Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
Because he is playing a role, just like Churchill did during WW2.
It's not about role play it's about respect for the WW2 fallen
No vetran would object to the clothes that Zelenskys wears - because that's the uniform he's worn for the past 2 years while he leads a country at war.
Churchill spent a considerable chunk of the war wearing a boiler suit.
Made by Turnbull & Asser, to be sure. They still have one in their collection at Jermyn Street.
But spun as a "siren suit" IIRC. As a small child visiting relatives c. 1966 I was taken to see Chartwell and they had one there too. Almost the only thing I remember, apart from the brick wall he was said to have built.
Sunak asking young people to do National Service or to volunteer one weekend a month and then couldn’t be arsed to spend a full day honouring veterans . This will be another take on events .
This latest own goal by him just feeds into other policy announcements .
If you’re on the left liberal wing and echoing that superb post by Big G North Wales we need to be worried about what’s to come.
So us liberal lefties are in the weird position of obviously wanting the Tories to lose but to not get pulverized and certainly we don’t want Farage winning in Clacton .
I’m sure the other parties will have their gaffes during the campaign and will have those very bad news days but Sunak really needs to get a grip .
No. We really really really want Farage to win and we want him to beat the Tories to death and we want him to be leader of the opposition and then become prime minister
Look at the polls. He’s the most popular politician in the land. Sure he’s also hated. But the same was true of thatcher. Very popular with some disliked by many - she got things done and didn’t care
What, in is history, makes you think Farage would be a competent, or even good, PM?
He just has to be better than Sunak. Or truss. Or Boris. Or may. Or Cameron. Or brown
It’s not a high bar and then suddenly he’s the best pm in a generation
If you had spent any time with him, talking in a relaxed situation, you would know he’s a complete lightweight, past the golf club bonhomie he’s fucking humourless and witless. He’s amusing for ten minutes but two hours later when you’ve tried to have interesting chats you realise there is nothing there apart from the most basic simplistic opinions in a very narrow sphere of politics.
Its why Trump loves him, he won’t have anything interesting to say, no interesting ideas but will happily parrot back what Trump says like an echo chamber and they all sit grinning about how great they are.
I know you think you are being a bit edgy calling for him to take over but you will the first crying like a baby when you realise what you’ve got. I don’t even live in the UK and worry about what would happen if he was in charge.
I have spent time with him and I also suspect he's rather lightweight. Does it matter? He's a tool with which to smash the Tories to death. He's too old to do grave policy damage, if he wins a lot of clever people will flock to Reform. The Right has to be renewed and the Tories cannot do it, their brand is beyond saving and at the top they are ruled by the most avaricious careerist clueless fucks. I hope they all lose their seats. Every single one of them
And anyway, if "Farage" is lightweight what does that make Sunak? If he can "do damage", what do you think Truss did? Or Cameron? Or Boris or May? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT 2.4 MILLION MIGRANTS IN 3 YEARS - would Farage do that? Nope
Again and again we come back to what the Tories have acrually done in 14 years and there ain't nothing there, and what is there is nearly all disastrous. They did Brexit, but they have refused to exploit it. Fuck em. Time to die
So on Monday pre Farage I put a lot of Trading bets on Reform and the LDs with the intention of cashing out this weekend, after Farage’s debate appearance tonight.
At this rate, it is surely better to hold them until next week, where we might get some more strong Reform showings in the polls after the D-Day issue has had cut through… thoughts?
Things are only going to get worse for the Tories. Sunak has forced a couple of score draws and a few big losses - no reason to expect things for them to improve, so personally I'm letting things ride.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
Has anyone thought through the consequences for RS in his Richmond Constituency? It includes the UK’S largest garrison at Catterick and important RAF base as well. He could easily lose his seat now!
Does anyone really care? I mean apart from pissing off his retired colonel base and reinforcing the fact that he has a tin ear for politics and should retire instantly and pretend his whole premiership never happened, is anyone going to change votes on account of this?
This is being discussed elsewhere.
The issue for Richi is the whole campaign was designed to get people to change their votes. The 20 point polling deficit was supposed to narrow as Farage adjacent voters came home to the Tories.
Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
I did notice that. Seemed an odd choice of outfit for a memorial I must say. But given the problems his country is having, seemed a mean point to make.
He's been wearing the same type of clothes to all official events since the war started.
As a reminder of the war.
It's a deliberate choice and one that everyone he meets seems to have no problem with.
Something of a poignant reminder, at a remembrance service, that war is still ongoing.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Tories got a 10 year majority last time, things can turn much quicker than you think.
Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
Because he is playing a role, just like Churchill did during WW2.
More specifically, he's said in various interviews, that he feels that
(a) wearing a suit feels detached from the realties of Ukraine (b) that it reminds people, when he goes to events, of the war.
He’s not worn a suit since 24th February 2022. It reminds everyone, that his is a country at war.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
Don't believe you - please provide evidence because even this week I saw issues in 3 local authorities round here..
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Despite the hyperbole on here, there is nothing in any GE result that means the next GE result is a foregone conclusion. A lot of us made that error in 2019 by saying a Tory majority of 80 could not be overturned. This should be an awakening for us all.
Good morning one and all. Bright and sunny here this morning, I’m glad to report.
Private Eye was commenting the other day that it was a bit surprising that the King seemed to just grant the PM’s request for a dissolution without much question or discussion, and suggested that the late Queen wouldn’t necessarily have done so. Now, we know that the DDay commemoration was scheduled; our PM wasn’t rung up at the last minute and told that Biden, Macron etc were going and he’d better, too. That’s not the way these things work. The point about the Scots holidays is a good one too; what’s more, plenty of parents schedule holidays for immediately after GCSE’s and/or A levels finish. Another clash. Then there’s the confusion over who’s standing where; a Party Leader surely has some idea of how ready the troops are. And so on. Either there’s something very, very good going to happen in the last week of June, or possibly something very nasty which is going to ‘unite the country’, or there’s something very nasty indeed going to happen in the early Autumn. Which is it?
Don't know much about why Lascelles enunciated those Principles but they seem to be about almost winning an election and wanting another go, not fag end governments like this.
One sinister possibility is that they don't want a GE clashing with a royal funeral (which is perhaps your point)
That’s one possibility, certainly. My basic point is that no-one at the top of the Conservatives seems to have had any sort of notice and are as surprised as the rest of us.
This seems pretty terminal for his chances of re-election.
As I pointed out - not actually that many votes in Catterick, it's a training camp so most soldiers are only there on a temporary basis.
Big employer though, surely? Crucial for the local economy etc. North Yorkshire is the Toriest of places, this is going to go down like a cup of cold sick.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
“he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign”
But it was widely agreed to be a day off for the campaign to focus on the commemorations.
You have it the wrong way round, to sneak away from the break in campaigning, to slip in sneaky campaigning looks bad.
He was in fact doing a very respectful one man Dunkirk reenactment.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
Name these mythical LAs that have over 10% of properties unoccupied, as is typical in healthy economies.
There is intense housing pressure in every LA I know of.
Tut. Cruiser, surely. Or possibly frigate depending on the timing.
I'm probably showing my ignorance here but aren't cruisers and frigates types of battleships?
No: 'warship' is the all-in word you want.
Battleship in the C20 context is a big warship with a combination of thick armour and long and fat guns as primary armament. If you went for thinner armour and bigger engines for speed you got a battlecruiser, but they had a tendency to blow up and sink if caught by a proper battleship and couldn't run away.
Cruisers were smaller versions - HMS Belfast in the Pool of London is the last RN one.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Have you factored in Rishis current blunder run rate of one every two days? Still almost 4 weeks to go.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
Don't believe you - please provide evidence because even this week I saw issues in 3 local authorities round here..
Absolutely.
I'd love to know these mythical local authorities without housing shortages.
Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
Because he is playing a role, just like Churchill did during WW2.
More specifically, he's said in various interviews, that he feels that
(a) wearing a suit feels detached from the realties of Ukraine (b) that it reminds people, when he goes to events, of the war.
He’s not worn a suit since 24th February 2022. It reminds everyone, that his is a country at war.
Should have stayed away if he can't show respect
I think the only thing you are showing here is how out of tune your views are with the real world...
Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
Because he is playing a role, just like Churchill did during WW2.
It's not about role play it's about respect for the WW2 fallen
No vetran would object to the clothes that Zelenskys wears - because that's the uniform he's worn for the past 2 years while he leads a country at war.
Churchill spent a considerable chunk of the war wearing a boiler suit.
Made by Turnbull & Asser, to be sure. They still have one in their collection at Jermyn Street.
But spun as a "siren suit" IIRC. As a small child visiting relatives c. 1966 I was taken to see Chartwell and they had one there too. Almost the only thing I remember, apart from the brick wall he was said to have built.
Not spun. They were a version of the "siren suits" - so called because they were supposed to be for air raids etc. When the alarm sounded you'd pull on your siren suit over whatever you were wearing and head to the shelter. Warm and quick to put on.
He had them specially made, adapted from a zip up boiler suit, popular with brick layers, IIRC.
Since T&A were his suit makers, that's who made them.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Despite the hyperbole on here, there is nothing in any GE result that means the next GE result is a foregone conclusion. A lot of us made that error in 2019 by saying a Tory majority of 80 could not be overturned. This should be an awakening for us all.
I don't think there's much great enthusiasm for Labour, and absolutely no reason the young in the UK will not show the same tendencies as the young in Canada in Europe when a left wing Govt is there to fight against. That will involve a Tory leader taking the step of accepting that they can no longer be the pensioner party though.
So imagine Reform entering the Commons with 3 MPs (Farage, Tice and Anderson). Tories come back with less than 100 and the two parties merge. What's the mechanism for Farage to become the leader of the merged party? What's then stopping the centre-right wing of the party to walk out in an echo of 1981?
I can't see how a party with 3 MPs would be in a position to control the party with nearer 100.
In Canada, the example that Farage likes to mention, the new Reform party had 52 seats (which would equate to around 115 in the UK), so had a lot more power.
If the result is 100-3, then clearly the Tory vote is still a lot more powerful in its concentration, and without PR, a lot of Tory MPs could be risking their seats to sign up with Reform. I think you're correct, that the centre-right would still hold quite a lot of power.
Unless Reform make a huge breakthrough - and frankly, given the way things are going, it's not impossible for the Tory vote to crash, then I'd be surprised if it worked out quite so easily for Farage.
Has anyone seen any polling on what the current Tory voters think of Reform? I know that we've seen a lot on Reform voters having a poor opinion of the Tories and Sunak (hence why a pact was probably never on the cards), but no the other way around.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Welcome to the world of pain experienced by those of us on the left for 32 of the past 45 years.
Your best bet is to keep buggering on, pushing, and as far as possible voting for, the sort of policies you'd like to see. In time there will be a new 'one-nation conservatism' option for you.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Tories got a 10 year majority last time, things can turn much quicker than you think.
Massively this. I’ve thought for years that Starmer would crush it this time - but I think 2029 is much more in play than lots of PBers seem to think.
If a realignment happens, a 500+ seat Labour Party might not be all that stable and have breakaway factions… meanwhile Farage’s Reform and/or the Tories are demanding PR along with the Lib Dems, with some on the Labour left sympathetic because this will boost their own potential breakaway party.
Meanwhile there’s a potentially much more radical economic agenda along the way than we’ve seen for some time, contrary to what the Labour manifesto in its current form states.
They should still win 2029 but it’s not a foregone by any means.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
How many of those votes were postal votes and how many on the day? I suspect that half of the votes in this by election would have been cast around the bank holiday weekend and a long time before Farage subbed off Tice.
Will Sunak's apology bring Big_G back to the cause? I guess it will.
Sunak should not have apologised. He was at Southsea, he was at the D Day commemorations on the British beaches in Normandy.
All he has done now is give fuel to the opposition parties exploitation of the D Day memorials for their own political ends in one of the most disgraceful acts of political campaigning I have ever seen. Starmer, Davey and Farage should be ashamed of themselves
Nice try, Comrade,
The shit is only flying in one direction.
Why has nobody mentioned Zelenskys amazingly respectful dress code?
Because he is playing a role, just like Churchill did during WW2.
More specifically, he's said in various interviews, that he feels that
(a) wearing a suit feels detached from the realties of Ukraine (b) that it reminds people, when he goes to events, of the war.
He’s not worn a suit since 24th February 2022. It reminds everyone, that his is a country at war.
Should have stayed away if he can't show respect
You realise that you are screaming "MAGA! MAGA!" at the top of your voice?
No actual veterans have commented on his dress sense. They all seemed to rather like him.
Tut. Cruiser, surely. Or possibly frigate depending on the timing.
I'm probably showing my ignorance here but aren't cruisers and frigates types of battleships?
No: 'warship' is the all-in word you want.
Battleship in the C20 context is a big warship with a combination of thick armour and long and fat guns as primary armament. If you went for thinner armour and bigger engines for speed you got a battlecruiser, but they had a tendency to blow up and sink if caught by a proper battleship and couldn't run away.
Cruisers were smaller versions - HMS Belfast in the Pool of London is the last RN one.
"I don't want to join the Conservative Party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over."
Indeed, the clue is in the name. The Reform Party is named after the Canadian Reform Party which took over the Canadian Conservatives after that party imploded. There is nothing subtle about this, no hidden agenda.
So on Monday pre Farage I put a lot of Trading bets on Reform and the LDs with the intention of cashing out this weekend, after Farage’s debate appearance tonight.
At this rate, it is surely better to hold them until next week, where we might get some more strong Reform showings in the polls after the D-Day issue has had cut through… thoughts?
Keep some, I expect crossover early next week, then dump as they (should) start drifting back
Thanks, that’s probably right, I’ll keep a good amount until around Tues and reassess
Tut. Cruiser, surely. Or possibly frigate depending on the timing.
I'm probably showing my ignorance here but aren't cruisers and frigates types of battleships?
They are types of warships but cruisers, frigates and battleships are very different and have different roles. Battleships are massive mofos with lots of 16in guns. Cruisers and frigates are smaller and may have 6 in guns. Nobody really operates battleships these days they’ve been replaced as naval daddy by aircraft carriers.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
Barking and Dagenham is building new flats in various spots right now, and has recently had the whole new Barking Riverside development. ETA most of the borough has the Becontree estate, once and possibly still the country's largest council housing estate. It is not as if there are vast tracts of land to be built on, other than where freed by deindustrialisation.
Harry's reacting like he's paid/ told to. Hmmmm yeah I guess he sort of defends him. The big mea culpa looks like being how he'll try and get out of it
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
Don't believe you - please provide evidence because even this week I saw issues in 3 local authorities round here..
Absolutely.
I'd love to know these mythical local authorities without housing shortages.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Tories got a 10 year majority last time, things can turn much quicker than you think.
Massively this. I’ve thought for years that Starmer would crush it this time - but I think 2029 is much more in play than lots of PBers seem to think.
If a realignment happens, a 500+ seat Labour Party might not be all that stable and have breakaway factions… meanwhile Farage’s Reform and/or the Tories are demanding PR along with the Lib Dems, with some on the Labour left sympathetic because this will boost their own potential breakaway party.
Meanwhile there’s a potentially much more radical economic agenda along the way than we’ve seen for some time, contrary to what the Labour manifesto in its current form states.
They should still win 2029 but it’s not a foregone by any means.
Good. That’s how democracy is supposed to work. Labour better deliver, or else.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
How many of those votes were postal votes and how many on the day? I suspect that half of the votes in this by election would have been cast around the bank holiday weekend and a long time before Farage subbed off Tice.
This, and also, the strong Lib Dem showing is something that might not be replicated in all the seats where Reform can be competitive.
Today is the pivotal day for Reform:
A. Potential last minute defections B. Farage debate appearance
I said this yesterday - don’t underestimate how many voters won’t even know Farage is standing until tomorrow. When clips from Friday’s debate go viral, a couple million people will go “Oh wait, we can vote for good old Nigel!” - whether that translates on polling day is up for debate but it will become in play.
Tut. Cruiser, surely. Or possibly frigate depending on the timing.
I'm probably showing my ignorance here but aren't cruisers and frigates types of battleships?
No: 'warship' is the all-in word you want.
Battleship in the C20 context is a big warship with a combination of thick armour and long and fat guns as primary armament. If you went for thinner armour and bigger engines for speed you got a battlecruiser, but they had a tendency to blow up and sink if caught by a proper battleship and couldn't run away.
Cruisers were smaller versions - HMS Belfast in the Pool of London is the last RN one.
It's also possible tactlessness to imply someone is somehow like a battleship (unless they really are built like a brickwork latrine) - cruisers and frigates are distinctly slimmer. Obviously you had the other sense in mind!
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Have you factored in Rishis current blunder run rate of one every two days? Still almost 4 weeks to go.
I did say 'unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing'
Good morning one and all. Bright and sunny here this morning, I’m glad to report.
Private Eye was commenting the other day that it was a bit surprising that the King seemed to just grant the PM’s request for a dissolution without much question or discussion, and suggested that the late Queen wouldn’t necessarily have done so. Now, we know that the DDay commemoration was scheduled; our PM wasn’t rung up at the last minute and told that Biden, Macron etc were going and he’d better, too. That’s not the way these things work. The point about the Scots holidays is a good one too; what’s more, plenty of parents schedule holidays for immediately after GCSE’s and/or A levels finish. Another clash. Then there’s the confusion over who’s standing where; a Party Leader surely has some idea of how ready the troops are. And so on. Either there’s something very, very good going to happen in the last week of June, or possibly something very nasty which is going to ‘unite the country’, or there’s something very nasty indeed going to happen in the early Autumn. Which is it?
Don't know much about why Lascelles enunciated those Principles but they seem to be about almost winning an election and wanting another go, not fag end governments like this.
One sinister possibility is that they don't want a GE clashing with a royal funeral (which is perhaps your point)
Yes, I can imagine that if the doctors give the Monarch, "six months to get your affairs in order old boy," then making sure your death doesn't clash with an election campaign would seem like a good idea.
Tut. Cruiser, surely. Or possibly frigate depending on the timing.
I'm probably showing my ignorance here but aren't cruisers and frigates types of battleships?
No: 'warship' is the all-in word you want.
Battleship in the C20 context is a big warship with a combination of thick armour and long and fat guns as primary armament. If you went for thinner armour and bigger engines for speed you got a battlecruiser, but they had a tendency to blow up and sink if caught by a proper battleship and couldn't run away.
Cruisers were smaller versions - HMS Belfast in the Pool of London is the last RN one.
It's also possible tactlessness to imply someone is somehow like a battleship (unless they really are built like a brickwork latrine) - cruisers and frigates are distinctly slimmer. Obviously you had the other sense in mind!
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
The Tory candidate is wife of the local Conservative MP.
I am not so sure, this feels deeply offensive to a lot of older voters especially.
I don't think it turns the dial much - but Sunak once again makes SKS look more like a PM than him. I would not be surprised to see Starmer's ratings improve further.
I read the news this morning re: D-Day and came on here.
Jesus Christ, this looks awful.
Is there a public register of Labour Party members? Has anyone searched it to make sure one R. Sunak is on it. Because it's the only explanation that could possibly make sense.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Clearly council elections are very different.
But isn't the big issue with Reform that their vote is spread around too much? Even when polling had them pretty much neck and neck with the Tories, they were still likely only to have any chance of winning a couple of seats.
The Tories still appeal to more affluent areas in concentrated MP winning numbers, but apparently racists are spread around a little too much for Reform to make an impact quickly.
Can we spare a thought for poor David Johnston. Sent out to defend his Prime Minister's honour due to the entire Cabinet forgetting to put their phones on charge overnight and valiantly batting away every hostile question only for Sunak to apologise ten minutes later.
So who else in the Conservative high command knew that Sunak was going to leave early ?
Cameron and Shapps must have done as they were there.
Any others ?
And did those who did know agree with Sunak leaving early or try to persuade him not to ?
That's a good point. Even if Team Sunak are absolute dickheads, Cameron was excellent on the world stage, he knows what is required and how to do it. You would have thought he would be telling Team Sunak WTF are you doing.
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Welcome to the world of pain experienced by those of us on the left for 32 of the past 45 years.
Your best bet is to keep buggering on, pushing, and as far as possible voting for, the sort of policies you'd like to see. In time there will be a new 'one-nation conservatism' option for you.
Interesting thought that it might well be the SNP who end up representing one-nation conservatism in the UK.
What a vivid and shocking contrast: the sacrifice of all those brave men so that 80 years on the prime minister could cut short his visit to where they fell so that he could return to London to attack his opponent.
On such judgements we learn about character
I’m sure as they were running up that beach they were thinking “we’re doing this so everyone has to behave in a perfectly ordered way in the future and be forced into attending ceremonies”.
My grandfather wasn’t flying his plane bombing Normandy on D-Day for anything like this confected wank. He was doing it because it was his duty, his job, orders and ultimately he didn’t want the country and Europe to be run by fascists who did not tolerate people not doing what they are ordered to do.
It’s fucking tedious this whole “they didn’t sacrifice their lives for this” - they didn’t care about this sort of shit.
Huge truth in this. The generation that served - my father's generation - now nearly all dead, was the generation that we boomers knew. They brought up us, they were our teachers, neighbours and all that. They were more than glad we won, and knew that slavery awaited us if we lost, glad to get home, many would spend a bit of time on one day each in November remembering, and attending something local, wearing a red poppy. But only a small minority made a lifelong huge ceremonial thing of it. They were mostly unemphatic quiet small 'l' liberals.
Still Rishi is a tin eared clown, a gibbering idiot would have been able to realise how this would look. Must have been some very special TV interview.
On topic, and somewhat late to the party, I am not sure that there is much value in Biden at 2-1 at the moment. Trump remains the strong favourite for very good reasons.
He is ahead in all of the battle ground states, he is marginally ahead in the overall polling which he can afford to lose by at least 3%, his conviction has made virtually no difference to the polling, he will not face any more trials before November, it is getting increasingly difficult to see what is going to change this.
I wish this was not so but Biden is losing and running out of ammunition. Bewildering but true.
Firstly, wrong on the post conviction polling.
The latest polls have it neck and neck, pre conviction Trump was ahead.
Second Biden has a huge advantage in that his convention is last, since 2000 the candidate whose convention is last, Gore 2000, Bush 2004, McCain 2008, Obama 2012 and Clinton 2016 has got the biggest convention bounce and all those candidates went into September ahead in the polls.
Also the polls, which are mainly All Voters and Registered Voters, are over estimating Trump. Likely Voters polls show a 1-2% advantage to Biden in turnout. When you consider the makeup of the MAGA crowd compared with Democrats that makes sense.
Applying a 2% adjustment to swing state votes show a basically tied result. In addition, Trump's lead in swing states is slowly reducing. It's all to play for.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Torbay is in Devon where we worked out earlier this week that Reform poll about half the national average there (I checked the 2015/7/9 elections and that 50% ratio works out).
so that 8.5% shows that Reform having a 17% share at a national level is plausible...
The thing to remember that a national vote share is unevenly spread - which is why the Lib Dems end up with seats when they get 9% of the national vote while until now UKIP / Brexit / Reform ended up with zero seats even though they got roughly the same percentage.
As an aside, I thought the King's message was poor, and notable for referring repeatedly to our allies and Commonwealth troops rather than naming countries, although he did mention the various religions represented. This might be a minority opinion though, as I've not seen it widely criticised, and KC3 could have made other speeches I missed.
So who else in the Conservative high command knew that Sunak was going to leave early ?
Cameron and Shapps must have done as they were there.
Any others ?
And did those who did know agree with Sunak leaving early or try to persuade him not to ?
Apparently he wasn't going to go at all originally, his judgment and his team's judgment is a joke. This is basic stuff.
Remember how much Corbyn got slaughtered for looking scruffy?
Mr Foot got slaughtered for wearing a neat if slightly botty-freezing jacket at a royal funeral (?). Media made it out to be a donkey jacket from some socialist miners or something.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
How many of those votes were postal votes and how many on the day? I suspect that half of the votes in this by election would have been cast around the bank holiday weekend and a long time before Farage subbed off Tice.
Fair point - so if we assume a 50/50 postal/on the day split for the sake of argument, and let's assume two-thirds of the Reform vote was on the day, that would put them at about 11-12%? Still lower than the polls, in an area where it ought to be above average.
But only one data point with a lot of assumptions, nonetheless it still points away from the polls rather than supporting them.
As an aside, I thought the King's message was poor, and notable for referring repeatedly to our allies and Commonwealth troops rather than naming countries, although he did mention the various religions represented. This might be a minority opinion though, as I've not seen it widely criticised, and KC3 could have made other speeches I missed.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Clearly council elections are very different.
But isn't the big issue with Reform that their vote is spread around too much? Even when polling had them pretty much neck and neck with the Tories, they were still likely only to have any chance of winning a couple of seats.
The Tories still appeal to more affluent areas in concentrated MP winning numbers, but apparently racists are spread around a little too much for Reform to make an impact quickly.
I think a lot of people will say they'll vote form when asked, but are less likely to actually go and place a vote (for anyone).
Genny lecs will GOTV more than counsy lecs but still I tend to agree that VI won't translate entirely to actual votes on the day.
Can we spare a thought for poor David Johnston. Sent out to defend his Prime Minister's honour due to the entire Cabinet forgetting to put their phones on charge overnight and valiantly batting away every hostile question only for Sunak to apologise ten minutes later.
I asked my dad, you still think Labour 83 campaign was more disastrous than this one, he said it’s getting about even now 😆
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Tories got a 10 year majority last time, things can turn much quicker than you think.
I admit as someone who thought Johnson had realigned politics for a generation, I was surprised how quickly it all fell apart. So we shouldn't make the same assumption about Starmer going on for ever. Nevertheless the opposite assumption is also a mistake. My impression of Starmer is he is very ambitious for a lengthy period in office and will do his utmost to win the following election.
So Starmer might crash and burn or he might be there for years and years. Not a particularly useful assessment for a site dedicated to political predictions, I accept.
I read the news this morning re: D-Day and came on here.
Jesus Christ, this looks awful.
Is there a public register of Labour Party members? Has anyone searched it to make sure one R. Sunak is on it. Because it's the only explanation that could possibly make sense.
I have a better theory:
Given the self-destructive actions of so many Conservative politicians I suggest they're all fcking morons.
Its difficult to think of a single Conservative politician who hasn't said or done something imbecilic.
New... Labour's John Healey writes to Grant Shapps to demand answers over D Day events saying they raise "worrying questions about his judgement and priorities"
I read the news this morning re: D-Day and came on here.
Jesus Christ, this looks awful.
Is there a public register of Labour Party members? Has anyone searched it to make sure one R. Sunak is on it. Because it's the only explanation that could possibly make sense.
I have a better theory:
Given the self-destructive actions of so many Conservative politicians I suggest they're all fcking morons.
Its difficult to think of a single Conservative politician who hasn't said or done something imbecilic.
What is most baffling is that they looked at Labour for five years doing it and have decided to take part.
I do honestly wonder if they've been this bad for years, Labour were just a lot worse.
Let's be honest, it fell apart as soon as Cameron left originally.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
That shows a gross ignorance of economics and follows your typical lame excuse-making for NIMBYism.
The reason for the vast shifts in housing tenure is the lack of building supply. If supply increases that will be reversed.
And of course in a healthy free housing economy typically 10% of homes are unoccupied [for very good reasons] which means homes in poor condition or are too expensive don't get let out and the owner is left paying their bills/mortgage and taxes without a tenant paying them any rent.
So why would those with savings snap up all homes if supply is increased and they can't let them out? It means price falls and people who want to buy to own have a choice, as well as tenants having a choice, on where to live.
There he blows!
New homes: 2.0 million Increase in households renting: 1.1 million Increase in households owning outright: 0.9 million Decrease in households with a mortgage: -0.4 million
It would have certainly been worse without any new homes. But the idea that an increase in supply is the only intervention required is nonsense - wealth inequality is now far too great in the UK for that to suffice.
That's been caused by the terrible shortage of new homes, meaning prices are far too high. Which is fundamental supply and demand in action.
An increase in supply may not be the only intervention required, I never said it is, but it is absolutely 100% needed and would help to reverse the damage that has been done.
Of course if supply increases and prices fall in real terms, then that would lower that inequality you mentioned too.
The number of new homes has increased faster than the population, by a wide margin. It's actually a glut.
The problem is that there are significant mismatches with where those houses are being built and where there is housing pressure. At risk of pissing off lots of PBers, here is my official assessment of LAs (bespoke assessments can be provided on request):
YIMBY Gold award:
Selby Huntingdonshire Mid Suffolk Telford and Wrekin West Lindsey
NIMBY Black Spot of Barty Doom
Pendle Thurrock Swale Epping Forest Peterborough
Urban Excellence award: Southwark Rural Excellence award: West Devon, Cotswolds, Uttlesford Leon award: Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea (fewer houses, population falling) Trooper award: Tower Hamlets, Bedford, Tewkesbury (massive effort, but simply can’t keep up) Breeze block award: Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Leicester (massive population growth, no attempt to deal with it) Barty award: Copeland, Richmondshire, Caerphilly, Allerdale (population falling but f*** it more houses anyway)
This glut is all in your head.
The number of new homes has nowhere near kept up with demand.
Again you show a shocking ignorance of the effects of demographics on housing requirements, talking again only of "population". 🤦♂️
8.2% increase in homes 6.1% increase in households 6.3% increase in population
Why are you lying?
Your households figure is a lie. You know this, so why repeat it?
People who are compelled to share a home as there's not enough houses are classed as one household. You know that, but you're repeating your lies anyway. 🤦♂️
The idea that t here's been a lesser increase in household demand than population increase, when our demographic changes mean there's even further household pressures, is so obviously false its remarkable your following through on this outright blatant lie.
The number of people per household has fallen, and overcrowding has fallen too.
Edit: sorry, the population per household has risen* This is explained by immigrants being much more efficient users of households than say older people
The number of people per household should have fallen as we have 4 million extra over 50s than we did. Who don't live with children.🤦♂️
Immigration doesn't counter that.
Your own data reveals the chronic housing shortage. Again!
In most LAs, housing pressure is actually falling. It's only in about 100 where you see this acute problem, and they are mostly in our cities.
There are 317 local authorities of England, 32 local authorities of Scotland, 22 principal councils of Wales and 11 local councils of Northern Ireland. So:
if you were referring to England, that's about 100/317 - say a third - of LAs under pressure.
If you were referring to the UK, that's 100/(317+32+22+11) = 100/382 - say 25-30% - of LAs under pressure
I thought the low bar set by Brown in 2010 for GE campaign incompetence by a PM would never be surpassed, but Rishi is quite unbelievable in his staggering ineptitude.
I've been broadly sympathetic to his plight and much as it pains me to do so, expecting to put a cross in the blue box despite zero prospect of a Tory hold in my ultra marginal seat even if the polls had been neck and neck.
I'm resigned to Labour, have been for 3 years, and accept one party can't stay in power for more than 14/15 years, I'm fine with Keir as PM, dull as he'll probably be, but I'm utterly depressed at the thought of the Tories being wiped out and Labour having a stupendous majority that will keep them/ the left in power for a generation. And that I'll be totally disenfranchised if my only prospect is to vote for some Faragist rabble.
I'm 47. I could be approaching my 70s before the country swings back to the centre right, if it ever does at all.
I'm so depressed about this, as someone who's taken a close interest in politics for maybe 35 years. Sad.
Welcome to the world of pain experienced by those of us on the left for 32 of the past 45 years.
Your best bet is to keep buggering on, pushing, and as far as possible voting for, the sort of policies you'd like to see. In time there will be a new 'one-nation conservatism' option for you.
Interesting thought that it might well be the SNP who end up representing one-nation conservatism in the UK.
Sunak is plainly smart, and hard working, and by political standards reasonably honest. He was perfectly fine as Chancellor.
The trouble is Sunak's political skills and instincts are woeful. He's absolutely out of his depth. It's a shame he didn't have enough self-awareness to realise that PM is not the job for him, a problem he shares with Gordon Brown.
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
Torbay is in Devon where we worked out earlier this week that Reform poll about half the national average there (I checked the 2015/7/9 elections and that 50% ratio works out).
so that 8.5% shows that Reform having a 17% share at a national level is plausible...
The thing to remember that a national vote share is unevenly spread - which is why the Lib Dems end up with seats when they get 9% of the national vote while until now UKIP / Brexit / Reform ended up with zero seats even though they got roughly the same percentage.
Ah - I must have missed that, thank you. Though I'm surprised as I thought the SW was quite Brexity and one of the reasons why the LDs haven't recovered. It doesn't help that the Brexit Party basically didn't stand in the SW last time so there's nothing much to go on. UKIP got 13.6% in Torbay in 2015 so slightly above the national average then.
I read the news this morning re: D-Day and came on here.
Jesus Christ, this looks awful.
Is there a public register of Labour Party members? Has anyone searched it to make sure one R. Sunak is on it. Because it's the only explanation that could possibly make sense.
We were talking yesterday about Pakistani cricketers, but could Sunak be involved in some match fixing?
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
A lot of this is that UKIP/Brexit/Reform have never very well at local elections vs. national elections, while for LDs it is the other way round that they have always done better locally. Torbay council is/was 17 Con, 15 LD, 4 indie so it shouldn't be that surprising that the by-election was Con/LD
I hesitate to mention this, but could Sunak’s background be an issue. He’s of Indian descent and his family are fairly recent migrants
For a British politician with that innate sense if British history - parents who remember the war or grandparents who were in wars - etc etc - then D Day is iconic. It’s in your blood. No way you make this howling error
For someone like Sunak D Day may appear like some quaint ceremony of a long ago war. He might appreciate it intellectually but doesn’t get it emotionally. Because of his background
I hasten to add I have no problem with a migrant prime minister. Just as long as they are competent! I’d have no problem with a bloody robot premier - they’d probably be better
Sunak doesn’t quite grasp Britain or Britishness. His wife is also Indian and billionaire. He is detached in multiple ways
Comments
And anyway, if "Farage" is lightweight what does that make Sunak? If he can "do damage", what do you think Truss did? Or Cameron? Or Boris or May? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT 2.4 MILLION MIGRANTS IN 3 YEARS - would Farage do that? Nope
Again and again we come back to what the Tories have acrually done in 14 years and there ain't nothing there, and what is there is nearly all disastrous. They did Brexit, but they have refused to exploit it. Fuck em. Time to die
The issue for Richi is the whole campaign was designed to get people to change their votes. The 20 point polling deficit was supposed to narrow as Farage adjacent voters came home to the Tories.
Richi has now 'fucked that into a cocked hat'
The polls are firming up
That's a disaster for them
CON: 42.3% (-21.1)
LDEM: 41.9% (+41.9)
REF: 8.5% (+8.5)
LAB: 5.3% (-19.6)
GRN: 1.5% (-10.1)
WP: 0.5% (+0.5)
Valid votes cast: 2,217
Conservative HOLD.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1798968636864119149
NB the above changes are wrong, Labour didn't stand last time but the LDs did so I make the LDs +17.
But - this is a ward full of over 65's, in a Brexit voting area. If Reform are really on 15%, surely they would have beaten that comfortably. Yes, I know people vote differently in a council by-election compared to a GE, but the gap is just too big.
My original guess before Farage returned was that Reform would get 4-5%. I don't see any evidence from this that when it comes to real votes they will poll much above that, even with Farage, unless the Tories keep doing as they are doing and a bandwagon rolls.
There is intense housing pressure in every LA I know of.
Battleship in the C20 context is a big warship with a combination of thick armour and long and fat guns as primary armament. If you went for thinner armour and bigger engines for speed you got a battlecruiser, but they had a tendency to blow up and sink if caught by a proper battleship and couldn't run away.
Cruisers were smaller versions - HMS Belfast in the Pool of London is the last RN one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Penelope_(97)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Penelope_(F127)
What an absolute prat, his judgment is appalling!
I'd love to know these mythical local authorities without housing shortages.
He had them specially made, adapted from a zip up boiler suit, popular with brick layers, IIRC.
Since T&A were his suit makers, that's who made them.
It's not about him or Ukraine its an 80th anniversary of D Day
Which he must have thought was Dossers Day judging by his attire.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/28357710/rishi-leaving-d-day-mistake-johnny-mercer/
In Canada, the example that Farage likes to mention, the new Reform party had 52 seats (which would equate to around 115 in the UK), so had a lot more power.
If the result is 100-3, then clearly the Tory vote is still a lot more powerful in its concentration, and without PR, a lot of Tory MPs could be risking their seats to sign up with Reform. I think you're correct, that the centre-right would still hold quite a lot of power.
Unless Reform make a huge breakthrough - and frankly, given the way things are going, it's not impossible for the Tory vote to crash, then I'd be surprised if it worked out quite so easily for Farage.
Has anyone seen any polling on what the current Tory voters think of Reform? I know that we've seen a lot on Reform voters having a poor opinion of the Tories and Sunak (hence why a pact was probably never on the cards), but no the other way around.
Your best bet is to keep buggering on, pushing, and as far as possible voting for, the sort of policies you'd like to see. In time there will be a new 'one-nation conservatism' option for you.
If a realignment happens, a 500+ seat Labour Party might not be all that stable and have breakaway factions… meanwhile Farage’s Reform and/or the Tories are demanding PR along with the Lib Dems, with some on the Labour left sympathetic because this will boost their own potential breakaway party.
Meanwhile there’s a potentially much more radical economic agenda along the way than we’ve seen for some time, contrary to what the Labour manifesto in its current form states.
They should still win 2029 but it’s not a foregone by any means.
No actual veterans have commented on his dress sense. They all seemed to rather like him.
May wasn't this bad.
@amonck
This PR team will be available in July for corporate bookings
https://x.com/amonck/status/1799011129135706360
…on Mrs May.
Edit: @Benpointer with a rather similar joke about three posts ahead!
"D-Day: Tory fury – Sunak leaves early – French told he would not attend, Tory sources confirm - shorter visit was the compromise"
Incredible. I just don't know what to say. Even the stupidest person on earth would have known that skipping it entirely was suicide.
Today is the pivotal day for Reform:
A. Potential last minute defections
B. Farage debate appearance
I said this yesterday - don’t underestimate how many voters won’t even know Farage is standing until tomorrow. When clips from Friday’s debate go viral, a couple million people will go “Oh wait, we can vote for good old Nigel!” - whether that translates on polling day is up for debate but it will become in play.
I don't think it turns the dial much - but Sunak once again makes SKS look more like a PM than him. I would not be surprised to see Starmer's ratings improve further.
Jesus Christ, this looks awful.
Is there a public register of Labour Party members? Has anyone searched it to make sure one R. Sunak is on it. Because it's the only explanation that could possibly make sense.
Cameron and Shapps must have done as they were there.
Any others ?
And did those who did know agree with Sunak leaving early or try to persuade him not to ?
But isn't the big issue with Reform that their vote is spread around too much? Even when polling had them pretty much neck and neck with the Tories, they were still likely only to have any chance of winning a couple of seats.
The Tories still appeal to more affluent areas in concentrated MP winning numbers, but apparently racists are spread around a little too much for Reform to make an impact quickly.
Remember how much Corbyn got slaughtered for looking scruffy?
Applying a 2% adjustment to swing state votes show a basically tied result. In addition, Trump's lead in swing states is slowly reducing. It's all to play for.
So that means he’s safe.
Torbay is in Devon where we worked out earlier this week that Reform poll about half the national average there (I checked the 2015/7/9 elections and that 50% ratio works out).
so that 8.5% shows that Reform having a 17% share at a national level is plausible...
The thing to remember that a national vote share is unevenly spread - which is why the Lib Dems end up with seats when they get 9% of the national vote while until now UKIP / Brexit / Reform ended up with zero seats even though they got roughly the same percentage.
But only one data point with a lot of assumptions, nonetheless it still points away from the polls rather than supporting them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/07/general-election-latest-news-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer/#1717748200446
Genny lecs will GOTV more than counsy lecs but still I tend to agree that VI won't translate entirely to actual votes on the day.
So Starmer might crash and burn or he might be there for years and years. Not a particularly useful assessment for a site dedicated to political predictions, I accept.
I thought in the debate he'd finally got back on course. Alas not.
SKS is the luckiest opposition leader in British political history.
Given the self-destructive actions of so many Conservative politicians I suggest they're all fcking morons.
Its difficult to think of a single Conservative politician who hasn't said or done something imbecilic.
New... Labour's John Healey writes to Grant Shapps to demand answers over D Day events saying they raise "worrying questions about his judgement and priorities"
https://x.com/NatashaC/status/1799015216547840485
I do honestly wonder if they've been this bad for years, Labour were just a lot worse.
Let's be honest, it fell apart as soon as Cameron left originally.
Seems like an eternity ago.
- if you were referring to England, that's about 100/317 - say a third - of LAs under pressure.
- If you were referring to the UK, that's 100/(317+32+22+11) = 100/382 - say 25-30% - of LAs under pressure
That's quite a lotSunak is plainly smart, and hard working, and by political standards reasonably honest. He was perfectly fine as Chancellor.
The trouble is Sunak's political skills and instincts are woeful. He's absolutely out of his depth. It's a shame he didn't have enough self-awareness to realise that PM is not the job for him, a problem he shares with Gordon Brown.
I hesitate to mention this, but could Sunak’s background be an issue. He’s of Indian descent and his family are fairly recent migrants
For a British politician with that innate sense if British history - parents who remember the war or grandparents who were in wars - etc etc - then D Day is iconic. It’s in your blood. No way you make this howling error
For someone like Sunak D Day may appear like some quaint ceremony of a long ago war. He might appreciate it intellectually but doesn’t get it emotionally. Because of his background
I hasten to add I have no problem with a migrant prime minister. Just as long as they are competent! I’d have no problem with a bloody robot premier - they’d probably be better
Sunak doesn’t quite grasp Britain or Britishness. His wife is also Indian and billionaire. He is detached in multiple ways