(Spoiler alert) Towards the end of High Fidelity, the novel, Laura gets back with Rob because remaining split up is too much hard work. You can see where I'm going with this...
A superb flowchart outlining what happens next from my excellent @PortlandComms colleagues including @Tom_Rayner. Includes the 11 possible Thursdays on which an election could be held between now and January.
When did a summer election under Sunak become so certain? Been out in the wilderness for the last few days - have I missed something?
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Are they Peter Sellers, Zorro or Inspector Clouseau?
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
Of course. But people hated him for winning the referendum, and so logic & nuance ho out the window.
Some people hated him, but he had just won a general election, suggesting he was more liked than disliked. What happened subsequently was a series of errors he made that caused opinions to shift.
But before he became leader/PM, the same people who hate on him now were saying he wouldn’t win the leadership race, then he wouldn’t win a GE. If you look at PB from late summer 2019, NOM was the thinking man’s prediction. The voters made sure he won a massive majority, and they never turfed him out
If Johnson hadn't resigned, he would've been suspended from Parliament for so much lying and faced a recall petition. That would have gathered enough signatures. He would then have faced a by-election. It would have been interesting to see how that would've gone.
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
That failure stemmed from the Brexit vote, so I'd say the Conservative failure was calling the Brexit referendum... but really what caused Leave to win that was austerity. That's the Conservative failure.
I don’t think that pre-Austerity the great British people would have been massively enamoured of the EU. The general attitude of the public has always been indifferent at best towards all things Europe.
I also tend to be wary of suggestions that some untried or rejected alternatives would have led to a radically different outcome. Experience tends to suggest otherwise. There’s nothing to say that had we continued in the EU the course of recent history would have been much different. The Conservatives would still be riven, the post pandemic economy would still be struggling etc. The referendum was never going to heal any fault lines in UK politics but expose them.
My take is, and always has been, that the only way to discredit Brexit would be to try it. A Remain vote in 2016 would have led to the (probably narrowly) defeated Leavers boosting UKIP in the way that (narrowly defeated) Nats flocked to the SNP in 2015. It would remain a festering boil in our national discourse.
Now we've tried it, everyone can see how Brexit has helped no-one, caused a lot of damage and inconvenience (albeit not of the apocalyptic variety predicted by over enthused pro-EU types) for practically zero tangible return. As a result is starting to deflate with a slow puncture.
(Spoiler alert) Towards the end of High Fidelity, the novel, Laura gets back with Rob because remaining split up is too much hard work. You can see where I'm going with this...
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
It does to a significant extent depend on how the Tories react to their shellacking. The portents aren’t good, for them?
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Although this round has seen a few ex-Labour independents, like Jamie Driscoll, probably the most high profile independent this year.
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Although this round has seen a few ex-Labour independents, like Jamie Driscoll, probably the most high profile independent this year.
My facetious answer is “ask the local party, they will confirm that makes him a Tory splitter”.
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
Of one thing I am pretty certain and that is that Farage and Co will not get anywhere near power and will be lucky to get more than one or two MPs even in he most extreme circumstances.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
"A senior Fujitsu engineer made a false statement to court about the flawed Post Office IT system, contradicting a report he had written days earlier.
"The BBC has obtained Gareth Jenkins' 2010 statement, which helped wrongly jail pregnant postmistress Seema Misra.
"It said there were "no cases" where branch accounts could be altered without postmasters' knowledge.
"But he had just produced a Post Office report which proposed remotely altering data in branches to fix a bug.
"Mr Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for potential perjury, the BBC understands."
Just stopped for coffee outside a 900 year old monastery in San Juan de Ortega
Rather frustratingly, this was my target yesterday afternoon, but a horrible day of bad weather, detours and a last minute booking being cancelled put paid to that. I did meet Manuel, which rather rescued evening
If I have time and energy later, I may give a more detailed account..
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Not a spoiler. Around here they are Lib Dems or Tories or versions of UKIP; I'm interested. Ashfield Independents (who are a bit different as I have remarked) have a serious impact on Labour at County level, having 10 from 66 County Councillors.
When characterising Independents by their policies, I currently tend to reach for Captain Mainwaring from Walmington-on-Sea.
But I'm now wondering whether in fact Captain Peacock from Are You being Served is a better model. Young Mr Grace is not yet activated.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
I don’t think that in general voters factor in Covid and Ukraine into the “it would have buggered any government” and thus give the Tories leeway because of too much other crap that has happened.
If Covid hadn’t happened then Boris might have been able to engineer some levelling up but I think ultimately his laziness would have come through and things wouldn’t be done or done in a slapdash way.
Covid also can’t be held to blame for the behaviour of a lot of Tories and Boris would have dealt with it the way he did with or without Covid.
I did hope he would “surprise on the upside” but ultimately I think his character would always lead to his demise and this character also led to him promising all things to all people and so the tribal civil wars inside the party would be there when he inevitably messed up and had to go.
If He hadn’t been “Boris” and dealt with partying properly, dealt with Pincher properly, then he could have got away with things and maybe, just maybe called an election in 2022 or 2023 on the basis that we need a reset after Covid and Ukraine/Cost of living crisis so that he can finally get on with the job of levelling up.
A superb flowchart outlining what happens next from my excellent @PortlandComms colleagues including @Tom_Rayner. Includes the 11 possible Thursdays on which an election could be held between now and January.
I can't quite imagine the electorate tolerating a full Con leadership contest stretching into autumn with all the continued paralysis that entails.
Is there any precedent for a general election with one party's leader having lost a vonc but still in place?
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
Of one thing I am pretty certain and that is that Farage and Co will not get anywhere near power and will be lucky to get more than one or two MPs even in he most extreme circumstances.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
I'd say a problem being that the Conservatives might become electable again without learning necessary lessons such as:
1) Personal conduct matters with those who pass laws and regulations being seen to follow them
2) Competence matters and requires proper preparation and attention to detail
3) Wealth creation is different to crony capitalism and rentierism
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
Boris Johnson came out of the pandemic in pretty good shape, even, with the vaccine rollout, with his reputation for effective delegation enhanced. A couple of us were seriously suggesting that he might increase his majority at the next GE.
It all came unstuck when he was caught out lying. Not once (Paterson). Not twice (Partygate). But three times (Pincher). All self-inflicted.
"A senior Fujitsu engineer made a false statement to court about the flawed Post Office IT system, contradicting a report he had written days earlier.
"The BBC has obtained Gareth Jenkins' 2010 statement, which helped wrongly jail pregnant postmistress Seema Misra.
"It said there were "no cases" where branch accounts could be altered without postmasters' knowledge.
"But he had just produced a Post Office report which proposed remotely altering data in branches to fix a bug.
"Mr Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for potential perjury, the BBC understands."
Having an IT development and support career I'd say that an underlying issue there is an organisation where the lines were allowed to be blurred between maintenance access and business access.
Using maintenance setups, which do not focus on organisational / data audit trails, to KLUDGE the content of live systems is a slippery slope from the first time it is done.
It's in the same category as development-by-patch.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
That failure stemmed from the Brexit vote, so I'd say the Conservative failure was calling the Brexit referendum... but really what caused Leave to win that was austerity. That's the Conservative failure.
I don’t think that pre-Austerity the great British people would have been massively enamoured of the EU. The general attitude of the public has always been indifferent at best towards all things Europe.
I also tend to be wary of suggestions that some untried or rejected alternatives would have led to a radically different outcome. Experience tends to suggest otherwise. There’s nothing to say that had we continued in the EU the course of recent history would have been much different. The Conservatives would still be riven, the post pandemic economy would still be struggling etc. The referendum was never going to heal any fault lines in UK politics but expose them.
My take is, and always has been, that the only way to discredit Brexit would be to try it. A Remain vote in 2016 would have led to the (probably narrowly) defeated Leavers boosting UKIP in the way that (narrowly defeated) Nats flocked to the SNP in 2015. It would remain a festering boil in our national discourse.
Now we've tried it, everyone can see how Brexit has helped no-one, caused a lot of damage and inconvenience (albeit not of the apocalyptic variety predicted by over enthused pro-EU types) for practically zero tangible return. As a result is starting to deflate with a slow puncture.
(Spoiler alert) Towards the end of High Fidelity, the novel, Laura gets back with Rob because remaining split up is too much hard work. You can see where I'm going with this...
Well even though by instinct I was a Leaver I ultimately voted Remain because whilst the EU had and still does have problems leaving would not be easy and the endpoint was obviously not going to be a land flowing with milk, honey and other cliches.
That said I don’t think a remarriage is sensible in the short to medium term unless the case is entirely unanswerable. The very last thing any government should be doing is opening old wounds on this. The most that should be done is to muddle through and enact policy that alleviates what issues there are and sensibly exploits areas where the UK can diverge without provoking a war of words etc
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
Boris had broad support of the public during the pandemic. When he was in hospital was pretty much the peak of his ratings, and if he'd followed his own rules he may well have been steering the Tories to another victory right now.
Absolutely, but that just demonstrates the incredible turn of events that he was faced with, which actually nearly killed him. We do not know what type of Government he would have led if Covid had not struck. He may have been a disaster or he may have been excellent.
In 20 years time people may look at the 2019-2024 Government and think that they had a lot to deal with, probably more than any Government since 1945. People forget just what a big deal Covid was. The Government paid for millions of people to stay at home for months. No UK Government has ever done that before. I think the UK has done remarkably well to recover to where it is given the expense of Covid and the Ukraine war. Perhaps thats why so many people want to come and live here.
Totally OT, if anyone likes trains and enjoys a positive presenter I would recommend watching GLovetrains videos. Her latest one on the DLR is particularly good
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Not a spoiler. Around here they are Lib Dems or Tories or versions of UKIP; I'm interested. Ashfield Independents (who are a bit different as I have remarked) have a serious impact on Labour at County level, having 10 from 66 County Councillors.
When characterising Independents by their policies, I currently tend to reach for Captain Mainwaring from Walmington-on-Sea.
But I'm now wondering whether in fact Captain Peacock from Are You being Served is a better model. Young Mr Grace is not yet activated.
I think they see themselves as being in Mr Smith goes to Washington, so the Mainwaring pomposity is right. However they also tend to be driven by some perceived slight or issue in a very personal way, and unwilling to consider precedents or limits, which is very unlike him. I think they are more Fawlty if anything. “The world must stay as I wish it to be and this post office/hospital must not close”. Conservative but comically so.
I had a look at the Winchester results, being the one Council area to declare where I used to live (and was a LD activist back then).
It's noticeable how much worse the Conservatives are doing compared to 1995-6. The marginal wards then are safe LD now, the safe Con wards are now competitive (back then the Con vote was about 70% in Denmead, it is LD now). And Labour has disappeared, admittedly boundary changes in the city wards may not have helped but in 1995 and 1996 they were still winning councillors in 2 wards. So the anti-Con vote has become much more efficient.
Baseline for North Yorkshire Mayoral Election (combined local votes for North Yorkshire 2022 and York 2023)
Con 78210 (34.5%) Lab 51492 (22.7%) LD 44374 (19.6%) Ind/Other 29060 (12.8%) - dominated by Ind Green 23472 (10.4%)
So, Labour need a 5.9% swing on the 2022/23 positions to prevail, with some squeeze on other parties possible, but I don't imagine it will be by-election scale squeeze.
The candidate list includes the parties above, including a couple of Independents.
I think I'd have been marginally more inclined to take Con at 2/1 than Lab at 4/9, but neither bet would have really drawn me in.
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
Of one thing I am pretty certain and that is that Farage and Co will not get anywhere near power and will be lucky to get more than one or two MPs even in he most extreme circumstances.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
I'd say a problem being that the Conservatives might become electable again without learning necessary lessons such as:
1) Personal conduct matters with those who pass laws and regulations being seen to follow them
2) Competence matters and requires proper preparation and attention to detail
3) Wealth creation is different to crony capitalism and rentierism
At the post election leadership hustings, the media will have a childish obsession with when the candidates “apologise” for Truss “crashing the economy” and the “benefits of Brexit”. The candidates need to sharpen up their answers from now.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
I think the detailed stats I really want to see are a full analysis of as many Independents as possible, and who they are under their wide-brimmed hats.
Spoiler: almost always Tories, even if they don’t think so themselves.
Not a spoiler. Around here they are Lib Dems or Tories or versions of UKIP; I'm interested. Ashfield Independents (who are a bit different as I have remarked) have a serious impact on Labour at County level, having 10 from 66 County Councillors.
When characterising Independents by their policies, I currently tend to reach for Captain Mainwaring from Walmington-on-Sea.
But I'm now wondering whether in fact Captain Peacock from Are You being Served is a better model. Young Mr Grace is not yet activated.
Round here they’re allied to the Greens. Somewhat NIMBY-ish.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
Boris had broad support of the public during the pandemic. When he was in hospital was pretty much the peak of his ratings, and if he'd followed his own rules he may well have been steering the Tories to another victory right now.
Absolutely, but that just demonstrates the incredible turn of events that he was faced with, which actually nearly killed him. We do not know what type of Government he would have led if Covid had not struck. He may have been a disaster or he may have been excellent.
In 20 years time people may look at the 2019-2024 Government and think that they had a lot to deal with, probably more than any Government since 1945. People forget just what a big deal Covid was. The Government paid for millions of people to stay at home for months. No UK Government has ever done that before. I think the UK has done remarkably well to recover to where it is given the expense of Covid and the Ukraine war. Perhaps thats why so many people want to come and live here.
Totally OT, if anyone likes trains and enjoys a positive presenter I would recommend watching GLovetrains videos. Her latest one on the DLR is particularly good
I don't think we've ever come to terms with the question of whether the Conservative government coped well with COVID-19 or not. I think there are good arguments that they handled it poorly, meaning higher mortality and morbidity, and higher cost. Partygate became a core part of the narrative, which demonstrated many of Boris's flaws, but wasn't really about pandemic management.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Just wanted to offer my view on Khan. He is uninspiring. He seems to have been reasonably competent in a low-key way, but really that's the opposite of what's needed for a London mayor - they need to be up front and a Salesman for the city. Boris was perfect for that (and I voted for him for that reason). Burnham is the same for Manchester.
Personally, I don't feel he comes across well. In interviews he seems a bit slippery and seems to have a thin skin when challenged, and comes across (to me, at least) as a bit whiney, rather like Sunak. I can't say I like him, though that isn't something I worry about too much when casting my vote. It might explain why there's no great enthusiasm for him amongst his supporters, while a lot of people actively don't like him. And those of us who are neutral go 'he's meh, but OK' but probably didn't care enough to vote for him (as I didn't yesterday) as there is no realistic chance of a Tory win.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
Daisy Cooper interviewed on GMB
Lib Dem results being discussed on the politics slot as underwhelming. Of course Daisy Cooper talked them up.
So far according to BBC. Conservatives 117 councillors, LDs 114 councillors.
What would be a good result?
The MRP prediction had Lib Dems and Tories winning roughly similar numbers of wards (but Tories more actual councillors). So if they manage this it’ll be par.
But you need to surprise on the upside to get any coverage, and Lib Dems do so in locals more often than not. A score in line with polling would be disappointing.
Greens on the other hand are doing very well. Not good news for Labour.
Not good news for the LDs either. The Greens seem to be displacing them as the party of nice people protest.
Not surprising. The Tories are going backwards on the climate issue and Labour seem to be joining them. As for Reform, I don't think half their candidates understand what climate means, unless it's the air-con in their 4WDs.
Ed Davey possibly too vividly swashbuckling for the nice people?
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
Of one thing I am pretty certain and that is that Farage and Co will not get anywhere near power and will be lucky to get more than one or two MPs even in he most extreme circumstances.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
I'd say a problem being that the Conservatives might become electable again without learning necessary lessons such as:
1) Personal conduct matters with those who pass laws and regulations being seen to follow them
2) Competence matters and requires proper preparation and attention to detail
3) Wealth creation is different to crony capitalism and rentierism
The problem is that, whilst the Tories have historically done okay at the competence bit, the last 30 years or so they have almost been defined by a lack of personal honesty/poor conduct and by crony capitalism and rentierism. It is this, more than anything, that has undermined the case for privatisation compared to other European countries where it is much more prevelant.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Indeed. You can have a guesstimate (higher turnout in the suburbs than inner London etc.) but I really don't know why anyone is posting this stuff.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Indeed. You can have a guesstimate (higher turnout in the suburbs than inner London etc.) but I really don't know why anyone is posting this stuff.
They have a Betfair account and want to make some money? More power to their elbow, I say, whilst they are helping my cause.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
The Tories were doing horrendously in 2019 They elected Boris and won a huge majority They sacked him And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
If you win with a pack of lies, don’t do the things you promised, and don’t behave as you tell others, there are consequences. As are now playing out.
We we can disagree on that, but the initial point made was ‘it all went wrong when Boris was made leader’ which ignores the fact that the Tories are in the same position now as they were before him; a mess. They had just hit 9% in the Euro Elections, and it only got better when he was made leader, the worse when someone replaced him. It seems a ridiculous thing to think, given the facts, that the high point, the success, was the bad move when the before and after were existential crises
Labour learned, eventually, from its mistake in picking Corbyn. Whether the Tories learn from their mistakes remains to be seen. But putting Johnson anywhere near power was among their biggest, not least because it was all so obviously foreseeable, and foreseen.
I think we forget that within 1 month of winning the election Boris had to deal with a once in a 100 year pandemic. Who knows what would have happened if there was no pandemic..
Boris had broad support of the public during the pandemic. When he was in hospital was pretty much the peak of his ratings, and if he'd followed his own rules he may well have been steering the Tories to another victory right now.
Absolutely, but that just demonstrates the incredible turn of events that he was faced with, which actually nearly killed him. We do not know what type of Government he would have led if Covid had not struck. He may have been a disaster or he may have been excellent.
In 20 years time people may look at the 2019-2024 Government and think that they had a lot to deal with, probably more than any Government since 1945. People forget just what a big deal Covid was. The Government paid for millions of people to stay at home for months. No UK Government has ever done that before. I think the UK has done remarkably well to recover to where it is given the expense of Covid and the Ukraine war. Perhaps thats why so many people want to come and live here.
Totally OT, if anyone likes trains and enjoys a positive presenter I would recommend watching GLovetrains videos. Her latest one on the DLR is particularly good
I don't think we've ever come to terms with the question of whether the Conservative government coped well with COVID-19 or not. I think there are good arguments that they handled it poorly, meaning higher mortality and morbidity, and higher cost. Partygate became a core part of the narrative, which demonstrated many of Boris's flaws, but wasn't really about pandemic management.
Some things they did very well on and some very poorly. But they were faced with something no Government had ever faced before. Boris came in on a wave of optimism and that disappeared almost instantly. If it was just "normal" times then I don't think SKS would have had a chance of beating Boris, not because Boris would have been a formidable PM, but simply because he had public appeal, and SKS certainly does not have that. We will never know.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Put it this way. If Susan Hall wins I doubt she will impress on the upside. Her winning would actually be a disaster for the Tories beyond the extremely short term.
As the Conservatives try to draw a line on the past in the new Starmer world, up pops the Mayor of London reminding everyone what an embarrassment they are.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
I've finally found the Lee Anderson interview on R4.
Mr Anderson has his talking points in a row, but is being a bit chippy. The extra 6% (17% vs 11%) knocked off the Conservatives where Reform were standing is a bit of a standout.
Nick wotsit should have called him Churchillian for all his sideways jumps.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Hard to believe - but to be fair in my corner of London (Havering) there was no active Labour campaign at all, just one leaflet and no canvassing so they couldn't get out the vote. The Tories did canvas, I know they knocked on my door twice and I saw them out elsewhere.
(Though in my experience, Labour rarely campaign at a local level, and in my experience only in areas of LD strength as spoilers. I have lived in several Labour seats, or C/Lab marginals, and I've never heard anything from Labour between elections, or more than a leaflet or two at election time. I've never seen them canvassing except in a C/LD marginal where they were only going to come a poor 3rd, at best).
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
In fairness she has already slid out from 14 earlier this morning...
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Hard to believe - but to be fair in my corner of London (Havering) there was no active Labour campaign at all, just one leaflet and no canvassing so they couldn't get out the vote. The Tories did canvas, I know they knocked on my door twice and I saw them out elsewhere.
(Though in my experience, Labour rarely campaign at a local level, and in my experience only in areas of LD strength as spoilers. I have lived in several Labour seats, or C/Lab marginals, and I've never heard anything from Labour between elections, or more than a leaflet or two at election time. I've never seen them canvassing except in a C/LD marginal where they were only going to come a poor 3rd, at best).
I had lots of Labour and Green leaflets, and I think one Tory. That may reflect that my ward is a Labour/Green battleground. We just had a Labour teller at the polling station.
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
Very true. Though London is a peculiar one, in that you have a very prominent figurehead and an 8 year incumbent for the opposition party who is very divisive. It feels to me like London voters might not be quite the disillusioned Tories sitting on their hands that we have seen in the rest of the country. I would be gobsmacked if she wins, but I do think the result will be far closer than the polls predict.
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
2025 local Tory candidates hoping any bloodlust against the party will be sated by the GE.
Well in 1998 the Conservatives managed a couple of hundred gains. Might be difficult next year to do that given what’s up and when it was last contested.
By next May a Starmer government could be battling strikes, inflation and slow growth and have responsiibility for immigration, it could be a different picture entirely and the Tories would get the protest vote for the first time in over a decade.
Though I suspect it will take a year or 2 for Starmer's government to really become unpopular
Andrew Neill reckons 6 months
Well he would.
I suspect it will be a long honeymoon.
This really has been a horror show in this country. I suspect it will be at least 3 General Elections before the Conservatives return to power and it may take 20 years before the damage to their reputation is restored.
Reasons to think that the honeymoon will be shorter than following 1997:
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
I agree. Something scandalous always happens early - for Blair it was Eccleston. I am not sure Starmer will survive his, and I am not sure the Tories will be in any state to benefit. Cue Farage and co.
Of one thing I am pretty certain and that is that Farage and Co will not get anywhere near power and will be lucky to get more than one or two MPs even in he most extreme circumstances.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
I'd say a problem being that the Conservatives might become electable again without learning necessary lessons such as:
1) Personal conduct matters with those who pass laws and regulations being seen to follow them
2) Competence matters and requires proper preparation and attention to detail
3) Wealth creation is different to crony capitalism and rentierism
The problem is that, whilst the Tories have historically done okay at the competence bit, the last 30 years or so they have almost been defined by a lack of personal honesty/poor conduct and by crony capitalism and rentierism. It is this, more than anything, that has undermined the case for privatisation compared to other European countries where it is much more prevelant.
Agreed, but is that not more a structural issue rather than one of a particularly bad bunch of apples?
It seems we have built a system of capitalism with strong incentives towards such dishonesty and poor conduct (cf Tyneside Freeport and Houchen).
Perhaps capitalism will always circumvent regulations/attempts at restraining the profit motive, but it feels as though we haven't even tried to do this (with the exception of environmental stuff).
I think some tories mis-underestimate SKS. For the past two and half years he's been gradually feeding the tory party into a woodchipper. Now the tories have brought some of the well-deserved calamity on themselves and it's possible that with the slow-motion catastrophe of Brexit unfolding they ineffably doomed by SKS still had to make the right moves to capitalise on their mis-steps.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
In fairness she has already slid out from 14 earlier this morning...
And back in. Interestingly there is a small arb between the two markets: Winner vs Winning Party.
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
Daisy Cooper interviewed on GMB
Lib Dem results being discussed on the politics slot as underwhelming. Of course Daisy Cooper talked them up.
So far according to BBC. Conservatives 117 councillors, LDs 114 councillors.
What would be a good result?
The MRP prediction had Lib Dems and Tories winning roughly similar numbers of wards (but Tories more actual councillors). So if they manage this it’ll be par.
But you need to surprise on the upside to get any coverage, and Lib Dems do so in locals more often than not. A score in line with polling would be disappointing.
Greens on the other hand are doing very well. Not good news for Labour.
Not good news for the LDs either. The Greens seem to be displacing them as the party of nice people protest.
Not surprising. The Tories are going backwards on the climate issue and Labour seem to be joining them. As for Reform, I don't think half their candidates understand what climate means, unless it's the air-con in their 4WDs.
Ed Davey possibly too vividly swashbuckling for the nice people?
Ed Davey has serious Post office problems. Very low profile since Mr Bates v PO came out.
Starmer & Rayner on a victory lap in Blackpool saying the by election result here shows Rishi Sunak needs to call a general election right now.
“Let’s turn the page on this decline”, said Starmer.
The Tories need Watson to charge Rayner today to shift the narrative.
Give it a rest. For just one day.
Well I think there's a better way Holden could be employed today rather than giving pathetic interviews. Stalking Rayner...as long as he kept out of sight. He might just spot her crossing the road before the green man or in a cafe slipping sugar sachets off the counter into her pocket...
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
Very true. Though London is a peculiar one, in that you have a very prominent figurehead and an 8 year incumbent for the opposition party who is very divisive. It feels to me like London voters might not be quite the disillusioned Tories sitting on their hands that we have seen in the rest of the country. I would be gobsmacked if she wins, but I do think the result will be far closer than the polls predict.
So why would the polls be wrong? A 22% lead in last one from yougov.
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
Daisy Cooper interviewed on GMB
Lib Dem results being discussed on the politics slot as underwhelming. Of course Daisy Cooper talked them up.
So far according to BBC. Conservatives 117 councillors, LDs 114 councillors.
What would be a good result?
The MRP prediction had Lib Dems and Tories winning roughly similar numbers of wards (but Tories more actual councillors). So if they manage this it’ll be par.
But you need to surprise on the upside to get any coverage, and Lib Dems do so in locals more often than not. A score in line with polling would be disappointing.
Greens on the other hand are doing very well. Not good news for Labour.
Not good news for the LDs either. The Greens seem to be displacing them as the party of nice people protest.
Not surprising. The Tories are going backwards on the climate issue and Labour seem to be joining them. As for Reform, I don't think half their candidates understand what climate means, unless it's the air-con in their 4WDs.
Ed Davey possibly too vividly swashbuckling for the nice people?
Ed Davey has serious Post office problems. Very low profile since Mr Bates v PO came out.
Davey has never had a high profile. I see no change in this.
Tories also gained a seat from the LDs in Peterborough.
And gained a seat from Labour in Southampton.
Woolston (Southampton) Conservative 1,085 (+7.1% compared to 2023) Labour 1,048 (-11.4%) Liberal Democrats 203 (+2.0%) Green 196 (+2.0%) TUSC 100 (+1.9%) No Reform UK candidate (1.7% in 2023) Conservative GAIN from Labour * Because there was an all-out election in 2023, the defences are the 3rd placed candidates from 2023.
Tories also gained a seat from the LDs in Peterborough.
And gained a seat from Labour in Southampton.
Woolston (Southampton) Conservative 1,085 (+7.1% compared to 2023) Labour 1,048 (-11.4%) Liberal Democrats 203 (+2.0%) Green 196 (+2.0%) TUSC 100 (+1.9%) No Reform UK candidate (1.7% in 2023) Conservative GAIN from Labour * Because there was an all-out election in 2023, the defences are the 3rd placed candidates from 2023.
This may be due to the Itchen toll bridge closing for 6-8 weeks over the Summer. It will cause absolute chaos in Woolston.
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
Very true. Though London is a peculiar one, in that you have a very prominent figurehead and an 8 year incumbent for the opposition party who is very divisive. It feels to me like London voters might not be quite the disillusioned Tories sitting on their hands that we have seen in the rest of the country. I would be gobsmacked if she wins, but I do think the result will be far closer than the polls predict.
So why would the polls be wrong? A 22% lead in last one from yougov.
Polls can always be wrong. They are only predictors, at the end of the day. There can be a myriad of reasons for this. Bailey outperformed the polls in 2021, for instance.
Of course if Hall wins (which, as I note, I’d be gobsmacked if she did) this would be a polling upset up there with the very biggest of them.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
In fairness she has already slid out from 14 earlier this morning...
All you Londoners seem to care about is London. There’s other parts of the country too you know.
When Trump got in, Hilary Clinton graciously said “he’s won the election, so deserves the right to govern.” You will just have to say the same about Hall. It’s no big deal. You will have a chance to oust her next time if she gets in.
I think some tories mis-underestimate SKS. For the past two and half years he's been gradually feeding the tory party into a woodchipper. Now the tories have brought some of the well-deserved calamity on themselves and it's possible that with the slow-motion catastrophe of Brexit unfolding they ineffably doomed by SKS still had to make the right moves to capitalise on their mis-steps.
Remember, always, SKS is a lawyer.
His demolitions are less entertaining than a 900 words tossed off by a columnist, but they are much more likely to have the intended effect. The difference between blowing something up with a tonne of TNT and Fred Dibnah felling a chimney by pulling out the right bits at the bottom so it just collapses.
Impressive, once you accept that that's what you're looking at.
But expectations have been managed to the point where anything less than a "triple whammy" -Conservatives losing Tees Valley, West Midlands and around half of their councillors- means Sunak is probably safe
Another brick in the wall where the wall is the case for Labour landslide. It's pretty much built now, I'd say. Note how they are strongest in the places they need to be under FPTP. Starmer has been lucky, ruthless and clever.
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
In that thread, DCB himself says he did not hear it, and nor did two who were present.
Erm…I think the point may have been missed somewhat.
DCB was suggesting that Corbyn lay a large chunk of coral on the Cenotaph rather than the more traditional “wreath”. Which, TBF, would have provoked a negative reaction from the crowd.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
In fairness she has already slid out from 14 earlier this morning...
And back in. Interestingly there is a small arb between the two markets: Winner vs Winning Party.
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
In that thread, DCB himself says he did not hear it, and nor did two who were present.
Erm…I think the point may have been missed somewhat.
DCB was suggesting that Corbyn lay a large chunk of coral on the Cenotaph rather than the more traditional “wreath”. Which, TBF, would have provoked a negative reaction from the crowd.
Oh, I thought that was just a normal pinniped thing.
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to @Councillorsuzie - her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
Are those rumours from the same "inner circle" you posted about last night? We have Hall's "inner circle" and David Bannerman at the moment. Anything from an even marginally credible source?
Until they’ve opened and workers through the boxes, no one can possibly know
Verification began at 9am this morning, so someone can know. That someone isn't necessarily DCB.
If someone can know you'd expect Hall to be shorter than 15.5
Unless they know that all this ramping of Hall is bullshit, in which case you'd expect Hall to be, if anything, longer.
In fairness she has already slid out from 14 earlier this morning...
All you Londoners seem to care about is London. There’s other parts of the country too you know.
When Trump got in, Hilary Clinton graciously said “he’s won the election, so deserves the right to govern.” You will just have to say the same about Hall. It’s no big deal. You will have a chance to oust her next time if she gets in.
Again, I ask you, are you predicting a Hall victory? If so, fine. But be clear about it rather than posting drivel. I am on Hall at 31 so will be the biggest winner on here if she wins.
I take it back. DCB is always on the nail with his Tweets.
David C Bannerman @DCBMEP Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable! 2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
In that thread, DCB himself says he did not hear it, and nor did two who were present.
Erm…I think the point may have been missed somewhat.
DCB was suggesting that Corbyn lay a large chunk of coral on the Cenotaph rather than the more traditional “wreath”. Which, TBF, would have provoked a negative reaction from the crowd.
"A senior Fujitsu engineer made a false statement to court about the flawed Post Office IT system, contradicting a report he had written days earlier.
"The BBC has obtained Gareth Jenkins' 2010 statement, which helped wrongly jail pregnant postmistress Seema Misra.
"It said there were "no cases" where branch accounts could be altered without postmasters' knowledge.
"But he had just produced a Post Office report which proposed remotely altering data in branches to fix a bug.
"Mr Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for potential perjury, the BBC understands."
Having an IT development and support career I'd say that an underlying issue there is an organisation where the lines were allowed to be blurred between maintenance access and business access.
Using maintenance setups, which do not focus on organisational / data audit trails, to KLUDGE the content of live systems is a slippery slope from the first time it is done.
It's in the same category as development-by-patch.
Which is why it is forbidden in real financial systems. I've seen people binned in a bank for trying to hack (in the make-furniture-with-an-axe sense) in production.
Apparently the Tories think only about 2 million voted in London and 6 million were registered so around 33% .
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
Low turnout could also be due to Tories sitting on their hands, which seems to me at least as likely as all the non-voters being otherwise Labour supporters.
Very true. Though London is a peculiar one, in that you have a very prominent figurehead and an 8 year incumbent for the opposition party who is very divisive. It feels to me like London voters might not be quite the disillusioned Tories sitting on their hands that we have seen in the rest of the country. I would be gobsmacked if she wins, but I do think the result will be far closer than the polls predict.
So why would the polls be wrong? A 22% lead in last one from yougov.
Polls can always be wrong. They are only predictors, at the end of the day. There can be a myriad of reasons for this. Bailey outperformed the polls in 2021, for instance.
Of course if Hall wins (which, as I note, I’d be gobsmacked if she did) this would be a polling upset up there with the very biggest of them.
Wait. Polls aren’t forecasts is my line. 😇
One reason obviously for a Khan loss is Labour vote is down 16 points on 2021 in areas with a Muslim population, according to BBC. Labour down 16 points on average is a whopping figure isn’t it? No one predicted Gaza Backlash to be quite that impactful?
Some PBers said Gaza Backlash wouldn’t happen in London because Khans position is different to Starmer’s, but maybe it’s not worked out like that, like vote Khan get Starmer’s policy?
Blackpool South is interesting - once again it shows that in real elections, Reform aren't polling anything near their opinion poll ratings. Despite having a free hit against the Tories, they didn't quite match what UKIP managed in 2015 (17.3%).
A reasonable comparison would be the Newark by-election in 2014. UKIP polled 25.9% (when national polls put them at around 15%) and dropped back to 12% at the subsequent GE. So to be at 15% in the polls now as YouGov say now (and back then for UKIP too) I think they should have polled close to 30%.
So I think their true support is at about 8% now, and unless Farage returns as leader will be squeezed lower come the GE and will be <5%.
Comments
Are they Peter Sellers, Zorro or Inspector Clouseau?
1. Starmer simply doesn't inspire in the way Blair did. He doesn't have the same connection with the voters, there's less excitement around him - this all adds up to people being less optimistic about him and cutting him less slack.
2. The problems facing Britain are more acute, and the solutions harder. The budget position is worse, the trade position is worse, the state of public services is worse, the international context is worse. It's a lot harder to be in government in the mid-2020s than it was in the late-90s.
3. Politics is faster and more vicious.
I agree that the Tories are in an awful state, but that means it is likely discontented voters will look elsewhere for salvation. If I'm optimistic I would hope for an alternative provided by the Lib Dems or the Greens. If I'm pessimistic I see a strong far right movement.
Starmer failing (as I do agree is more likely than some would like to believe) before the Tories have become electable again will simply cause more chaos and instability.
"A senior Fujitsu engineer made a false statement to court about the flawed Post Office IT system, contradicting a report he had written days earlier.
"The BBC has obtained Gareth Jenkins' 2010 statement, which helped wrongly jail pregnant postmistress Seema Misra.
"It said there were "no cases" where branch accounts could be altered without postmasters' knowledge.
"But he had just produced a Post Office report which proposed remotely altering data in branches to fix a bug.
"Mr Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for potential perjury, the BBC understands."
Rather frustratingly, this was my target yesterday afternoon, but a horrible day of bad weather, detours and a last minute booking being cancelled put paid to that. I did meet Manuel, which rather rescued evening
If I have time and energy later, I may give a more detailed account..
But now more Camino!
When characterising Independents by their policies, I currently tend to reach for Captain Mainwaring from Walmington-on-Sea.
But I'm now wondering whether in fact Captain Peacock from Are You being Served is a better model. Young Mr Grace is not yet activated.
If Covid hadn’t happened then Boris might have been able to engineer some levelling up but I think ultimately his laziness would have come through and things wouldn’t be done or done in a slapdash way.
Covid also can’t be held to blame for the behaviour of a lot of Tories and Boris would have dealt with it the way he did with or without Covid.
I did hope he would “surprise on the upside” but ultimately I think his character would always lead to his demise and this character also led to him promising all things to all people and so the tribal civil wars inside the party would be there when he inevitably messed up and had to go.
If He hadn’t been “Boris” and dealt with partying properly, dealt with Pincher properly, then he could have got away with things and maybe, just maybe called an election in 2022 or 2023 on the basis that we need a reset after Covid and Ukraine/Cost of living crisis so that he can finally get on with the job of levelling up.
His downfall was because his character.
Is there any precedent for a general election with one party's leader having lost a vonc but still in place?
1) Personal conduct matters with those who pass laws and regulations being seen to follow them
2) Competence matters and requires proper preparation and attention to detail
3) Wealth creation is different to crony capitalism and rentierism
You heard it here first; they don't plan on an election for another 3-4 years.
It all came unstuck when he was caught out lying. Not once (Paterson). Not twice (Partygate). But three times (Pincher). All self-inflicted.
Using maintenance setups, which do not focus on organisational / data audit trails, to KLUDGE the content of live systems is a slippery slope from the first time it is done.
It's in the same category as development-by-patch.
That said I don’t think a remarriage is sensible in the short to medium term unless the case is entirely unanswerable. The very last thing any government should be doing is opening old wounds on this. The most that should be done is to muddle through and enact policy that alleviates what issues there are and sensibly exploits areas where the UK can diverge without provoking a war of words etc
In 20 years time people may look at the 2019-2024 Government and think that they had a lot to deal with, probably more than any Government since 1945. People forget just what a big deal Covid was. The Government paid for millions of people to stay at home for months. No UK Government has ever done that before. I think the UK has done remarkably well to recover to where it is given the expense of Covid and the Ukraine war. Perhaps thats why so many people want to come and live here.
Totally OT, if anyone likes trains and enjoys a positive presenter I would recommend watching GLovetrains videos. Her latest one on the DLR is particularly good
https://www.youtube.com/c/GLovesTrains
James Maddison did warn us.
It's noticeable how much worse the Conservatives are doing compared to 1995-6. The marginal wards then are safe LD now, the safe Con wards are now competitive (back then the Con vote was about 70% in Denmead, it is LD now). And Labour has disappeared, admittedly boundary changes in the city wards may not have helped but in 1995 and 1996 they were still winning councillors in 2 wards. So the anti-Con vote has become much more efficient.
@ElectionMapsUK
Tories take their first seat in Newcastle for 32 years!
Gosforth (Newcastle-upon-Tyne):
CON: 33.7% (+6.8)
LDM: 31.0% (-3.5)
LAB: 22.9% (-0.9)
GRN: 8.4% (-1.8)
NEP: 3.9% (New)
No IND (-4.7) as previous.
Conservative GAIN from Lib Dem.
Changes w/ 2021.
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786200340452262240
Con 78210 (34.5%)
Lab 51492 (22.7%)
LD 44374 (19.6%)
Ind/Other 29060 (12.8%) - dominated by Ind
Green 23472 (10.4%)
So, Labour need a 5.9% swing on the 2022/23 positions to prevail, with some squeeze on other parties possible, but I don't imagine it will be by-election scale squeeze.
The candidate list includes the parties above, including a couple of Independents.
I think I'd have been marginally more inclined to take Con at 2/1 than Lab at 4/9, but neither bet would have really drawn me in.
So even though a third of councils have reported there are close to 75% of seats to come as many of today’s councils are bigger.
Because of this the Tories could do worse than their 500 seat loss spin .
@DCBMEP
Rumours emerging that Susan Hall has won London Mayoral on low turnout. We won’t know until Sat evening. Wonderful if true, but let’s be clear: not to do with Sunak who did next to nothing for her and she was given minimum CCHQ support. The Sunakites wanted Korski. Would be down to
@Councillorsuzie
- her tenacity, true Conservative principles and decency, if true. Don’t be fooled by Sunak’s claims."
https://twitter.com/DCBMEP/status/1786321324089942057
(I am on at 31)
Personally, I don't feel he comes across well. In interviews he seems a bit slippery and seems to have a thin skin when challenged, and comes across (to me, at least) as a bit whiney, rather like Sunak. I can't say I like him, though that isn't something I worry about too much when casting my vote. It might explain why there's no great enthusiasm for him amongst his supporters, while a lot of people actively don't like him. And those of us who are neutral go 'he's meh, but OK' but probably didn't care enough to vote for him (as I didn't yesterday) as there is no realistic chance of a Tory win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQpBx9l_PGE
If it was just "normal" times then I don't think SKS would have had a chance of beating Boris, not because Boris would have been a formidable PM, but simply because he had public appeal, and SKS certainly does not have that. We will never know.
As the Conservatives try to draw a line on the past in the new Starmer world, up pops the Mayor of London reminding everyone what an embarrassment they are.
Mr Anderson has his talking points in a row, but is being a bit chippy. The extra 6% (17% vs 11%) knocked off the Conservatives where Reform were standing is a bit of a standout.
Nick wotsit should have called him Churchillian for all his sideways jumps.
That’s about 7% down on 2021.
(Though in my experience, Labour rarely campaign at a local level, and in my experience only in areas of LD strength as spoilers. I have lived in several Labour seats, or C/Lab marginals, and I've never heard anything from Labour between elections, or more than a leaflet or two at election time. I've never seen them canvassing except in a C/LD marginal where they were only going to come a poor 3rd, at best).
David C Bannerman
@DCBMEP
Hearing from veterans post Remembrance Day commemorations in London that Corbyn was BOOED when he lay his reef. Rippled all the way down Whitehall apparently. Perfectly understandable!
2:49 pm · 10 Nov 2019
https://twitter.com/DCBMEP/status/1193541258511302661
rather than one of a particularly bad bunch of
apples?
It seems we have built a system of capitalism with strong incentives towards such dishonesty and poor conduct (cf Tyneside Freeport and Houchen).
Perhaps capitalism will always circumvent regulations/attempts at restraining the profit motive, but it feels as though we haven't even tried to do this (with the exception of environmental stuff).
He might just spot her crossing the road before the green man or in a cafe slipping sugar sachets off the counter into her pocket...
Woolston (Southampton)
Conservative 1,085 (+7.1% compared to 2023)
Labour 1,048 (-11.4%)
Liberal Democrats 203 (+2.0%)
Green 196 (+2.0%)
TUSC 100 (+1.9%)
No Reform UK candidate (1.7% in 2023)
Conservative GAIN from Labour
* Because there was an all-out election in 2023, the defences are the 3rd placed candidates from 2023.
The LibDems have taken the ward where Jeremy Clarkson lives (previously Conservative)
Turnup, even
Of course if Hall wins (which, as I note, I’d be gobsmacked if she did) this would be a polling upset up there with the very biggest of them.
When Trump got in, Hilary Clinton graciously said “he’s won the election, so deserves the right to govern.” You will just have to say the same about Hall. It’s no big deal. You will have a chance to oust her next time if she gets in.
The early election results are bleak for the Tories, with Blackpool South and dozens of councillors already gone
We have a piece on these being Rishi Sunak’s most perilous hours - but the expectation is the plotters will be all scheme and no guillotine
@estwebber
"Everything is ready, it’s all in place, it’s up to the MPs now to decide what they want to do” says one of the plotters against Sunak
His demolitions are less entertaining than a 900 words tossed off by a columnist, but they are much more likely to have the intended effect. The difference between blowing something up with a tonne of TNT and Fred Dibnah felling a chimney by pulling out the right bits at the bottom so it just collapses.
Impressive, once you accept that that's what you're looking at.
But expectations have been managed to the point where anything less than a "triple whammy" -Conservatives losing Tees Valley, West Midlands and around half of their councillors- means Sunak is probably safe
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68947242
DCB was suggesting that Corbyn lay a large chunk of coral on the Cenotaph rather than the more traditional “wreath”. Which, TBF, would have provoked a negative reaction from the crowd.
LDs 119 councillors elected
Tories 119
One reason obviously for a Khan loss is Labour vote is down 16 points on 2021 in areas with a Muslim population, according to BBC.
Labour down 16 points on average is a whopping figure isn’t it? No one predicted Gaza Backlash to be quite that impactful?
Some PBers said Gaza Backlash wouldn’t happen in London because Khans position is different to Starmer’s, but maybe it’s not worked out like that, like vote Khan get Starmer’s policy?
A reasonable comparison would be the Newark by-election in 2014. UKIP polled 25.9% (when national polls put them at around 15%) and dropped back to 12% at the subsequent GE. So to be at 15% in the polls now as YouGov say now (and back then for UKIP too) I think they should have polled close to 30%.
So I think their true support is at about 8% now, and unless Farage returns as leader will be squeezed lower come the GE and will be <5%.
"We've bucked that trend..."
@dan__swords hails an "incredible" victory for Conservatives on #Harlow Council, where the party's majority was cut from nine to a single seat.