead a party . So she’s truthful , fair enough but her position on a range of social issues is going to cause her problems .
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.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
I assume Rwanda gets paid a fixed fee, not per person, so they're not getting antsy about things?
Not fixed at all. Rwanda extracts an ever increasing account of money from a desperate UK government in exchange for doing as little as possible. They still have quite some way to go if Australia is a guide. Nauru currently charges Australia $AUS 22 million per refugee per year.
That's a bargain for Australia, considering that Australia hasn't had to send anyone to Nauru for a decade as the crossings stopped because of the fact that everyone who crosses would go to Nauru.
People don't cross if that's the destination, and so the payment shouldn't be considered as a cost per person sent but per life saved, deterrence, etc and it has unambiguously worked.
Hardly a bargain nor is it an obvious current deterrent for the huge amounts of money it still consumes while barely being operational.
Given Nauru has only intermittently accepted asylum seekers during its twenty years of existence. Given governments of both hues have had the embarrassing task over the past decade of how to get the asylum seekers off the island without sending them to Australia. When they were incarcerated in the first place at vast expense to stop them going to Australia. So they have had to do swap deals with the USA so Australia gets different refugees.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
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.
Good thing too, we need probable high testosterone go getters like that out and about in the country to help address our decline.
Replacing the Home Office with them would be a start.
Hence my plan - based on paying lots of money to undocumented workers to find the employers.
They’ll be on the case, 100 hours a week.
Once they have been granted Leave to Remain they will be legal to employ.
That's part of the plan
1) Anyone who gives evidence leading to a conviction for employing undocumented workers/deliberately paying below minimum wage gets 50% of the £100K fine. Tax free. 2) Directors of companies will be personally liable - so the game of a Ltd company that only owns debt won't work. 3) If you are undocumented, upon the conviction of the employer, you get indefinite leave to remain.
Between ambulance chasing solicitors and the badly treated employees, I think we should have about 100% of the employers by lunch on the first day.
Yes but asylum seekers are not undocumented workers. Illegal migration is a separate issue.
What do you think the asylum seekers who the Home Office have misplaced are doing?
I doubt very much they are sitting at home, doing knitting. For free.
The truth which many people don't want to acknowledge is that categories of migrant are a continuum. Very few people are 100% economic migrant and very few are 100% asylum seeker.
My wife came here for a better life. Also psycho Maoist intellectuals were having a breakdancing party in her country vs a fairly military government whose response was a counterrevolution. So say 60% economic/40% refugee.
A friend came from India on a work visa. But as a Christian, his church used to burn down every time the Roderick Spode fan club got indigestion - how much economic, how much refugee?
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...
You two! I’m talking about a 12% NEV needed this week as not to hopelessly underperform the polls in real votes.
Put your do wops away and tell us what NEV Labour need from local elections to prove the are on for majority? 4%? 8%?
You tell us right now what NEV result is par, so we know what NEV is blow or above par, so you don’t try to call any old dogs dinner of results a fantastic result like you normally do.
Btw Deano, sorry to hear how poorly your treated by employer.
Since you ask so nicely...
Some ideas in that article I linked to last time.
History says that a 20% lead in Westminster polling for Labour ought to be about 11% in NEV. Because of Squeezy Liberals.
If Thursday's results come out like that, the Conservatives need a flock of friendly black swans to avoid a 1997 (or worse) scenario whenever the GE is.
If the NEV gap is below 7 or 8%, the Conservatives have had a good night and the game may be afoot.
But the other factor is the distribution of anti Conservative votes. Efficient or scattergun? That was the main difference between 1983 and 1992, or between 2017 and 2019. That won't show up in the NEVs, but it affects the seat count massively.
Today OAN has announced it is retracting a false story about my client @MichaelCohen212 . This is a total vindication for Mr. Cohen -- and a warning: Mr. Cohen is telling the truth, and there will be legal consequences for those who lie about him. https://twitter.com/Edanyaperry/status/1785016706940932184
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
Unless we have a July election of course!
Exactly. The Rwanda scheme will win back voters to the Conservatives in July. It will be stone albatross around their necks by November.
I assume Rwanda gets paid a fixed fee, not per person, so they're not getting antsy about things?
Not fixed at all. Rwanda extracts an ever increasing account of money from a desperate UK government in exchange for doing as little as possible. They still have quite some way to go if Australia is a guide. Nauru currently charges Australia $AUS 22 million per refugee per year.
That's a bargain for Australia, considering that Australia hasn't had to send anyone to Nauru for a decade as the crossings stopped because of the fact that everyone who crosses would go to Nauru.
People don't cross if that's the destination, and so the payment shouldn't be considered as a cost per person sent but per life saved, deterrence, etc and it has unambiguously worked.
Hardly a bargain nor is it an obvious current deterrent for the huge amounts of money it still consumes while barely being operational.
Given Nauru has only intermittently accepted asylum seekers during its twenty years of existence. Given governments of both hues have had the embarrassing task over the past decade of how to get the asylum seekers off the island without sending them to Australia. When they were incarcerated in the first place at vast expense to stop them going to Australia. So they have had to do swap deals with the USA so Australia gets different refugees.
Nauru has only intermittently accepted anyone, as nobody is crossing, as the policy is working.
Your argument is like someone saying falsely that nuclear weapons aren't a deterrent and then measuring the cost of the weapons against how often they've been fired in anger.
Since Labor's Rudd announced that everyone who crossed would go to Nauru or PNG the crossings have stopped. The policy is working, but if you measure it per person transported the cost is high precisely because its working so there's no denominator to divide the cost between.
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
A man of considerable experience, as his many poll showings demonstrated.
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
Unless we have a July election of course!
Exactly. The Rwanda scheme will win back voters to the Conservatives in July. It will be stone albatross around their necks by November.
The Rwanda scheme will win back about zero voters to the Tories and save about zero MPs seats.
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...
You two! I’m talking about a 12% NEV needed this week as not to hopelessly underperform the polls in real votes.
Put your do wops away and tell us what NEV Labour need from local elections to prove the are on for majority? 4%? 8%?
You tell us right now what NEV result is par, so we know what NEV is blow or above par, so you don’t try to call any old dogs dinner of results a fantastic result like you normally do.
Btw Deano, sorry to hear how poorly your treated by employer.
Since you ask so nicely...
Some ideas in that article I linked to last time.
History says that a 20% lead in Westminster polling for Labour ought to be about 11% in NEV. Because of Squeezy Liberals.
If Thursday's results come out like that, the Conservatives need a flock of friendly black swans to avoid a 1997 (or worse) scenario whenever the GE is.
If the NEV gap is below 7 or 8%, the Conservatives have had a good night and the game may be afoot.
But the other factor is the distribution of anti Conservative votes. Efficient or scattergun? That was the main difference between 1983 and 1992, or between 2017 and 2019. That won't show up in the NEVs, but it affects the seat count massively.
Do wop.
Do wop indeed! With your 11% par!
I said 12% par and you were giving me all sorts of Tutti flippin Frutti.
No Relocated Individual (even if they do not make an application for asylum or humanitarian protection or whatever the outcome of their applications) shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 11(1). The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur, which includes systems (with the consent of the Relocated Individual as appropriate) for returns to the United Kingdom and locating, and regularly monitoring the location of, the Relocated Individual.
Article 11 is about the process to return going in some detail into how deportees can make legal applications for return.
Wouldn’t she feel more at home in Alabama . She can’t run away from her social views .
Pathetic and bigoted
Whose the bigot . I’m not the one judging what people do in their private lives . Forbes seems happy to look down on those who dare to have sex before marriage , is anti-abortion and anti gay marriage . She can suck up the consequences to making those opinions public . She can drone on about her principled stand , her principles thankfully aren’t shared by the majority .
Utter bollox , she has not droned on about anything, she was asked a question once and answered truthfully , unlike your average politician. She is entitled to her opinion which is at least as good as your opinion and your pathetic attempt at stating you know it is the majority just shows you are not right in the head. Typical nasty bigot.
In your opinion, can Forbes muck out the stables and make the smell of a close group of mates helping themselves to the till go away?
She wouldn’t be able to take that action, needing unity and their support wouldn’t she?
Wouldn’t she feel more at home in Alabama . She can’t run away from her social views .
Pathetic and bigoted
Whose the bigot . I’m not the one judging what people do in their private lives . Forbes seems happy to look down on those who dare to have sex before marriage , is anti-abortion and anti gay marriage . She can suck up the consequences to making those opinions public . She can drone on about her principled stand , her principles thankfully aren’t shared by the majority .
Utter bollox , she has not droned on about anything, she was asked a question once and answered truthfully , unlike your average politician. She is entitled to her opinion which is at least as good as your opinion and your pathetic attempt at stating you know it is the majority just shows you are not right in the head. Typical nasty bigot.
In your opinion, can Forbes muck out the stables and make the smell of a close group of mates helping themselves to the till go away?
She wouldn’t be able to take that action, needing unity and their support wouldn’t she?
If the SNP lose seats to Labour in 2024 it will clear out some of the Sturgeonite hangers on. Any that are left that lose their constituency seats in 2026 will probably get back in as list MSPs, as the clique are the ones that choose their ranking on the lists.
No Relocated Individual (even if they do not make an application for asylum or humanitarian protection or whatever the outcome of their applications) shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 11(1). The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur, which includes systems (with the consent of the Relocated Individual as appropriate) for returns to the United Kingdom and locating, and regularly monitoring the location of, the Relocated Individual.
Article 11 is about the process to return going in some detail into how deportees can make legal applications for return.
Para 3 of article 10 appears to be to satisfy the Supreme Court's worries about refoulement.
Article 11 says we can request someone be returned and Rwanda have to send them back.
So the question is, what prompts us to request a return? Is there a viable legal route for the asylum seeker to force that by winning a court case here?
I also can't find a part where Rwanda get to force a return, which is what you were suggesting, no?
SSI2 Well, Burgum ran against the Loser in the presidential race, which should tell you something.
(I am not sure what to make of the report he might accept the vice presidency nomination. In the past, he has denied that ambition, but he is not running for another term as governor, as was expected.
He is, in my opinion, qualified to be president, unlike the Loser. While the Loser was president, I thought those around him who limited the damage he was doing were right to so -- as long as they did not speak for him, because he would require them to lie.)
No Relocated Individual (even if they do not make an application for asylum or humanitarian protection or whatever the outcome of their applications) shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 11(1). The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur, which includes systems (with the consent of the Relocated Individual as appropriate) for returns to the United Kingdom and locating, and regularly monitoring the location of, the Relocated Individual.
Article 11 is about the process to return going in some detail into how deportees can make legal applications for return.
Para 3 of article 10 appears to be to satisfy the Supreme Court's worries about refoulement.
Article 11 says we can request someone be returned and Rwanda have to send them back.
So the question is, what prompts us to request a return? Is there a viable legal route for the asylum seeker to force that by winning a court case here?
I also can't find a part where Rwanda get to force a return, which is what you were suggesting, no?
The rest of article 11 is about how the deportee gets access to a legal process in the UK.
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.
Thanks for the reply.
“I'm expecting 500 Conservative losses at least” noted for later. The Tories only have 900 or so councillors defending.
But I think your mention of damascene conversion is a mistake as you are using it to say damascene conversion don’t happen, but the very existence of the phrase is proof of concept.
So if we stop sending the cash the deported come back? Reads like one of Liz's quasi trade deals.
I don't think the treaty is explicit about that. Both parties are probably happy to keep the details vague.
But let's not pretend Rwanda is in this for any other reason than to extract the maximum cash out of UKG. The whole dodginess of the arrangement plays to their agenda. You pay or we send them back. Hanging onto them maximises the lucre.
No Relocated Individual (even if they do not make an application for asylum or humanitarian protection or whatever the outcome of their applications) shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 11(1). The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur, which includes systems (with the consent of the Relocated Individual as appropriate) for returns to the United Kingdom and locating, and regularly monitoring the location of, the Relocated Individual.
Article 11 is about the process to return going in some detail into how deportees can make legal applications for return.
Para 3 of article 10 appears to be to satisfy the Supreme Court's worries about refoulement.
Article 11 says we can request someone be returned and Rwanda have to send them back.
So the question is, what prompts us to request a return? Is there a viable legal route for the asylum seeker to force that by winning a court case here?
I also can't find a part where Rwanda get to force a return, which is what you were suggesting, no?
The rest of article 11 is about how the deportee gets access to a legal process in the UK.
Yes, but you said "Additionally they can return any unsuccessful asylum applicant to the UK." which doesn't seem to be quite the same thing.
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
Tories controlled Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford? Those were the days. 😃
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
Unless we have a July election of course!
Maybe the election will be on 27 June? 😈
4th July. I called it. 🫡
You were close though.
If it's Sunak that calls the election, he'll prefer 4 July to 27 June because it's in the second half of the year.
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
Tories controlled Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford? Those were the days. 😃
I think Rishi will call the election next Tuesday for either 6th or 13th June!
To call an election for 6th June he has to announce it this week - and dissolve Parliament!
Parliament would have to be dissolved today, 30 April, for a 6 June election. Not going to happen.
Sunak will fall after the locals and Mordaunt will call it for 20 June, or if she really wants to go for it, even 13 June, for which the latest dissolution date is next Wednesday, 8 May. (See title of this thread.)
So if we stop sending the cash the deported come back? Reads like one of Liz's quasi trade deals.
I don't think the treaty is explicit about that. Both parties are probably happy to keep the details vague.
But let's not pretend Rwanda is in this for any other reason than to extract the maximum cash out of UKG. The whole dodginess of the arrangement plays to their agenda. You pay or we send them back. Hanging onto them maximises the lucre.
It's a bit depressing, because the internationalist, open borders, free movement attitudes of the 1990s were pretty good in theory, but they were never going to survive very high levels of migration. The only way to have kept that dream alive would have been to somehow keep migration levels low, but in the smartphone world that was always going to be difficult.
It's a bit depressing, because the internationalist, open borders, free movement attitudes of the 1990s were pretty good in theory, but they were never going to survive very high levels of migration. The only way to have kept that dream alive would have been to somehow keep migration levels low, but in the smartphone world that was always going to be difficult.
It's not in the least bit difficult. We can have the border control and the immigration levels we like. All we have to do is work out how to intercept and redirect people along the coastline and points of entry, cost up how much it would cost to do that, then pay it. If we have to raise tax to do it, then let's do that. The porous borders and high inward migration levels are a deliberate choice of a ruling class that disdains the working class and uses them as beasts of burden before discarding them and moving on to the next disposable worker.
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
Tories controlled Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford? Those were the days. 😃
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
Tories controlled Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford? Those were the days. 😃
Something to do with the 1967 devaluation?
The Labour government's unpopularity predated the November 1967 Devaluation. It became apparent in Spring 1967 when the Tories won control of the GLC by a landslide margin of 82 to 18! It remained deeply unpopular until the late Summer of 1969 when it did begin to recover a fair bit.
I think Rishi will call the election next Tuesday for either 6th or 13th June!
To call an election for 6th June he has to announce it this week - and dissolve Parliament!
Parliament would have to be dissolved today, 30 April, for a 6 June election. Not going to happen.
Sunak will fall after the locals and Mordaunt will call it for 20 June, or if she really wants to go for it, even 13 June, for which the latest dissolution date is next Wednesday, 8 May. (See title of this thread.)
Unlikely that a change of PM would happen quite that quickly.
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.
.
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 were in May 1968 when the Tories took control of Hackney , Islington & Lambeth as well as running the major cities of Liverpool , Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne , Leeds, Bradford, Leicester, Coventry , Birmingham & Norwich.
Tories controlled Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford? Those were the days. 😃
Something to do with the 1967 devaluation?
Sixties Swinging Here!
With you, yourself and yo! as PBs answer to Twiggy . . . and Ted Heath?
NY Daily News (via Seattle Times) - Ex-Rep. George Santos revives drag queen persona, says it’s for charity
SSI - Unbelievable. The bit about "it's for charity" that is.
from the NYDN story:
NEW YORK — (S)he’s ba-a-a-ck — and it’s all for a good cause!
Ex-Rep. George Santos on Monday is reviving his long-hidden drag queen persona for what he claims is a charity fundraising effort after the collapse of his political career.
The disgraced former lawmaker tweeted that he will record personalized short videos using the cross-dressing alter ego that he abandoned nearly two decades ago, for anyone who wants to pay. . .
The short videos on the Cameo platform cost a hefty $350 a pop.
Santos asserted that 10% of the proceeds would go to a 9/11 victims group and another 10% to a pro-Israel Christian group. All the rest of the profits will go to wardrobe, hair and makeup expenses, at least according to Santos. . . .
Santos insisted he was “never a drag queen” and that nosy journalists twisted a photo of him dressed in women’s clothes that was taken 18 years ago in Brazil. One-time friends and members of Brazil’s LGBTQ community say Santos, who identifies as gay, was a well-known drag queen performing under the stage name Kitara Ravache. . . .
“I’ve decided to bring Kitara out of the closet after 18 years!” Santos tweeted.
Just to remind y'all that The Phantom Menace is being re-released later this week...
I'm going to see it on Friday!
25 years on and I think now is the time for a reassessment of George Lucas's Prequel Trilogy as the kids who grew up with these movies take over as journos and film critics from the miserable old bastards who reviewed them at the time (and grew up with the Originals) 🙏
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.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
Good morning. Returned to the UK last night in time to cast my vote on Thursday.
I’ve had a chance to catch up on polling and whilst Houchen may well win, as he should given his previous share of the vote at 72%, I don’t think the slightly breathless Andy Street thread the other day is as solid as I expected. It was based on one poll by More in Common who have consistently had the Labour national lead lower than any other pollster. In many ways that’s the bit that will interest me more: are they right or are they going to be the Trafalgar Trump Group pollster of Britain? That will be an interesting litmus for the GE: narrow Labour win or a Conservative cataclysm?
Meanwhile I am asked to vote in a planning referendum on Thursday which is incomprehensible to me, despite checking online to try to understand it. I suspect the ‘turnout’ for that will be exceptionally low.
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.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
You've come back madder than ever MarchMoonHare!
Up the Tories!
I thought they were spoofing the other day and I’m still not sure. No one can be reading the mood of the nation this badly can they?
Attorneys inside and outside the administration urge Biden to cut off arms to Israel
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/29/lawyers-israel-arm-sales-biden-00154958 A coalition of lawyers domestic and abroad — including at least 20 that work in the Biden administration — are calling on President Joe Biden to halt military aid to Israel, arguing that its actions in Gaza do not comply with U.S. and international humanitarian law...
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.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
You've come back madder than ever MarchMoonHare!
Up the Tories!
I thought they were spoofing the other day and I’m still not sure. No one can be reading the mood of the nation this badly can they?
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.
Possibly with no-one on it.
The first scheduled flight will kick the entire 3rd sector into gear as they look to launch every legal appeal possible to haul each and every individual off the flight.
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.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
You've come back madder than ever MarchMoonHare!
Up the Tories!
I thought they were spoofing the other day and I’m still not sure. No one can be reading the mood of the nation this badly can they?
Moonrabbit is one person
Why do you insist on misnumbering her?
I know you’re trying to make an amusing point but I personally find this a bit tricky.
How should I refer to a poster whose gender I am not sure of? How for example should I e refer to you in the 3rd person?
(Really enjoying your Spanish trek blog btw - keep those posts coming!)
7000 have already gone to Ireland. It's already working.
All the 7000 because of Rwanda scheme?
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
I suspect actual boat numbers through the summer will make Labour's argument for them.
Unless we have a July election of course!
And what is Labour's argument? What do they plan to do about it?
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.
Possibly with no-one on it.
The first scheduled flight will kick the entire 3rd sector into gear as they look to launch every legal appeal possible to haul each and every individual off the flight.
…if there is any logic to Sunak’s plan this is it: ‘lefty lawyers have scuppered our plans to deal with the boat problem’
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.
Good thing too, we need probable high testosterone go getters like that out and about in the country to help address our decline.
Replacing the Home Office with them would be a start.
Hence my plan - based on paying lots of money to undocumented workers to find the employers.
They’ll be on the case, 100 hours a week.
Once they have been granted Leave to Remain they will be legal to employ.
That's part of the plan
1) Anyone who gives evidence leading to a conviction for employing undocumented workers/deliberately paying below minimum wage gets 50% of the £100K fine. Tax free. 2) Directors of companies will be personally liable - so the game of a Ltd company that only owns debt won't work. 3) If you are undocumented, upon the conviction of the employer, you get indefinite leave to remain.
Between ambulance chasing solicitors and the badly treated employees, I think we should have about 100% of the employers by lunch on the first day.
Yes but asylum seekers are not undocumented workers. Illegal migration is a separate issue.
What do you think the asylum seekers who the Home Office have misplaced are doing?
I doubt very much they are sitting at home, doing knitting. For free.
The truth which many people don't want to acknowledge is that categories of migrant are a continuum. Very few people are 100% economic migrant and very few are 100% asylum seeker.
My wife came here for a better life. Also psycho Maoist intellectuals were having a breakdancing party in her country vs a fairly military government whose response was a counterrevolution. So say 60% economic/40% refugee.
A friend came from India on a work visa. But as a Christian, his church used to burn down every time the Roderick Spode fan club got indigestion - how much economic, how much refugee?
That simply tells me that the qualifying criteria for claiming asylum are too broad.
It can't simply be that the country is crap, badly run, corrupt or unfair.
Comments
We can’t have a proper debate here if you are going to say silly things like that.
Irish politicians have a problem, their voters really don’t like these immigrants, and it’s an election year there too, so are happy to scapegoat London for the problem to take the heat off themselves, whilst London is more than happy for their policy to get the blame for the scenes in Ireland. It’s a bizarre diplomatic row between governments who share exactly the same hymn sheet! Voters in both countries are the poorer for this if you genuine believe all those 7000 are there because of Rwanda policy. Lawyers working with migrants in Ireland are only seeing a small uptick because of Rwanda - and even then your mind appears closed to how someone gaming the system might just be saying whatever they think helps their case.
https://www.channel4.com/news/how-is-the-uks-rwanda-asylum-plan-impacting-ireland
https://www.channel4.com/news/rwanda-effect-on-asylum-seeker-numbers-doubtful-says-irish-mep
Certainly Labours mistake in calling it nothing more than a gimmick, has quickly dated very badly. pledging to bin the scheme on day 1, wasting all the time and costs getting here as it’s binned despite being unproven the scheme has failed and won’t work, is actually building this into a huge General Election vote winner for the conservatives. Truth is, in the minds eye of every voter they can see the Tories magic bullet to stop illegal migration, but they can’t see Labours. If Labour are taking 5 minutes to explain why the Rwanda Policy won’t work to justify why they are junking it, and a further 5 minutes to explain what they will do differently and why it will deliver better results, then Labour have already lost the General Election argument on this one.
My parents volunteer a reception centre in the midlands and some of the stories are quite something. Full of risk-reward trade off decisions. One family, Iranian Christians (practising before leaving Iran, not one of those sudden post arrival converts) came by small boat with their extremely bright young daughter and have talked a lot about the journey and experience. It’s quite an epic tale, including the imprisonment and torture that led to their fleeing. They came to the UK because of family connections here.
Currently (pre-Rwanda) it seems the good reasons to get to the UK on a boat include, in descending order: friends and relatives here; wider migrant community; English speaking; relatively easy to get unskilled work; people smugglers willing to take you; lingering UK soft power and reputation (particularly in Iran if you’re anti government)
Risks are: danger of drowning; asylum application may be refused (but stats suggest relatively low risk); traffickers do you over and nick your money and possessions.
To these are now added: you might get sent to Rwanda.
What do you do? I think it depends on your other trade offs. If you have friends and relatives in France or Germany or NL and a strong asylum case can speak the language maybe you don’t bother with UK anymore. If you’re young and think you can slip in and live and work illegally, maybe you still do it but this time just skip the asylum claim bit. Or you maybe wait a bit and see what those who’ve gone before you do.
This thing will evolve over time and no doubt the rumours will swirl around Calais, one way or the other.
People don't cross if that's the destination, and so the payment shouldn't be considered as a cost per person sent but per life saved, deterrence, etc and it has unambiguously worked.
They’ll be on the case, 100 hours a week.
In practice we cannot deport to Afghanistan or Syria so almost certainly not.
She is entitled to her opinion which is at least as good as your opinion and your pathetic attempt at stating you know it is the majority just shows you are not right in the head. Typical nasty bigot.
Put your do wops away and tell us what NEV Labour need from local elections to prove the are on for majority? 4%? 8%?
You tell us right now what NEV result is par, so we know what NEV is blow or above par, so you don’t try to call any old dogs dinner of results a fantastic result like you normally do.
Btw Deano, sorry to hear how poorly your treated by employer.
No point paying Rwanda to take all, until they're up and running taking some.
That's exactly how it worked with the Australian system. It started with Nauru taking some, then ended with them taking all once it was up and running. It didn't start with them taking all.
And the numbers collapsed immediately once it was all going. The policy that all would go was only announced in July 2013 and was only implemented after that, but as it happens Aussie data runs on a July-June fiscal year and the numbers collapsed between year ending June 2013 and year beginning July 2013. At the same time as the policy to send all was agreed.
Unless we have a July election of course!
1) Anyone who gives evidence leading to a conviction for employing undocumented workers/deliberately paying below minimum wage gets 50% of the £100K fine. Tax free.
2) Directors of companies will be personally liable - so the game of a Ltd company that only owns debt won't work.
3) If you are undocumented, upon the conviction of the employer, you get indefinite leave to remain.
Between ambulance chasing solicitors and the badly treated employees, I think we should have about 100% of the employers by lunch on the first day.
Man Utd open to offers for nearly all of squad
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce96wzkgzpgo
Anyone got a tenner or two?
In Salmond and Sturgeon it’s the Tory Party recreated oddjob and oddbod from carry on screaming, like Frankenstein created a monster.
Now who’s Frying Tonight?
Ipswich certain to secure the other automatic spot?
Rwanda, an estimate of the costs of sending the first 20,000 is estimated to reach around £4 bn (IPPR Report) - and that's not including other associated costs. Or around £200,000 per claimant - much more than we spend housing and feeding someone over two years. Even supporters say to cover its costs it has to act a deterrent (a very dubious claim).
And that's of course not sending at large volume - as you'd have to do with the "you arrive, you get on a plane" plan which would require much more of the country absorbing the migrants, and thus they would strike a harder deal. There's a reason countries were hardly queuing up to get involved.
As I say, the single best thing you can do to reduce that bill is to actually clear the backlog of claims so you're processing them to resolution speedily and given our situation agreements to return people to European countries if they've not got a good reason to make a claim in the UK. Especially as the longer someone's lost in the system, the more likely you are to lose them if that's their intention.
We don't actually have to deal with the numbers some other European countries do, we're just unbelievably crap at it after years of an approach whereby the government's policy was essentially trying to be obstructive in the hope they'd go away. But of course people don't.
"My 44 Days as Prime Minister - Liz Truss
Triggernometry"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN-B4DVUww
P S. You won't see that stat on the BBC tomorrow.
The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day.
It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.”
I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume.
Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
"If successful, they could be granted refugee status and allowed to stay in the landlocked east-central African country.
If not, they could apply to settle in Rwanda on other grounds, or seek asylum in another "safe third country".
No asylum seeker would be able to apply to return to the UK."
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866.amp
Do you have a source?
Given Nauru has only intermittently accepted asylum seekers during its twenty years of existence. Given governments of both hues have had the embarrassing task over the past decade of how to get the asylum seekers off the island without sending them to Australia. When they were incarcerated in the first place at vast expense to stop them going to Australia. So they have had to do swap deals with the USA so Australia gets different refugees.
You were close though.
I doubt very much they are sitting at home, doing knitting. For free.
The truth which many people don't want to acknowledge is that categories of migrant are a continuum. Very few people are 100% economic migrant and very few are 100% asylum seeker.
My wife came here for a better life. Also psycho Maoist intellectuals were having a breakdancing party in her country vs a fairly military government whose response was a counterrevolution. So say 60% economic/40% refugee.
A friend came from India on a work visa. But as a Christian, his church used to burn down every time the Roderick Spode fan club got indigestion - how much economic, how much refugee?
Some ideas in that article I linked to last time.
History says that a 20% lead in Westminster polling for Labour ought to be about 11% in NEV. Because of Squeezy Liberals.
If Thursday's results come out like that, the Conservatives need a flock of friendly black swans to avoid a 1997 (or worse) scenario whenever the GE is.
If the NEV gap is below 7 or 8%, the Conservatives have had a good night and the game may be afoot.
But the other factor is the distribution of anti Conservative votes. Efficient or scattergun? That was the main difference between 1983 and 1992, or between 2017 and 2019. That won't show up in the NEVs, but it affects the seat count massively.
Do wop.
FFS. I’m going to bed to read some Vogon poetry.
The first apology in a long line of lies about me by media outlets.
https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/status/1785009375427616996
Today OAN has announced it is retracting a false story about my client
@MichaelCohen212 . This is a total vindication for Mr. Cohen -- and a warning: Mr. Cohen is telling the truth, and there will be legal consequences for those who lie about him.
https://twitter.com/Edanyaperry/status/1785016706940932184
Your argument is like someone saying falsely that nuclear weapons aren't a deterrent and then measuring the cost of the weapons against how often they've been fired in anger.
Since Labor's Rudd announced that everyone who crossed would go to Nauru or PNG the crossings have stopped. The policy is working, but if you measure it per person transported the cost is high precisely because its working so there's no denominator to divide the cost between.
In July, November, or January.
I said 12% par and you were giving me all sorts of Tutti flippin Frutti.
11% noted for later
It was Labor's Rudd in Australia that got the scheme working, having been vehemently opposed to it before becoming PM.
1. Offer permanent residence in Rwanda
2. Provide indefinite temporary detention.
3. Send the refugee back to the UK
I assume they will do (2) as long as the UK keeps paying big for it, otherwise they'll do (3). I doubt they are interested in (1).
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/qa-the-uks-policy-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda/
No Relocated Individual (even if they do not make an application for asylum or humanitarian protection or whatever the outcome of their applications) shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 11(1). The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur, which includes systems (with the consent of the Relocated Individual as appropriate) for returns to the United Kingdom and locating, and regularly monitoring the location of, the Relocated Individual.
Article 11 is about the process to return going in some detail into how deportees can make legal applications for return.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-rwanda-treaty-provision-of-an-asylum-partnership/uk-rwanda-treaty-provision-of-an-asylum-partnership-accessible#part-1--responsibilities-of-the-parties
She wouldn’t be able to take that action, needing unity and their support wouldn’t she?
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-buys-81-soviet-fighter-jets-from-russian-ally-20k-2024-4
Para 3 of article 10 appears to be to satisfy the Supreme Court's worries about refoulement.
Article 11 says we can request someone be returned and Rwanda have to send them back.
So the question is, what prompts us to request a return? Is there a viable legal route for the asylum seeker to force that by winning a court case here?
I also can't find a part where Rwanda get to force a return, which is what you were suggesting, no?
(I am not sure what to make of the report he might accept the vice presidency nomination. In the past, he has denied that ambition, but he is not running for another term as governor, as was expected.
He is, in my opinion, qualified to be president, unlike the Loser. While the Loser was president, I thought those around him who limited the damage he was doing were right to so -- as long as they did not speak for him, because he would require them to lie.)
“I'm expecting 500 Conservative losses at least” noted for later. The Tories only have 900 or so councillors defending.
But I think your mention of damascene conversion is a mistake as you are using it to say damascene conversion don’t happen, but the very existence of the phrase is proof of concept.
But let's not pretend Rwanda is in this for any other reason than to extract the maximum cash out of UKG. The whole dodginess of the arrangement plays to their agenda. You pay or we send them back. Hanging onto them maximises the lucre.
The internet can be a force for good , theres lots of support , it can at times show the best of humanity but also sadly the absolute worst.
Sunak will fall after the locals and Mordaunt will call it for 20 June, or if she really wants to go for it, even 13 June, for which the latest dissolution date is next Wednesday, 8 May. (See title of this thread.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzoXzL5EP8E
NY Daily News (via Seattle Times) - Ex-Rep. George Santos revives drag queen persona, says it’s for charity
SSI - Unbelievable. The bit about "it's for charity" that is.
from the NYDN story:
NEW YORK — (S)he’s ba-a-a-ck — and it’s all for a good cause!
Ex-Rep. George Santos on Monday is reviving his long-hidden drag queen persona for what he claims is a charity fundraising effort after the collapse of his political career.
The disgraced former lawmaker tweeted that he will record personalized short videos using the cross-dressing alter ego that he abandoned nearly two decades ago, for anyone who wants to pay. . .
The short videos on the Cameo platform cost a hefty $350 a pop.
Santos asserted that 10% of the proceeds would go to a 9/11 victims group and another 10% to a pro-Israel Christian group. All the rest of the profits will go to wardrobe, hair and makeup expenses, at least according to Santos. . . .
Santos insisted he was “never a drag queen” and that nosy journalists twisted a photo of him dressed in women’s clothes that was taken 18 years ago in Brazil. One-time friends and members of Brazil’s LGBTQ community say Santos, who identifies as gay, was a well-known drag queen performing under the stage name Kitara Ravache. . . .
“I’ve decided to bring Kitara out of the closet after 18 years!” Santos tweeted.
25 years on and I think now is the time for a reassessment of George Lucas's Prequel Trilogy as the kids who grew up with these movies take over as journos and film critics from the miserable old bastards who reviewed them at the time (and grew up with the Originals) 🙏
Up the Tories!
I’ve had a chance to catch up on polling and whilst Houchen may well win, as he should given his previous share of the vote at 72%, I don’t think the slightly breathless Andy Street thread the other day is as solid as I expected. It was based on one poll by More in Common who have consistently had the Labour national lead lower than any other pollster. In many ways that’s the bit that will interest me more: are they right or are they going to be the Trafalgar
TrumpGroup pollster of Britain? That will be an interesting litmus for the GE: narrow Labour win or a Conservative cataclysm?https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/29/lawyers-israel-arm-sales-biden-00154958
A coalition of lawyers domestic and abroad — including at least 20 that work in the Biden administration — are calling on President Joe Biden to halt military aid to Israel, arguing that its actions in Gaza do not comply with U.S. and international humanitarian law...
Why do you insist on misnumbering her?
The first scheduled flight will kick the entire 3rd sector into gear as they look to launch every legal appeal possible to haul each and every individual off the flight.
How should I refer to a poster whose gender I am not sure of? How for example should I e refer to you in the 3rd person?
(Really enjoying your Spanish trek blog btw - keep those posts coming!)
Oh, that's right - nothing.
It can't simply be that the country is crap, badly run, corrupt or unfair.
Someone who kinda gets forgotten after the next day's events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Ratzenberger