Was planning a comment on PCCs, which seems to have evaporated.
At present it looks like an equal split Tory/Lab with 23 results in. Before it was 30 Tory:6 or 7 Lab, so good progress for Labour but not dominant.
In the D2N2 zone the incumbent Personal Crime Commissioner for Notts has been heavily defeated (my Conservative Friends were commenting "WTF?") when she stood. The Cons have kept Derbyshire PCC.
2024: Labour – 119,355 Conservative – 77,148 Liberal Democrats – 32,410
I haven't calculated it, but that's a significant swing.
The Notts swing is about 11.5 points.
I'd say the swing away from the incumbent is much higher due to the third candidate.
The Con vote share went fell by 17.5% (a third), and Lab went up by 4%, and LD by 14% from not standing.
It's not quite as big as CUmbria, but that's what getting yourself banned from driving in the first couple of months in the job, and then pretending you are some sort of victim therefore does for you. Esoecially when your police force ends up in special measures.
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
Never have so many words been written about the outcome of an election in which not a single vote has yet been counted.
I think something similar happened in 2021 with all sorts of "rumours" Bailey had won or was running Khan very close. Curious how some on Twitter were seeing a count before the verification had begun.
I do wonder if the process could be improved to count on Friday but we had three ballot papers and nominally three ballot boxes but to imagine every ballot paper went into the right box in every polling station in London - no, I don't believe it either.
I'm sure there will be all sorts of tweets starting "I'm hearing that" or "Someone at the count has told me" or "My source at CCHQ is confident that" tomorrow.
Facts, opinions, rumour, market manipulation - the lines are blurred.
in 2021 we had electronic counting and it was all done by friday evening
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
Hey Doug, I answered your question on the previous thread - not sure if you saw, but if not:
In case nobody has answered, the last time we had four PMs in one Parliament was 1865-68 - Palmerston (died) Russell (voted out) Derby (retired) Disraeli (lost election).
I think the record is five, from 1780-84 - North, Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland and Pitt.
Hey Doug, I answered your question on the previous thread - not sure if you saw, but if not:
In case nobody has answered, the last time we had four PMs in one Parliament was 1865-68 - Palmerston (died) Russell (voted out) Derby (retired) Disraeli (lost election).
I think the record is five, from 1780-84 - North, Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland and Pitt.
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
And you are too arrogant (and like an argument too much) to ever concede that others said it was nonsense and it was.
It’s not arrogant when I’m so clearly and profoundly your intellectual superior, and by an embarrassing distance
You are so funny. I’ll take my PhD and scientific credentials over your perusing of Reddit every time.
You were literally convinced it came from the wet market and lab leak was impossible until this afternoon, approximately. You’re a fucking worker drone in a polytechnic chemistry department with the imaginative abilities of a sea slug. You make @kinabalu look like Isaac Newton. You’re a midwit primary school teacher who is too frightened to think outside the box because you’re incapable of comprehending there is even a box in the fucking first place. You’re not even as interesting as a moron, at least they drool
But don’t take this personally, I do not wish to offend. Also, @kamski is even dimmer, so there’s that
It’s a life sciences deoartment, but the rest was spot on…
(Although I can happily change my mind when more evidence emerges, I have not seen conclusive proof for either lab leak or wet market. I doubt we will ever fully know. And both options are totally plausible. SARS, MERS etc are zoonotic in origin. We also know that labs can see escapes - even in the U.K. You have decided that you are right about the lab leak hypothesis, but that is not the same as being right.)
Talking to you and @kamski on anything higher-concept than, say, differential turnout or “songs about Cologne” is like me trying to explain calculus to a dog, and an even stupider dog
It’s not - shall we say - a fruitful way for me to spend my dwindling years, so I suggest we abandon the attempt. You can go back to talking about whatever the fuck it is you and Kamski talk about, I can’t remember coz you’re both so forgettable, and I will lift mine eyes unto the dazzling firmament of the profound
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
And you are too arrogant (and like an argument too much) to ever concede that others said it was nonsense and it was.
It’s not arrogant when I’m so clearly and profoundly your intellectual superior, and by an embarrassing distance
You are so funny. I’ll take my PhD and scientific credentials over your perusing of Reddit every time.
You were literally convinced it came from the wet market and lab leak was impossible until this afternoon, approximately. You’re a fucking worker drone in a polytechnic chemistry department with the imaginative abilities of a sea slug. You make @kinabalu look like Isaac Newton. You’re a midwit primary school teacher who is too frightened to think outside the box because you’re incapable of comprehending there is even a box in the fucking first place. You’re not even as interesting as a moron, at least they drool
But don’t take this personally, I do not wish to offend. Also, @kamski is even dimmer, so there’s that
It’s a life sciences deoartment, but the rest was spot on…
(Although I can happily change my mind when more evidence emerges, I have not seen conclusive proof for either lab leak or wet market. I doubt we will ever fully know. And both options are totally plausible. SARS, MERS etc are zoonotic in origin. We also know that labs can see escapes - even in the U.K. You have decided that you are right about the lab leak hypothesis, but that is not the same as being right.)
Talking to you and @kamski on anything higher-concept than, say, differential turnout or “songs about Cologne” is like me trying to explain calculus to a dog, and an even stupider dog
It’s not - shall we say - a fruitful way for me to spend my dwindling years, so I suggest we abandon the attempt. You can go back to talking about wherever the fuck it is you and Kamski talk about, I can’t remember coz you’re both so forgettable, and I will lift mine eyes unto the dazzling firmament of the profound
So forgettable that you instantly bang on about lab leak, and know where I work? But fine, we have a different view on this. But you definitely were ramping the greatest moment in human history at the time, as indeed you are doing now about AI…
According to Beeb running totals, Tories down 432 seats with 8 councils left to declare. Not sure they'll pass 500!
It's 461 saved vs. 432 lost, so about 100 to go. It will matter for the narrative, but not really for the reality.
Looking at the councils left with the number of Tory defences: Stroud 20 Dorset 14 remaining North Tyneside 7 Salford 3 Warrington 11 Epping Forest about 17 Elmbridge 3 Gloucester 19
So I think the Conservatives would have to do really badly from now on to end with 50% losses or 500 losses.
Agreed, still pretty awful though.
Anyway, enough fun for one day. Until tomorrow.
Bad, obviously, but no worse than generally expected.
Sleep well.
It looks like BritainElects' model will be very close for Tory losses but didn't account for how many directions their lunch would be split when it was eaten.
Very well put, On.
It's about as bad as expected for the Tories, but for Labour it's a pass mark, and no more. The LDs and Greens have done well. The mainstream media hasn't really pickedup on this.
Fortunately we have PB for sane, serious and objective evaluations.
Nite all.
I think much better than a pass mark for Labour. The key and little remarked takeaway is that Labour is winning where it needs to in order to get a substantial majority in Westminster at the next election. It's doing enough. It's not spectacular but ruthlessly efficient.
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
And you are too arrogant (and like an argument too much) to ever concede that others said it was nonsense and it was.
It’s not arrogant when I’m so clearly and profoundly your intellectual superior, and by an embarrassing distance
You are so funny. I’ll take my PhD and scientific credentials over your perusing of Reddit every time.
You were literally convinced it came from the wet market and lab leak was impossible until this afternoon, approximately. You’re a fucking worker drone in a polytechnic chemistry department with the imaginative abilities of a sea slug. You make @kinabalu look like Isaac Newton. You’re a midwit primary school teacher who is too frightened to think outside the box because you’re incapable of comprehending there is even a box in the fucking first place. You’re not even as interesting as a moron, at least they drool
But don’t take this personally, I do not wish to offend. Also, @kamski is even dimmer, so there’s that
It’s a life sciences deoartment, but the rest was spot on…
(Although I can happily change my mind when more evidence emerges, I have not seen conclusive proof for either lab leak or wet market. I doubt we will ever fully know. And both options are totally plausible. SARS, MERS etc are zoonotic in origin. We also know that labs can see escapes - even in the U.K. You have decided that you are right about the lab leak hypothesis, but that is not the same as being right.)
Talking to you and @kamski on anything higher-concept than, say, differential turnout or “songs about Cologne” is like me trying to explain calculus to a dog, and an even stupider dog
It’s not - shall we say - a fruitful way for me to spend my dwindling years, so I suggest we abandon the attempt. You can go back to talking about whatever the fuck it is you and Kamski talk about, I can’t remember coz you’re both so forgettable, and I will lift mine eyes unto the dazzling firmament of the profound
Ah, but have you tied explaining Supertramp to a Komodo Dragon?
@johnestevens · 1h Not looking good for Thangam Debbonaire
The Greens have won all 14 council seats in the wards that make up the Bristol Central constituency where she’s standing at general election
I will still be surprised if her majority is below 10000 at the GE.
You base that on what?
She isn’t defending a seat, she has to go to a new seat made up of the Greens strongest wards in the city. And to what degree has Gaza additionally played it’s part it the Greens takeover today?
Let's be realistic. Betting Post wise we should look right now at what price we get for her defeat, for those odds will close up very soon. There’s money to be made from her demise.
@johnestevens · 1h Not looking good for Thangam Debbonaire
The Greens have won all 14 council seats in the wards that make up the Bristol Central constituency where she’s standing at general election
I will still be surprised if her majority is below 10000 at the GE.
You base that on what?
She isn’t defending a seat, she has to go to a new seat made up of the Greens strongest wards in the city. And to what degree has Gaza additionally played it’s part it the Greens takeover today?
Let's be realistic. Betting Post wise we should look right now at what price we get for her defeat, for those odds will close up very soon. There’s money to be made from her demise.
I don't expect Green support at local elections to translate into votes at a General election. It very rarely happens. Even on Polling Day 2010 the Greens in Norwich South were truly convinced that they were going to oust Charles Clarke from the seat - based entirely on repeated local election successes over the preceding few years.Their candidate was Adrian Ramsay now one of the party's co-leaders. Clarke did lose his seat narrowly - but to the LDs - and the Greens ended up in a distant fourth place.People vote very differently at general elections -and turnout is much higher. It would be very surprising to see Labour losing such a seat at a time the party is making big advances nationally. To only a slightly lesser extent , this also applies to the LDs who are invariably flattered by success at local elections.
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
And you are too arrogant (and like an argument too much) to ever concede that others said it was nonsense and it was.
It’s not arrogant when I’m so clearly and profoundly your intellectual superior, and by an embarrassing distance
You are so funny. I’ll take my PhD and scientific credentials over your perusing of Reddit every time.
You were literally convinced it came from the wet market and lab leak was impossible until this afternoon, approximately. You’re a fucking worker drone in a polytechnic chemistry department with the imaginative abilities of a sea slug. You make @kinabalu look like Isaac Newton. You’re a midwit primary school teacher who is too frightened to think outside the box because you’re incapable of comprehending there is even a box in the fucking first place. You’re not even as interesting as a moron, at least they drool
But don’t take this personally, I do not wish to offend. Also, @kamski is even dimmer, so there’s that
It’s a life sciences deoartment, but the rest was spot on…
(Although I can happily change my mind when more evidence emerges, I have not seen conclusive proof for either lab leak or wet market. I doubt we will ever fully know. And both options are totally plausible. SARS, MERS etc are zoonotic in origin. We also know that labs can see escapes - even in the U.K. You have decided that you are right about the lab leak hypothesis, but that is not the same as being right.)
Talking to you and @kamski on anything higher-concept than, say, differential turnout or “songs about Cologne” is like me trying to explain calculus to a dog, and an even stupider dog
It’s not - shall we say - a fruitful way for me to spend my dwindling years, so I suggest we abandon the attempt. You can go back to talking about whatever the fuck it is you and Kamski talk about, I can’t remember coz you’re both so forgettable, and I will lift mine eyes unto the dazzling firmament of the profound
Ah, but have you tied explaining Supertramp to a Komodo Dragon?
I tried once, and it was stunned into silence, it said nothing, at least until breakfast in America.
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
A couple of years ago you told us we were on the brink of some announcement about aliens that would be the biggest thing in human history. Now you've got a story about some has-been promoting a book with some hearsay about a 'pal' whose plane got delayed or something.
According to Beeb running totals, Tories down 432 seats with 8 councils left to declare. Not sure they'll pass 500!
It's 461 saved vs. 432 lost, so about 100 to go. It will matter for the narrative, but not really for the reality.
Looking at the councils left with the number of Tory defences: Stroud 20 Dorset 14 remaining North Tyneside 7 Salford 3 Warrington 11 Epping Forest about 17 Elmbridge 3 Gloucester 19
So I think the Conservatives would have to do really badly from now on to end with 50% losses or 500 losses.
Agreed, still pretty awful though.
Anyway, enough fun for one day. Until tomorrow.
Bad, obviously, but no worse than generally expected.
Sleep well.
It looks like BritainElects' model will be very close for Tory losses but didn't account for how many directions their lunch would be split when it was eaten.
Very well put, On.
It's about as bad as expected for the Tories, but for Labour it's a pass mark, and no more. The LDs and Greens have done well. The mainstream media hasn't really pickedup on this.
Fortunately we have PB for sane, serious and objective evaluations.
Nite all.
I think much better than a pass mark for Labour. The key and little remarked takeaway is that Labour is winning where it needs to in order to get a substantial majority in Westminster at the next election. It's doing enough. It's not spectacular but ruthlessly efficient.
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
According to Beeb running totals, Tories down 432 seats with 8 councils left to declare. Not sure they'll pass 500!
It's 461 saved vs. 432 lost, so about 100 to go. It will matter for the narrative, but not really for the reality.
Looking at the councils left with the number of Tory defences: Stroud 20 Dorset 14 remaining North Tyneside 7 Salford 3 Warrington 11 Epping Forest about 17 Elmbridge 3 Gloucester 19
So I think the Conservatives would have to do really badly from now on to end with 50% losses or 500 losses.
Agreed, still pretty awful though.
Anyway, enough fun for one day. Until tomorrow.
Bad, obviously, but no worse than generally expected.
Sleep well.
It looks like BritainElects' model will be very close for Tory losses but didn't account for how many directions their lunch would be split when it was eaten.
Very well put, On.
It's about as bad as expected for the Tories, but for Labour it's a pass mark, and no more. The LDs and Greens have done well. The mainstream media hasn't really pickedup on this.
Fortunately we have PB for sane, serious and objective evaluations.
Nite all.
I think much better than a pass mark for Labour. The key and little remarked takeaway is that Labour is winning where it needs to in order to get a substantial majority in Westminster at the next election. It's doing enough. It's not spectacular but ruthlessly efficient.
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
I tend to agree. The most significant result yesterday was probably Blackpool South.
The Sky News projection assumed the SNP would retain all the seats it had at the last GE. Why could they assume that rather than use current polls?
I presume they wanted a pure projection based only on the local election results, but these of course didn’t cover Scotland, so they were left just carrying forward the last election’s results in Scotland. I agree, not ideal.
Mail reporting that Sunak downfall plotters have given up.
I’m not tremendously surprised. The results are appalling but probably not extinction level bad. We’re looking at a comfortable Labour majority, maybe even a landslide, but probably not sub-100 seats or what some of the more extreme polling has suggested.
Plenty of the leadership contenders will probably be looking for Sunak to take the fall now so they get a longer stint to rebuild…
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
The thing that really, really convinces me about the UFOs is how the Zeta Reticulans follow fashion.
In the 19th Cent (and before) UFOs looked and behaved like futuristic balloons. Complete with occupants in wacky takeoffs of the fashions of the day.
Soon after heavier than air flight came in, they switched to futuristic flying machines.
When jets and rockets came in, they switched to futuristic rocket craft.
Exactly. The story of how perceptions have changed and all the TV film influences and being influenced is far more interesting than believeing that the US is about to announce that aliens are real and are here.
Incidentally, I live in a once legendary UFO hotspot - Warminster. Famous in the 60’s and early 70’s, now mostly forgotten, or if recalled at all, seen as the odd member of the family that no one talks about. There is a great book about the whole thing, and how a huge flap was created out of very thin gruel, mainly by the actions of a newspaper man, with some other pranksters to help. It’s called In Alien Heat, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how people can be convinced things are happening when nothing actually is. Our resident futurologist could learn something from it, but probably won’t because he already KNOWS he is right… (about everything).
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
The thing that really, really convinces me about the UFOs is how the Zeta Reticulans follow fashion.
In the 19th Cent (and before) UFOs looked and behaved like futuristic balloons. Complete with occupants in wacky takeoffs of the fashions of the day.
Soon after heavier than air flight came in, they switched to futuristic flying machines.
When jets and rockets came in, they switched to futuristic rocket craft.
Exactly. The story of how perceptions have changed and all the TV film influences and being influenced is far more interesting than believeing that the US is about to announce that aliens are real and are here.
Incidentally, I live in a once legendary UFO hotspot - Warminster. Famous in the 60’s and early 70’s, now mostly forgotten, or if recalled at all, seen as the odd member of the family that no one talks about. There is a great book about the whole thing, and how a huge flap was created out of very thin gruel, mainly by the actions of a newspaper man, with some other pranksters to help. It’s called In Alien Heat, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how people can be convinced things are happening when nothing actually is. Our resident futurologist could learn something from it, but probably won’t because he already KNOWS he is right… (about everything).
Do you know what, for once I think you're probably right. I think he'll come home with a result that we'd call "fine" in any other year.
But I'm not going to roast any other posters who think otherwise on the basis that no one knows what's going on and the people confidently predicting this or that have a 50% chance of looking stupid tomorrow.
“for once”????
Tut
Okay. I'll give you the Liz Truss rope-ring.
Right: Covid Lab leak Lorry bomb AI Ukraine not winning; now losing UAPs a serious matter China overtakes America on GDP by PPP And others
Wrong: Liz Truss upsiding What3Words And others
Incidentally on AI if you’re hoping to retrain as a plumber, don’t get too excited. Turns out LLMs are brilliant at training robots to work via simulation
Here the LLM near-instantly trained a robot dog to balance on a yoga ball. Incroyable
You have UAPs on the wrong list. It’s fading away like the afterglow of a firework. There was never anything going on.
I never said there was any “there” there. I said something truly weird was happening in the American establishment. And it was. Mass contagious delusion stemming from a few credulous individuals was my best guess - and I think that was probably right
Possibly mixed in with the pentagon seeking money and/or obscuring real tech advances
Your pants are on fire. I bet plenty on here can remember what you repeatedly posted. Just because you were (I assume) blind drunk at the time, doesn't mean everyone else was.
No, I completely agree with what @SeanT said here, in his Spectator piece
“To my mind, there are five main possible explanations, in descending order of probability.
1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. “
The only one that gets close is three, and as I said above, there was no mass delusion, only a few idiot senators who already believed. Where is the evidence for mass delusion? A few stories in the press ain’t it.
He's got a clip of Obama making a joke on a comedy show. He'll probably link to it again.
It’s a large number of senators, and ex intelligence heads, ex CIA chiefs, admirals, generals, NYT journalists, the head of NASA (etc etc etc) plus multiple presidents (including Obama).
Even the present head of US Intel
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines admits possibility of aliens By Mike Brest November 11, 2021 9:53 pm
Something really weird happened to the US elite from 2021-23 when they all started saying truly strange things about “UFOs”
I’ve hazarded a guess why. You are too stupid to even grasp that this happened
Next
As usual, if anyone bothers to follow your link it doesn't really support what you are saying. Full Haines quote from the article YOU just posted:
'Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, did not rule out the possibility of aliens when discussing UFO sightings during a recent forum at the “Our Future in Space” event at the Washington National Cathedral.
“The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues,” the DNI told the forum. “Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?’”
Haines, who leads the 18 intelligence agencies, spoke about the lack of an organized reporting structure for potential sightings.
“A large portion of that is based on the fact that we don’t have a consistent way of reporting this information — we need to integrate a lot of data that we get,” she said. “We need to get better at collecting information that’s useful to us from different sensors that are available to us.”'
What is 'truly strange' about what Haines says here? Nothing, that's what. So you are either dishonest, or just 'too stupid' to understand simple English.
lol. She’s overall head of total US intelligence and she publicly wonders “are we being visited by extra terrestrials”?
AND YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S STRANGE
No what she said was
'The main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about is safety of flight concerns and counterintelligence issues. Always, there’s also the question of, ‘Is there something else that we simply do not understand, which might come extraterrestrially?'
Presumably because people keep asking the question, and it is obviously an interesting question. (Spoiler: probably not).
So, no, I don't find what she said strange or remarkable at all. Obviously the headline writer had a bit of fun with the clickbait, but I guess you didn't read beyond the headline anyway.
You, on the other hand, were repeatedly telling us we were all idiots because we were ignoring 'the biggest news in human history', and other such bullshit.
“Ex-CIA director believes UFOs could exist after pal’s plane ‘paused’”
The thing that really, really convinces me about the UFOs is how the Zeta Reticulans follow fashion.
In the 19th Cent (and before) UFOs looked and behaved like futuristic balloons. Complete with occupants in wacky takeoffs of the fashions of the day.
Soon after heavier than air flight came in, they switched to futuristic flying machines.
When jets and rockets came in, they switched to futuristic rocket craft.
Has it not occurred to you that people have a frame of reference? So if they see something completely inexplicable, they will either block it out and not see it at all (check “the gorilla on the basketball court”) OR they will try and make it fit things they already understand
When native aborigines in Arnhemland saw Europeans with horses they presumed they were riding strange four legged kangaroos. Similarly when they saw muskets they thought they were spears that somehow made fire. Because their frame of reference included kangaroos and spears, but not horses and guns
Similarly yet differently, when Europeans first encountered natives on the Solomon Islands they would fire their guns right in front of them. As a test. Why?
If it was the first time Solomon Islanders had witnessed a gun going off they didn’t look at the gun they looked to the sky, thinking they’d heard a thunderclap, but seeing no clouds or storms they shrugged. They could not see the gun themselves - outside their bandwidth
If the islanders did look at the guns, the Europeans knew this was not the very first encounter, for the islanders, and they treated them accordingly
If we are being visited by aliens - or extra dimensional beings - or whatever (and this is far from impossible but unlikely) we will have the same reactions. Some of us simply won’t see them - perhaps most. Those that do will desperately try to make them fit their frame of reference, seeing them as dragons or angels or advanced 60s planes or whatever is the tech of the day. We will see odd kangaroos when in fact we are looking at horses
Mail reporting that Sunak downfall plotters have given up.
There were no Sunak downfall plotters. What there were, was people who wanted Sunak out but hoped that someone else would hatch a plot to bring it about.
Interesting that both Labour and the SNP have been exposed by the left. Labour on Gaza, SNP on climate change targets.
The E&W Greens are having a very good night too, though flying under the radar a bit. And if Hall wins London, it will be at least in part due to the switch to FPTP and a split left. This will focus tactical minds in the GE, but Starmer/Swinney are still going to have to give Green type voters something to vote for.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Obviously the two parties and their teams up to their eyebrows in the campaign, already know the result don’t they? Unless it’s truly knife edge.
I can only analyse Labour actually wanted this big drum role and focus on the afternoon announcement. They had been saying they were worried, and tonight saying they don’t see any concerns?
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, I expected to go through Kirklees (before branching out elsewhere) looking at the state of Lab-Con marginals.
But I'm going to start with the safe Labour seats that I expected to ignore.
Changes are on the 2023 local round.
LE results for Huddersfield constituency (2024 boundaries):
Labour: 33.8% (-11.7) Green 31.9 (+10.5) Con 15.6 (-3.1) LD 12.8 (-0.4) Others 6.0 (+4.9)
There is a green base anyway, but serious pro green swings in 2 wards brought Green to near parity. They gained one ward to hold two, and lost to Labour by 1% in a ward where another independent split the pro-Palestine vote, accounting for 3.6% of the constituency vote alone and also preventing a Green plurality.
Can they establish themselves as contenders at parliamentary level?
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Obviously the two parties and their teams up to their eyebrows in the campaign, already know the result don’t they? Unless it’s truly knife edge.
I can only analyse Labour actually wanted this big drum role and focus on the afternoon announcement. They had been saying they were worried, and tonight saying they don’t see any concerns?
I believe that sometimes parties find their internal polling or canvassing data or whatever trends pretty closely to the final results.
The problem is sometimes they are also taken by complete surprise by results too.
So they certainly don't know the result already, and have not the slightest clue how accurate their own internal predictions are until that happens. We have this delusion sometimes that the parties' internal data must somehow be more accurate than what the public can see, so we look for games upon games, when the simple answer is they are bullshitting.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
According to Beeb running totals, Tories down 432 seats with 8 councils left to declare. Not sure they'll pass 500!
It's 461 saved vs. 432 lost, so about 100 to go. It will matter for the narrative, but not really for the reality.
Looking at the councils left with the number of Tory defences: Stroud 20 Dorset 14 remaining North Tyneside 7 Salford 3 Warrington 11 Epping Forest about 17 Elmbridge 3 Gloucester 19
So I think the Conservatives would have to do really badly from now on to end with 50% losses or 500 losses.
Agreed, still pretty awful though.
Anyway, enough fun for one day. Until tomorrow.
Bad, obviously, but no worse than generally expected.
Sleep well.
It looks like BritainElects' model will be very close for Tory losses but didn't account for how many directions their lunch would be split when it was eaten.
Very well put, On.
It's about as bad as expected for the Tories, but for Labour it's a pass mark, and no more. The LDs and Greens have done well. The mainstream media hasn't really pickedup on this.
Fortunately we have PB for sane, serious and objective evaluations.
Nite all.
I think much better than a pass mark for Labour. The key and little remarked takeaway is that Labour is winning where it needs to in order to get a substantial majority in Westminster at the next election. It's doing enough. It's not spectacular but ruthlessly efficient.
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
According to Beeb running totals, Tories down 432 seats with 8 councils left to declare. Not sure they'll pass 500!
It's 461 saved vs. 432 lost, so about 100 to go. It will matter for the narrative, but not really for the reality.
Looking at the councils left with the number of Tory defences: Stroud 20 Dorset 14 remaining North Tyneside 7 Salford 3 Warrington 11 Epping Forest about 17 Elmbridge 3 Gloucester 19
So I think the Conservatives would have to do really badly from now on to end with 50% losses or 500 losses.
Agreed, still pretty awful though.
Anyway, enough fun for one day. Until tomorrow.
Bad, obviously, but no worse than generally expected.
Sleep well.
It looks like BritainElects' model will be very close for Tory losses but didn't account for how many directions their lunch would be split when it was eaten.
Very well put, On.
It's about as bad as expected for the Tories, but for Labour it's a pass mark, and no more. The LDs and Greens have done well. The mainstream media hasn't really pickedup on this.
Fortunately we have PB for sane, serious and objective evaluations.
Nite all.
I think much better than a pass mark for Labour. The key and little remarked takeaway is that Labour is winning where it needs to in order to get a substantial majority in Westminster at the next election. It's doing enough. It's not spectacular but ruthlessly efficient.
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
I tend to agree. The most significant result yesterday was probably Blackpool South.
Redditch is another v important result for Labour I think.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
It’s plausible that there are people from the verification of the ballot who might have an idea, but beyond that it’s more likely people reacting to twitter posts in a self reinforcing feedback loop. It’s not as if there is that much liquidity in the market, so shifting the dial doesn’t take much.
As I mentioned earlier I have been using this forum to keep up with the days events as best as I could, with two of my grandchildren (12 and 10) to collect from school and give them their tea, and reading the thread header and just tuning into Sky it seems Labour would be 32 seats short of a majority on today's votes which I find astonishing in view of all the polling and narrative by political commentators
I would suggest this makes the next GE most likely to be November-December, and as many wise heads in politics say 'a week is a long time in politics' and 'events' not least Gaza
I do not expect Sunak to be replaced either
Yes looks like Q4 now. I think the chance of a June/Q3 election has gone now.
Possibly 😈
I think you should stick to June, and I 4th July. Nothing has changed.
There’s still this window in the next two months, where the economic and fiscal position will look on the up. Where the Rwanda Scheme still holds hope, before July’s armada of crossings makes it look hopeless.
After summer recess, Covid Report, followed by rising energy costs, rising food prices and inflation in time for an Autumn election. What are we seeing in waiting those extra 12 weeks, that makes polling better, and not actually worse?
I’m sure they plan to avoid another fiscal event. For one thing promises to Posties and Blood victims will have to be delivered, as well as the Defence Funding promise put through an OBR and fully funded. Borrowing is already eating into headroom for rabbits from the hat.
By not putting these things through last budget, I think they have decided to exploit this coming window, where things appear on the up. July 4th election, called 13th of May becuase Parliament already shuts the following week.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
Mail reporting that Sunak downfall plotters have given up.
Not surprising, given Tory wins in West Mids and Teeside, and a possible shock in London.
So, two mayors who have distanced themselves as far as is humanely possible from Conservative brand may have won and so the plotters fold.
Me thinks they never had the numbers in the first place.
52 letters - my arse, as Jim Royale would have said.
You suspect the brighter Tory MPs (stop laughing at the back, there are some), have plans beyond the defeat, unless they are in very safe seats. Changing Sunak now just won’t work. Even the Hial Mary to Boris won’t work (he’s not an MP and no matter how many die hard Tory members still love him, the nation despises him). So it’s time to do your best and then get on with the rest of your lives.
On the most exciting day of election results so far this year, why is there more tedious discussion of AI and UFOs?
Leon
Sorry - I couldn’t let his assertion about being right on UAPs lie (the truth being he was ramping for the announcement of aliens being imminent, but is now claiming he was just saying something odd was going on).
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
Main headline on Sky is now “main parties think Khan has won after wild rumours”.
I’m still pointing the finger at those two main parties for kicking off the wild rumours with what they were feeding us last night.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Not totally implausible. There were 13 London by elections yesterday, and...
The point here is - it looks like, overall, council voting in London looks very similar to the 2022 Locals, when Labour won by 17 pts across the capital (43%-26%).
So question is: how likely is it that the same voters giving Lab a ~17 pt lead, also elect Susan Hall?
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
I'd presume Reform voters are the least likely to vote if there's similarity to UKIP - hence I suspect a disproportionate amount of the 35% of the voting public who are there for GEs but not locals intend to vote for them. Maybe another 6-7%, but there's certainly a gap.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Obviously the two parties and their teams up to their eyebrows in the campaign, already know the result don’t they? Unless it’s truly knife edge.
I can only analyse Labour actually wanted this big drum role and focus on the afternoon announcement. They had been saying they were worried, and tonight saying they don’t see any concerns?
I believe that sometimes parties find their internal polling or canvassing data or whatever trends pretty closely to the final results.
The problem is sometimes they are also taken by complete surprise by results too.
So they certainly don't know the result already, and have not the slightest clue how accurate their own internal predictions are until that happens. We have this delusion sometimes that the parties' internal data must somehow be more accurate than what the public can see, so we look for games upon games, when the simple answer is they are bullshitting.
If they had doubts, why didn’t they go all the way up to the count to allay them - why the completely different story put out last night to the one tonight? It’s a complete swaparoo.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
Without in any way wanting to appear to be suggesting that Reform would do any better at a GE, I think you give them too much credit or organisation in assuming they picked the seats they fought today. From what I have seen the Reform policy, much like Brexit Party and UKIP before them, is that if they can find someone to stand in a seat then they will get them to do so and hope for the best. They didn't pick the seats they fought today on the basis of where they were strongest, simply on the basis of where someone was dumb enough to put themselves forward as a candidate. (Not dumb because of the party but dumb because they want to be a councillor)
Big winner is Labour just cos the Tory’s won’t dump Fishy Rishi after this! No one likes starmer, they just hate rishi
If it was a year to go, two years definitely, they’d dump him. It’s too last minute now. Simple as that.
One of the drawback in making one or several PM changes in a parliament, you don’t really know what your getting or how they will go down with the public.
If Khan loses the pressure on Sir Keir to resign will surely be immense. His critics on the Left will claim that Labour's popularity under his centrist experiment is a mile wide but an inch deep so, when the economic malaise quickly erodes the reputation of a Labour government, the party will be poorly placed to secure a historic send term. The Right will be jubilant and will regard Sir Keir as their secret weapon and will do their utmost to keep him in place. Realizing this, the shadow cabinet, not wishing to play the Tories' game, will insist to Sir Keir that his time is up.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Obviously the two parties and their teams up to their eyebrows in the campaign, already know the result don’t they? Unless it’s truly knife edge.
I can only analyse Labour actually wanted this big drum role and focus on the afternoon announcement. They had been saying they were worried, and tonight saying they don’t see any concerns?
I believe that sometimes parties find their internal polling or canvassing data or whatever trends pretty closely to the final results.
The problem is sometimes they are also taken by complete surprise by results too.
So they certainly don't know the result already, and have not the slightest clue how accurate their own internal predictions are until that happens. We have this delusion sometimes that the parties' internal data must somehow be more accurate than what the public can see, so we look for games upon games, when the simple answer is they are bullshitting.
If they had doubts, why didn’t they go all the way up to the count to allay them - why the completely different story put out last night to the one tonight? It’s a complete swaparoo.
Because political parties are big organisations with a lot of people flapping their lips to journalists who need space to fill whilst we wait for actual results.
It's not even usually lies, exactly, you just have different people putting out vague messages, and like a game of chinese whispers sometimes it changes a bit so 'closer than people expect' becomes 'it's close' for example.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
Without in any way wanting to appear to be suggesting that Reform would do any better at a GE, I think you give them too much credit or organisation in assuming they picked the seats they fought today. From what I have seen the Reform policy, much like Brexit Party and UKIP before them, is that if they can find someone to stand in a seat then they will get them to do so and hope for the best. They didn't pick the seats they fought today on the basis of where they were strongest, simply on the basis of where someone was dumb enough to put themselves forward as a candidate. (Not dumb because of the party but dumb because they want to be a councillor)
Yes, I get what you are saying, but these candidates were in places like Sunderland, Barnsley etc.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
Without in any way wanting to appear to be suggesting that Reform would do any better at a GE, I think you give them too much credit or organisation in assuming they picked the seats they fought today. From what I have seen the Reform policy, much like Brexit Party and UKIP before them, is that if they can find someone to stand in a seat then they will get them to do so and hope for the best. They didn't pick the seats they fought today on the basis of where they were strongest, simply on the basis of where someone was dumb enough to put themselves forward as a candidate. (Not dumb because of the party but dumb because they want to be a councillor)
Wanting to be a councillor is not dumb, though many do not have realistic expectations of what it will be like (particularly if they are hoping to be on the fast track to be an MP - sure, many have been councillors first, but it isn't seen as some proving ground by the top bods), but I can well believe getting people to stand in North West Nowhereshire Council is harder than getting them to stand to be an MP.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
I would’ve thought they have some idea, but it’s hard to know precisely how much. However, no-one is going on the record with precisely what they saw and there is a reason to believe that, whatever they know, they may not be being honest. And we can’t tell which anonymous sources are in the know and which aren’t. So, it’s not strong evidence of anything, I would suggest.
What we have heard… trying to see through all the nonsense… is that they do know who’s won and it’s Khan, but possibly by a smaller margin than the polls predicted. Just after typing that, Nick Watt on Newsnight said that Labour and the Conservatives agree that Khan has won, but by a narrower margin than the polls.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51% Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Reform got 11% average in the 200 seats that they fought, seats which I imagine that they thought themselves strong in, so 5-6% sounds about right across the whole country. Where the rest of the 12% polling for Reform will go we don't yet know.
Without in any way wanting to appear to be suggesting that Reform would do any better at a GE, I think you give them too much credit or organisation in assuming they picked the seats they fought today. From what I have seen the Reform policy, much like Brexit Party and UKIP before them, is that if they can find someone to stand in a seat then they will get them to do so and hope for the best. They didn't pick the seats they fought today on the basis of where they were strongest, simply on the basis of where someone was dumb enough to put themselves forward as a candidate. (Not dumb because of the party but dumb because they want to be a councillor)
It gives us a ceiling: say Reform’s seat choices were completely random, and them standing had a proportionate impact on all other parties’ votes, their NEV would be 11%. Add that to Tory NEV and you get 37%. Which is a little over the top end of recent RefCon polling.
Knock on impact for greens would be a floor of say 6%, so lowest LLG around 57. A little below the bottom of recent polling.
All of which suggests that the polling is not far off in left:right bloc terms.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
It’s plausible that there are people from the verification of the ballot who might have an idea, but beyond that it’s more likely people reacting to twitter posts in a self reinforcing feedback loop. It’s not as if there is that much liquidity in the market, so shifting the dial doesn’t take much.
I don't find that theory plausible either. I think people getting a useful picture from the verification process is a myth.
I've seen it done many times and I don't believe the candidates and agents watching got anything worthwhile from it, but telling them they might glean something from it is a way to motivate people to volunteer for an important but very dull role.
It could be on this and other matters I am cynical, but I feel like political parties and activists tell themselves a lot of fairy tales around the vitality of many electoral actions which is nor borne out in reality, in order to build up their team spirit.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
I would’ve thought they have some idea, but it’s hard to know precisely how much. However, no-one is going on the record with precisely what they saw and there is a reason to believe that, whatever they know, they may not be being honest. And we can’t tell which anonymous sources are in the know and which aren’t. So, it’s not strong evidence of anything, I would suggest.
What we have heard… trying to see through all the nonsense… is that they do know who’s won and it’s Khan, but possibly by a smaller margin than the polls predicted. Just after typing that, Nick Watt on Newsnight said that Labour and the Conservatives agree that Khan has won, but by a narrower margin than the polls.
And on that note I have cashed out for a small profit. Could have had a bigger one if I had done it at 4.30 pm, but I think the reality is Khan has done what he was always going to and won…
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
Main headline on Sky is now “main parties think Khan has won after wild rumours”.
I’m still pointing the finger at those two main parties for kicking off the wild rumours with what they were feeding us last night.
Labour were, as far as I recall, always saying that Khan has won, just by a smaller margin than polling. It was only the Tories who were saying Hall might’ve won. Were they mistaken or malicious in doing that?
It’s quite hilarious and rather tragic that the Tories have constructed the most flimsiest of comfort bubbles . Two mayors who ran campaigns avoiding the mere mention of being Tory are now being lauded as saviours .
And watching Sunak turn up for his photo op with Tory signs everywhere couldn’t be more ironic .
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
I've no idea, but people were implying that parties would have some idea from the verification which has already happened. It was Khan by more than 20%, would parties know by now who'd won?
Main headline on Sky is now “main parties think Khan has won after wild rumours”.
I’m still pointing the finger at those two main parties for kicking off the wild rumours with what they were feeding us last night.
Labour were, as far as I recall, always saying that Khan has won, just by a smaller margin than polling. It was only the Tories who were saying Hall might’ve won. Were they mistaken or malicious in doing that?
Or trying to fund the GE campaign from trading bets on a Hall win?
Mail reporting that Sunak downfall plotters have given up.
There were no Sunak downfall plotters. What there were, was people who wanted Sunak out but hoped that someone else would hatch a plot to bring it about.
They can form a support group with all the Corbyn doubters and Trump hating Republicans, so vocal anonymously online bur curiously absent when it comes time for action.
But only 5 councils left to announce so Conservative losses unlikely to hit 500. Lib Dems have now significantly outperformed and Greens have had a stellar set of results.
But it’s Tice with his 2 seats doing the media interview rounds.
These projections from BBC and Sky are pretty weird, not matching up with the opinion polls at all. 😕
Because the polling is how people would vote if it was a GE, whereas these are actual votes in local elections. Nothing weird - people often vote differently in local vs GE, even when held on the same day.
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Why not? Anonymous claims that Hall has done well are not particularly strong evidence. Betting odds are frequently not good predictors of actual results. The back and forth of Hall’s odds is amusing, and maybe allows some trading bets, but it doesn’t prove anything.
It’s plausible that there are people from the verification of the ballot who might have an idea, but beyond that it’s more likely people reacting to twitter posts in a self reinforcing feedback loop. It’s not as if there is that much liquidity in the market, so shifting the dial doesn’t take much.
I don't find that theory plausible either. I think people getting a useful picture from the verification process is a myth.
I've seen it done many times and I don't believe the candidates and agents watching got anything worthwhile from it, but telling them they might glean something from it is a way to motivate people to volunteer for an important but very dull role.
It could be on this and other matters I am cynical, but I feel like political parties and activists tell themselves a lot of fairy tales around the vitality of many electoral actions which is nor borne out in reality, in order to build up their team spirit.
Within a single ward you're familiar with, you know. You know what the result was last time, and can vibe that up and down.
Pretty sure that you can scale that up to a constituency. London as a whole... Not impossible, but much harder. There are too many moving parts and one person can't sniff them all.
These projections from BBC and Sky are pretty weird, not matching up with the opinion polls at all. 😕
Because the polling is how people would vote if it was a GE, whereas these are actual votes in local elections. Nothing weird - people often vote differently in local vs GE, even when held on the same day.
Don't tell people who prepare elections leaflets that - I totally believe a barchart showing local authority results for the parliamentary area will bear out at a GE, including the large Independent vote and the party in second place in the latter being in fifth place in the former.
It’s quite hilarious and rather tragic that the Tories have constructed the most flimsiest of comfort bubbles . Two mayors who ran campaigns avoiding the mere mention of being Tory are now being lauded as saviours .
And watching Sunak turn up for his photo op with Tory signs everywhere couldn’t be more ironic .
Daily Telegraph calls it Tory’s fare better than expected.
They also have Giles Brandreth responsible for (the) Emu’s death.
These projections from BBC and Sky are pretty weird, not matching up with the opinion polls at all. 😕
They’re made on the idiotic assumption that everyone would vote the same in council and general elections (in which case congratulations residents associations on your projected Westminster seats), and that Scotland doesn’t exist.
I had a conversation with someone about the elections today and they stated they had no idea there was a history of misleading barcharts on election literature.
Sometimes I begin to doubt whether political and electoral minutiae is as interesting to everyone as it is to me.
If you've had a series of losses, even with a few 'big name' wins, why do speeches and events in front of a crowd of supporters with signs?
If they look too happy they look demented given the events, and if they look downcast it just looks depressing and weird.
See also coming out to spin the results. I mean what can a Tory really claim in the face of the facts? Yet they ‘have’ to do it, and also cannot just say “yes, it’s been shit, we are shit and heading for a thrashing”.
I’ll go first . I’m not a Starmer fan and would have been happier with Rayner as leader . Starmer needs to stop chasing votes from those who would never vote Labour anyway . And Reeves needs to remember that the Tories have lost their economic capital and Labour should stop trying to be an Osborne tribute band . You know my thoughts on Gaza .
It’s janky and glitchy like AI yet at times the flaws add to the vibe, indeed perhaps it IS the vibe. It’s like a dream, and I wonder if that’s because most of the time these advanced AIs are not conscious, but when we prompt them - or ask them for videos - we stir them from deep sleep, and they dream. Sometimes they do beautiful lucid dreams, like this. Soon they will wake
What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
Well, 'some polls' had Khan winning by more than 20% - surely that's no longer plausible?
Not totally implausible. There were 13 London by elections yesterday, and...
The point here is - it looks like, overall, council voting in London looks very similar to the 2022 Locals, when Labour won by 17 pts across the capital (43%-26%).
So question is: how likely is it that the same voters giving Lab a ~17 pt lead, also elect Susan Hall?
Still, we'll know soon enough. Though if I were a CCHQ operative, I'd be trying to stuff the boxes to make sure Hall doesn't win.
Similarly, when we look at results in the West Mids we see Con holding on in Walsall and Solihull, but losing to Labour in Dudley it is hard to see why the same swing to Lab (albeit less than other bits of the country) would be different for the Mayoral campaign.
Currently Lab is 8 on Bfx for what appears to be a toss up. There may well be value there.
Comments
The Con vote share went fell by 17.5% (a third), and Lab went up by 4%, and LD by 14% from not standing.
It's not quite as big as CUmbria, but that's what getting yourself banned from driving in the first couple of months in the job, and then pretending you are some sort of victim therefore does for you. Esoecially when your police force ends up in special measures.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.201750386
https://nypost.com/2021/04/06/former-cia-director-says-he-believes-ufos-could-exist-report/
“Which Presidents Have Seen UFOs? Yep, It’s More Than One.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/17/us-presidents-ufo-obsession-00127519
“Nasa to hire UFO director to investigate unexplained sightings”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/14/nasa-to-hire-ufo-director-to-investigate-uaps/
“The study of UFOs is finally becoming respectable science
BY PROFESSOR AVI LOEB”
https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-study-of-ufos-is-finally-becoming-respectable-science/
In case nobody has answered, the last time we had four PMs in one Parliament was 1865-68 - Palmerston (died) Russell (voted out) Derby (retired) Disraeli (lost election).
I think the record is five, from 1780-84 - North, Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland and Pitt.
Sam Freedman
@Samfr
Talking of the Greens.... [Hastings] is a good example of why you can't use local elections national vote share to model a general election.
This result will have reduced Labour's local vote share but the Westminster seat will be an easy pick up for them at the general.
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1786497750223208591
It’s not - shall we say - a fruitful way for me to spend my dwindling years, so I suggest we abandon the attempt. You can go back to talking about whatever the fuck it is you and Kamski talk about, I can’t remember coz you’re both so forgettable, and I will lift mine eyes unto the dazzling firmament of the profound
In the 19th Cent (and before) UFOs looked and behaved like futuristic balloons. Complete with occupants in wacky takeoffs of the fashions of the day.
Soon after heavier than air flight came in, they switched to futuristic flying machines.
When jets and rockets came in, they switched to futuristic rocket craft.
Problems for Starmer, like Biden, with young progressives over Gaza?
But fine, we have a different view on this. But you definitely were ramping the greatest moment in human history at the time, as indeed you are doing now about AI…
As an example there were 14 Conservative losses and 15 Labour gains in Nuneaton to give a new 20 to 16 balance in favour of Labour. That pattern was repeated across perhaps twenty of the councils in yesterday's election and most of the rest were Labour or Lib Dem anyway.
https://x.com/bbclaurak/status/1786499484676985054
On what basis is 'it clear' Laura?
I feel let down.
Plenty of the leadership contenders will probably be looking for Sunak to take the fall now so they get a longer stint to rebuild…
Incidentally, I live in a once legendary UFO hotspot - Warminster. Famous in the 60’s and early 70’s, now mostly forgotten, or if recalled at all, seen as the odd member of the family that no one talks about.
There is a great book about the whole thing, and how a huge flap was created out of very thin gruel, mainly by the actions of a newspaper man, with some other pranksters to help. It’s called In Alien Heat, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how people can be convinced things are happening when nothing actually is.
Our resident futurologist could learn something from it, but probably won’t because he already KNOWS he is right… (about everything).
https://amazon.co.uk/Alien-Heat-Warminster-Mystery-Revisited/dp/1933665025
When native aborigines in Arnhemland saw Europeans with horses they presumed they were riding strange four legged kangaroos. Similarly when they saw muskets they thought they were spears that somehow made fire. Because their frame of reference included kangaroos and spears, but not horses and guns
Similarly yet differently, when Europeans first encountered natives on the Solomon Islands they would fire their guns right in front of them. As a test. Why?
If it was the first time Solomon Islanders had witnessed a gun going off they didn’t look at the gun they looked to the sky, thinking they’d heard a thunderclap, but seeing no clouds or storms they shrugged. They could not see the gun themselves - outside their bandwidth
If the islanders did look at the guns, the Europeans knew this was not the very first encounter, for the islanders, and they treated them accordingly
If we are being visited by aliens - or extra dimensional beings - or whatever (and this is far from impossible but unlikely) we will have the same reactions. Some of us simply won’t see them - perhaps most. Those that do will desperately try to make them fit their frame of reference, seeing them as dragons or angels or advanced 60s planes or whatever is the tech of the day. We will see odd kangaroos when in fact we are looking at horses
The E&W Greens are having a very good night too, though flying under the radar a bit. And if Hall wins London, it will be at least in part due to the switch to FPTP and a split left. This will focus tactical minds in the GE, but Starmer/Swinney are still going to have to give Green type voters something to vote for.
A bit of a drunk and prone to abusive rants, which isn’t great. But he was clever
I can only analyse Labour actually wanted this big drum role and focus on the afternoon announcement. They had been saying they were worried, and tonight saying they don’t see any concerns?
But I'm going to start with the safe Labour seats that I expected to ignore.
Changes are on the 2023 local round.
LE results for Huddersfield constituency
(2024 boundaries):
Labour: 33.8% (-11.7)
Green 31.9 (+10.5)
Con 15.6 (-3.1)
LD 12.8 (-0.4)
Others 6.0 (+4.9)
There is a green base anyway, but serious pro green swings in 2 wards brought Green to near parity. They gained one ward to hold two, and lost to Labour by 1% in a ward where another independent split the pro-Palestine vote, accounting for 3.6% of the constituency vote alone and also preventing a Green plurality.
Can they establish themselves as contenders at parliamentary level?
The problem is sometimes they are also taken by complete surprise by results too.
So they certainly don't know the result already, and have not the slightest clue how accurate their own internal predictions are until that happens. We have this delusion sometimes that the parties' internal data must somehow be more accurate than what the public can see, so we look for games upon games, when the simple answer is they are bullshitting.
As for NEV, I’d love to look at LLG:RefCon bloc numbers but it’s impossible because they are infuriatingly lumping Green, Reform, independents and others into “other”. But we can get a range.
LL without the G is currently 51%
Con without Ref is 26%
So the full range is LLG 51-73, RefCon 26-48%
Given council results it seems reasonable to assume something like Green 9%, Ind/Other 8% and Ref 5%. Which would be 60:31 ignoring independents. Not far off current polling. Hard to work out where they would go in a GE.
Me thinks they never had the numbers in the first place.
52 letters - my arse, as Jim Royale would have said.
There’s still this window in the next two months, where the economic and fiscal position will look on the up. Where the Rwanda Scheme still holds hope, before July’s armada of crossings makes it look hopeless.
After summer recess, Covid Report, followed by rising energy costs, rising food prices and inflation in time for an Autumn election. What are we seeing in waiting those extra 12 weeks, that makes polling better, and not actually worse?
I’m sure they plan to avoid another fiscal event. For one thing promises to Posties and Blood victims will have to be delivered, as well as the Defence Funding promise put through an OBR and fully funded. Borrowing is already eating into headroom for rabbits from the hat.
By not putting these things through last budget, I think they have decided to exploit this coming window, where things appear on the up. July 4th election, called 13th of May becuase Parliament already shuts the following week.
Tits out for Whitsun.
Neil Henderson
@hendopolis
·
14m
THE TIMES: Victory for Tory mayor helps Sunak to cling on
I’m still pointing the finger at those two main parties for kicking off the wild rumours with what they were feeding us last night.
The point here is - it looks like, overall, council voting in London looks very similar to the 2022 Locals, when Labour won by 17 pts across the capital (43%-26%).
So question is: how likely is it that the same voters giving Lab a ~17 pt lead, also elect Susan Hall?
https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1786486290487103810
Khan is meh, but is he really that meh?
Still, we'll know soon enough. Though if I were a CCHQ operative, I'd be trying to stuff the boxes to make sure Hall doesn't win.
One of the drawback in making one or several PM changes in a parliament, you don’t really know what your getting or how they will go down with the public.
It's not even usually lies, exactly, you just have different people putting out vague messages, and like a game of chinese whispers sometimes it changes a bit so 'closer than people expect' becomes 'it's close' for example.
What we have heard… trying to see through all the nonsense… is that they do know who’s won and it’s Khan, but possibly by a smaller margin than the polls predicted. Just after typing that, Nick Watt on Newsnight said that Labour and the Conservatives agree that Khan has won, but by a narrower margin than the polls.
Knock on impact for greens would be a floor of say 6%, so lowest LLG around 57. A little below the bottom of recent polling.
All of which suggests that the polling is not far off in left:right bloc terms.
I've seen it done many times and I don't believe the candidates and agents watching got anything worthwhile from it, but telling them they might glean something from it is a way to motivate people to volunteer for an important but very dull role.
It could be on this and other matters I am cynical, but I feel like political parties and activists tell themselves a lot of fairy tales around the vitality of many electoral actions which is nor borne out in reality, in order to build up their team spirit.
SKS fans please explain
And watching Sunak turn up for his photo op with Tory signs everywhere couldn’t be more ironic .
Labour 1,026 seats
Green Tories 159 seats
But only 5 councils left to announce so Conservative losses unlikely to hit 500. Lib Dems have now significantly outperformed and Greens have had a stellar set of results.
But it’s Tice with his 2 seats doing the media interview rounds.
If they look too happy they look demented given the events, and if they look downcast it just looks depressing and weird.
Pretty sure that you can scale that up to a constituency. London as a whole... Not impossible, but much harder. There are too many moving parts and one person can't sniff them all.
They also have Giles Brandreth responsible for (the) Emu’s death.
Sometimes I begin to doubt whether political and electoral minutiae is as interesting to everyone as it is to me.
https://youtu.be/-Nb-M1GAOX8?si=jyxKb9ibZDcthM_I
It’s janky and glitchy like AI yet at times the flaws add to the vibe, indeed perhaps it IS the vibe. It’s like a dream, and I wonder if that’s because most of the time these advanced AIs are not conscious, but when we prompt them - or ask them for videos - we stir them from deep sleep, and they dream. Sometimes they do beautiful lucid dreams, like this. Soon they will wake
Based on history, a 9% PNV lead for Labour is probably high teens in GE polling. Lower than some polls, but not crazily so.
This is known which is why that Sky News projection was GIGO.
Currently Lab is 8 on Bfx for what appears to be a toss up. There may well be value there.