That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
I do think Lab have started to fall back a bit to just over 40. Will that continue? Will it matter?
On the Post Office specifically, does it need saving at all? Does it have any functions that cannot be performed by other organisations?
On governance of public institutions more generally, I am not sure what to suggest.
The most obvious thing is to suggest that change can only come following leadership from the top. We would need our politicians to show a clear example of choosing to do something that is difficult and right, rather than easier and in their self-interest. When government is run on the principle of escaping scrutiny, of finding spin lines to talk away failure, of never admitting to a mistake if it can be avoided, then it is no surprise that the leadership of other institutions follow suit.
Any government inevitably makes lots of mistakes. Everyone inevitably makes lots of mistakes. I don't expect us to become better at admitting them, but I think if we did so it would improve things.
Yes, it would.
The causes of the scandal are many and various but no-one can dispute that the failureof the sole shareholder, the Government, to hold the organisation properly to account was a majorfactor. That is something that can be addressed right now in respect of all Government owned businessed, and at precious little cost.
It's too late for the PO, but others could benefit from an acceptance by politicians that they are responsible for enduring proper accountability of such bodies.
It is after one very good reason why we elect them.
The politicans will of course argue that the *whole point* of separating these organisations from direct government into Qangoes, is so that the ministers don’t find their own heads of the chopping block when things go wrong.
It doesn't work. Worse, Ministers do still get it in the neck, but it is the wrong Ministers, and usually long after the damage has been done. Take Ed Davey, for example. He got targeted when the topic hit the headlines, yet he was no worse than all the others. He may even have been a fraction better in that he did actually meet with Bates, although nothing positive came of it. By contrast, the one Minister to earn praise from Bates for his genuine attempt to get involved, Norman Lamb, got zero credit for it.
The system is wrong. Ministers have to get involved, and be given time to get on top of their brief. That's an improvement that could easily be made made, and would cost little.
It is bonkers how often we move ministers around from post to post often with zero experience or even interest in their new ministry beyond the next rung on their political ladder.
Cabinet ministers should have a couple of years experience either as a junior minister/shadow in that department or on the relevant select committee. Our governance would improve loads and it doesn't cost anything to do.
We need to be a bit careful with this. In our system, ministers decide policy and civil servants enact it. Our problem is not that ministers are inexpert but that they are incurious (and in the worst cases ignorant and lazy in addition). The PO ministers should have asked more questions, and drilled down into the answers. The Health Secretary can pledge better treatment of sepsis but we do not expect them to carry an ophthalmoscope and prescription pad.
Nah, the random merry-go-round of ministerial appointments is a disaster. We have had 13 housing ministers in the last 10 years as one example.
Appoint people with some experience in or at least understanding of the field and then give them longer to get on with it.
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
Kantar is one of the pollsters that squeezes DKs heavily and seems to not need to do much upweighting and downweighting in their samples.
Verian run probabilistic stuff, it's totally different to Kantar Edit - they use a 'random probability' panel
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
I don't agree with the way you include 100% of the LD vote in the Lab/Grn "collective". I think a small but significant minority of LD voters would put the Tories as their second preference, however strange that may seem to LD supporters/activists who detest them.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
One rarely discussed problem about the law in 1984 was that it bred a profusion of wise-guy defence lawyers for minor crimes - especially speeding. If you or I got caught by a camera, we paid our £100 or whatever: if a prominent footballer got caught he paid Mr Shyster QC £5000 to demonstrate the camera hadn't been checked lately, and the footballer kept his licence to keep zooming around in his Maserati.
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
If Boris was still Tory leader the Conservatives would still be on about 30% at least and Reform would not be polling anywhere near 10-15%.
Boris would still have got 200+ Tory seats but had he lost then Sunak would have been in prime contention to be Leader of the Opposition after Boris had led the Tories to defeat and then shift the party back towards the centre.
Now Sunak will lead the Tories to the worst defeat in their history, see heavy leakage to Reform and the party will conclude had Boris been leader they might have won and the party needs to move further right in opposition to reduce leakage to Reform.
Sunak should have kept his ego in check and desire to be PM as soon as possible.
David Miliband for example did in 2009 and did not challenge Brown and won the members and MPs vote in 2010 to be Labour leader in Opposition, only the unions elected Ed Miliband
Sky has always provided a fantastic sports service, and Murdoch is a grim, plutocratic opportunist who has helped to immeasurably impoverish British television, newspapers and public life, primarily through his influence on Thatcher's reshaping of broadcasting in the 1980's. Partly as a result, British television overal is a shadow of its former self, but Sky TV still provides an excellent range of sports coverage.
Indeed. But Sky TV is nowt to do with Murdoch anymore. It was sold to Comcast six years ago!!
My final vote guesstimate would probably be that, except the taking 2% from the Greens and giving it to the LibDems.
it does look reasonable, until youj remember that this means cataclysm for the Tories. On your figures, Baxtered:
Labour: 456 Tories: 95 LDs: 55 Reform: 3 SNP: 14
Actually that does look quite plausible. Horrific for the Tories but not extinction, quite, some of them may see that as a relief - high two figures!
Three years ago we would have been debating a 95 seat majority for the Tories, not 95 MPs in total.
Tories and Reform combined though on 35% of the vote, which is actually higher than the 33% for the Tories plus Referendum party and UKIP in 1997. Yet Major's Tories got 70 more seats than is projected for Sunak's Tories with 12% of the vote netting Reform a mere 3 seats.
FPTP now working against a divided right
FPTP working against divided blocks. You are right. But is it the most difficult conclusion to come to though? And did you make this same point on 1983 landslide night, or just presume the winners were so popular and brilliant?
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
The "it was posher not to have Sky" takes are thoroughly dumb. No, your parents just weren't in to watching live sport.
At the time, it was the "colour tv" of the 60s. The same as having one of the early big screens (the ones that weighed a tonne and because CRT absolutely huge lump behind, and on wheels). It was a bit of a status symbol. In general, kids who had it showed it is off, those that didn't, wanted their parents to get it.
I am sure for the Guardian reading chatting classes in North London it was seen for the commoner, but wider society it was up there with having a new car regularly.
Obviously Sunak's point is that is parents were making decent money, but they spent it all on his education and not the luxuries in life.
Sunak's problem is that this approach just smacks of self-righteousness, another form of privilege. Not only am I richer than you, but I am better than you. I don't think it's the winning strategy he thinks it is with most voters.
I think you bias is clouding your judgement on this one comment. If he had tried to claim they went without food and water for him to go to a top school, it would have been a lie.
But the point he is making (and has made before) his parents used every spare penny to spend him there and as a result they went without the luxuries that middle class families of the time regularly bought. Sky was one of the bit things at the time that people got to say I'm doing alright me.
However, if I was a political adviser I wouldn't open that can of worms, as the media are juvenile.
Not really, personally I have sympathy with his position as I also come from a background of pushy middle class people who take pride in doing without frivolities and for whom education is everything. But most people are not like this (one of the benefits of state education is that you learn this fact) and so I think for a lot of voters they will hear the sound of sneering in these kinds of comments. He'd be better off not saying anything about it at all IMHO.
There is still quite a lot of weird sneering about Sky Sports. People take pride in not having it, despite the fact they claim to love sports. I have a friend who is absolutely mad for netball, both playing and watching. But she never sees any of the games as she point blank refuses to pay for Sky – despite being very high income.
This is despite the fact that Sky Sports is by far and away the best value of any TV network. The sheer quality and quantity of top level sports of all kinds you get for the subscription fee is incredible. It is much better value than BBC TV.
And Sky News is the best news channel (although that is not saying much – all the UK news channels are relatively poor, particular BBC News, which is hopeless these days and continues to employ the unbearable and shit Laura K).
I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge. Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off.
I also strongly object to the business model of paying for exclusive rights to something and then charging monopoly rents for it. It takes the piss.
"I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge"
Then you have moved to the perfect place: Ireland
Yes. My petty grudge against Murdoch is rather put into perspective by 855 years of grudging.
Again, Murdoch has nowt to do with Sky TV anymore. It's owned by Comcast.
From my earlier post:
"Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off."
Part of the meaning of the word grudge is that it is a feeling of resentment that persists longer than the cause for that resentment. So my use of grudge implies knowledge that Murdoch no longer owns Sky and that there's something irrational about holding a grudge against Sky on that basis.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
If Boris was still Tory leader the Conservatives would still be on about 30% at least and Reform would not be polling anywhere near 10-15%.
Boris would still have got 200+ Tory seats but had he lost then Sunak would have been in prime contention to be Leader of the Opposition after Boris had led the Tories to defeat and then shit the party back towards the centre.
Now Sunak will lead the Tories to the worst defeat in their history, see heavy leakage to Reform and the party will conclude had Boris been leader they might have won and the party needs to move further right in opposition to reduce leakage to Reform.
Sunak should have kept his ego in check and desire to be PM as soon as possible.
David Miliband for example did in 2009 and did not challenge Brown and won the members and MPs vote in 2010 to be Labour leader in Opposition, only the unions elected Ed Miliband
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
One rarely discussed problem about the law in 1984 was that it bred a profusion of wise-guy defence lawyers for minor crimes - especially speeding. If you or I got caught by a camera, we paid our £100 or whatever: if a prominent footballer got caught he paid Mr Shyster QC £5000 to demonstrate the camera hadn't been checked lately, and the footballer kept his licence to keep zooming around in his Maserati.
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
It's better for people to be found innocent when they may have been guilty than the reverse.
But the main point is that surely it should be for juries and judges to use their common sense to decide whether or not evidence is reliable. You can't rely on a law to say that either computers are definitely reliable or not reliable.
Every Friday evening, he would drive for six hours to Los Angeles to play a match on Saturday. Then he’d drive back to play a match in San Francisco on Sunday.
“In the club [in Los Angeles], there were three to four players who were part of the American team,” he says. “It was then I got to know that America had a cricket team.”
“On long weekends, they organised tournaments in the country, mostly in Florida, where even players from the West Indies would participate.”
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Labour now below 1997 New Labour voteshare levels with both Survation and Verian but heading for more seats thanks to the divide on the right
Erm, not because of “the divide on the right”
But because of how shit the Conservative Party are right now in most voters’ eyes. Dress it up how you like, add 2 + 2 and make yourself whatever figure you like, but it’s the pants performance of the tories which more than any other single factor is driving this General Election.
Fact my friend.
No it is the divide on the right giving the Tories 100 seats not 200+ seats under FPTP
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
We've discussed this before.
Without claiming the courts are perfect, it's important to note that neither judge nor jury can easily detect when an apparently respectable expert witness is perjuring themself - and that is yet more difficult in cases relying on computer evidence, when government has passed legislation effectively saying that it can't be challenged. (One of the most disgraceful - and predictably idiotic - pieces of legislation ever to hit the statute book.)
British courts are not investigators - they can only deal with the evidence presented to them.
The law of evidence has to make presumptions, though they are all rebuttable. And this is the difficulty in an electronic digital age.
To take a naive example, if a piece of evidence is what Y says that X said in a phone call, there is a presumption not that Y is telling the truth, but that in the actual world what Y heard relates reliably to what X said because the telephone message heard is a correlate of what is said.
If the prosecution had to prove this with expert evidence every time, the entire system would collapse.
The computer problem, and the digital world generally, is a more or less infinite extension of this problem.
The current law places the burden of proof, in criminal cases relying on computer evidence, on the defendant. That is a clear injustice.
It's not an simple problem, as you note, but the current solution is plain wrong.
What is tricky is suggesting what would be the right approach. The wrong ones are clear enough. I can't see a way through it. Large scale real world presumptions are absolutely essential to the operation of law, as they are to daily life.
The presumption that what Nigelb wrote has a correlate in what I have just read relies upon the reliability of a staggeringly complex global operation which would take massive expertise to unravel and prove or disprove in its entirety.
In the big picture I would like to see a national public defence forensic service dedicated to assisting the defence in criminal cases charged with the task of sorting exactly these sorts of issues, both in individual cases and in spotting generic problems. I shall be waiting quite a time.
No Sky, no new car, no pets...no wonder out politicians are weirdos.
Co-leader Carla Denyer said her family had second-hand cars throughout most of her childhood. A terrible burden that’s shared by 82% of passenger vehicles right now…
Adrian Ramsay had an even better one: he wasn’t allowed pets until he forced his parents to relent.
I always thought that really greenie greens wouldn't really be comfortable with having pets. Breeding animals for human pleasure, many in small cages all day.
The "it was posher not to have Sky" takes are thoroughly dumb. No, your parents just weren't in to watching live sport.
At the time, it was the "colour tv" of the 60s. The same as having one of the early big screens (the ones that weighed a tonne and because CRT absolutely huge lump behind, and on wheels). It was a bit of a status symbol. In general, kids who had it showed it is off, those that didn't, wanted their parents to get it.
I am sure for the Guardian reading chatting classes in North London it was seen for the commoner, but wider society it was up there with having a new car regularly.
Obviously Sunak's point is that is parents were making decent money, but they spent it all on his education and not the luxuries in life.
Sunak's problem is that this approach just smacks of self-righteousness, another form of privilege. Not only am I richer than you, but I am better than you. I don't think it's the winning strategy he thinks it is with most voters.
I think you bias is clouding your judgement on this one comment. If he had tried to claim they went without food and water for him to go to a top school, it would have been a lie.
But the point he is making (and has made before) his parents used every spare penny to spend him there and as a result they went without the luxuries that middle class families of the time regularly bought. Sky was one of the bit things at the time that people got to say I'm doing alright me.
However, if I was a political adviser I wouldn't open that can of worms, as the media are juvenile.
Not really, personally I have sympathy with his position as I also come from a background of pushy middle class people who take pride in doing without frivolities and for whom education is everything. But most people are not like this (one of the benefits of state education is that you learn this fact) and so I think for a lot of voters they will hear the sound of sneering in these kinds of comments. He'd be better off not saying anything about it at all IMHO.
There is still quite a lot of weird sneering about Sky Sports. People take pride in not having it, despite the fact they claim to love sports. I have a friend who is absolutely mad for netball, both playing and watching. But she never sees any of the games as she point blank refuses to pay for Sky – despite being very high income.
This is despite the fact that Sky Sports is by far and away the best value of any TV network. The sheer quality and quantity of top level sports of all kinds you get for the subscription fee is incredible. It is much better value than BBC TV.
And Sky News is the best news channel (although that is not saying much – all the UK news channels are relatively poor, particular BBC News, which is hopeless these days and continues to employ the unbearable and shit Laura K).
I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge. Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off.
I also strongly object to the business model of paying for exclusive rights to something and then charging monopoly rents for it. It takes the piss.
"I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge"
Then you have moved to the perfect place: Ireland
Yes. My petty grudge against Murdoch is rather put into perspective by 855 years of grudging.
Again, Murdoch has nowt to do with Sky TV anymore. It's owned by Comcast.
From my earlier post:
"Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off."
Part of the meaning of the word grudge is that it is a feeling of resentment that persists longer than the cause for that resentment. So my use of grudge implies knowledge that Murdoch no longer owns Sky and that there's something irrational about holding a grudge against Sky on that basis.
Humans are irrational, who knew?
Yes, we have already established you are being irrational on this point. Denying yourself live international cricket (which you say you love) due to a weird nonsensical grudge that makes no difference to anyone but yourself: cutting your nose off to spite your face. Rather proves my original point for me!
Few seem to appreciate that this scandal, the blood contamination case, the Andy Malkinson case (and other similar ones), the endless NHS and Police scandals are all symptomatic of a shredded administrative and political class lacking in competence, integrity and either the ability to admit to or willingness to correct mistakes.
I found myself in disagreement with this paragraph.
But only because you forgot to mention education...
It's a very long list. Ours was not meant to be comprehensive.
Very good piece.
I’m not usually one to demand heads roll for scandals, but I make exceptions for the Post Office and for those who covered up the grooming gangs.
There’s more than a decade of PO senior management who conspired to cover up this scandal, and their victims deserve to see them in court.
Thank you Sandpit.
As the Inquiry approaches its end, it creeps nearer and nearer to the political arena. We will soon be seeing Vince Cable and Jo Swinson giving evidence. There will also be a small number of Civil Servants appearing.
As Ms C explained to me, the terms of the Inquiry were crafted by Civil Servants so it should come as no surprise that its remit stops a little short of scrutinising the role of the Civil Service and its Political masters. My guess is that they will say they were lied to, and in any case didn't make any decisions concerning prosecutions. I doubt even Jason Beer will be able to pierce that veil.
There will however be some prosecutions, I think. I just hope they go a bit beyond Paula Vennells and her immediate buddies. She deserves it, but scapegoating her would only assist the cover-up.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP
It all began the moment you started answering to Anabob.
My final vote guesstimate would probably be that, except the taking 2% from the Greens and giving it to the LibDems.
it does look reasonable, until youj remember that this means cataclysm for the Tories. On your figures, Baxtered:
Labour: 456 Tories: 95 LDs: 55 Reform: 3 SNP: 14
Actually that does look quite plausible. Horrific for the Tories but not extinction, quite, some of them may see that as a relief - high two figures!
Three years ago we would have been debating a 95 seat majority for the Tories, not 95 MPs in total.
Tories and Reform combined though on 35% of the vote, which is actually higher than the 33% for the Tories plus Referendum party and UKIP in 1997. Yet Major's Tories got 70 more seats than is projected for Sunak's Tories with 12% of the vote netting Reform a mere 3 seats.
FPTP now working against a divided right
FPTP working against divided blocks. You are right. But is it the most difficult conclusion to come to though? And did you make this same point on 1983 landslide night, or just presume the winners were so popular and brilliant?
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
That was JRM's argument post Kingswood by-election wasn't it. Con+Ref>Lab therefore Labour didn't really win.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Who have never previously polled higher than 3.8% in a General Election. But, hey …
I have long been a 'Green vote sceptic' at past elections - saying "Their voters often go elsewhere on polling day."
But this year, I think the depressed Tory vote means it could actually be real for once.
Anecdotally I've heard of a lot of Tories who will vote Green instead, partly as a protest vote that is seen as 'noble' compared to voting for e.g. Reform.
It might not make sense to us political junkies who think "But, the Greens are much more left wing than Labour on a ton of issues!" but a lot of voters don't really care about it like that.
Young people may be saying they will vote Green, but how many will actually turn out? Corbynites may also vote Green, especially as a Tory victory looks so unlikely. I expect the Greens to poll more than 3.8%, but less than 8%.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
The "it was posher not to have Sky" takes are thoroughly dumb. No, your parents just weren't in to watching live sport.
At the time, it was the "colour tv" of the 60s. The same as having one of the early big screens (the ones that weighed a tonne and because CRT absolutely huge lump behind, and on wheels). It was a bit of a status symbol. In general, kids who had it showed it is off, those that didn't, wanted their parents to get it.
I am sure for the Guardian reading chatting classes in North London it was seen for the commoner, but wider society it was up there with having a new car regularly.
Obviously Sunak's point is that is parents were making decent money, but they spent it all on his education and not the luxuries in life.
Sunak's problem is that this approach just smacks of self-righteousness, another form of privilege. Not only am I richer than you, but I am better than you. I don't think it's the winning strategy he thinks it is with most voters.
I think you bias is clouding your judgement on this one comment. If he had tried to claim they went without food and water for him to go to a top school, it would have been a lie.
But the point he is making (and has made before) his parents used every spare penny to spend him there and as a result they went without the luxuries that middle class families of the time regularly bought. Sky was one of the bit things at the time that people got to say I'm doing alright me.
However, if I was a political adviser I wouldn't open that can of worms, as the media are juvenile.
Not really, personally I have sympathy with his position as I also come from a background of pushy middle class people who take pride in doing without frivolities and for whom education is everything. But most people are not like this (one of the benefits of state education is that you learn this fact) and so I think for a lot of voters they will hear the sound of sneering in these kinds of comments. He'd be better off not saying anything about it at all IMHO.
There is still quite a lot of weird sneering about Sky Sports. People take pride in not having it, despite the fact they claim to love sports. I have a friend who is absolutely mad for netball, both playing and watching. But she never sees any of the games as she point blank refuses to pay for Sky – despite being very high income.
This is despite the fact that Sky Sports is by far and away the best value of any TV network. The sheer quality and quantity of top level sports of all kinds you get for the subscription fee is incredible. It is much better value than BBC TV.
And Sky News is the best news channel (although that is not saying much – all the UK news channels are relatively poor, particular BBC News, which is hopeless these days and continues to employ the unbearable and shit Laura K).
I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge. Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off.
I also strongly object to the business model of paying for exclusive rights to something and then charging monopoly rents for it. It takes the piss.
"I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge"
Then you have moved to the perfect place: Ireland
Yes. My petty grudge against Murdoch is rather put into perspective by 855 years of grudging.
Again, Murdoch has nowt to do with Sky TV anymore. It's owned by Comcast.
From my earlier post:
"Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off."
Part of the meaning of the word grudge is that it is a feeling of resentment that persists longer than the cause for that resentment. So my use of grudge implies knowledge that Murdoch no longer owns Sky and that there's something irrational about holding a grudge against Sky on that basis.
Humans are irrational, who knew?
Yes, we have already established you are being irrational on this point. Denying yourself live international cricket (which you say you love) due to a weird nonsensical grudge that makes no difference to anyone but yourself: cutting your nose off to spite your face. Rather proves my original point for me!
No, not really. I was explaining that there were other reasons for eschewing Sky that were different to your use of the label "sneering". You then decided to say that I was not a true sports fan.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
One rarely discussed problem about the law in 1984 was that it bred a profusion of wise-guy defence lawyers for minor crimes - especially speeding. If you or I got caught by a camera, we paid our £100 or whatever: if a prominent footballer got caught he paid Mr Shyster QC £5000 to demonstrate the camera hadn't been checked lately, and the footballer kept his licence to keep zooming around in his Maserati.
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
PB Pedantry. Nobody was zooming around in a Maserati in 1984 as they would all break down within 20 metres of leaving the house as lovely as they were.
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
I don't agree with the way you include 100% of the LD vote in the Lab/Grn "collective". I think a small but significant minority of LD voters would put the Tories as their second preference, however strange that may seem to LD supporters/activists who detest them.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Labour now below 1997 New Labour voteshare levels with both Survation and Verian but heading for more seats thanks to the divide on the right
Erm, not because of “the divide on the right”
But because of how shit the Conservative Party are right now in most voters’ eyes. Dress it up how you like, add 2 + 2 and make yourself whatever figure you like, but it’s the pants performance of the tories which more than any other single factor is driving this General Election.
Fact my friend.
No it is the divide on the right giving the Tories 100 seats not 200+ seats under FPTP
No, it's not.
It's that people don't want to vote for your version of the Tories.
The right is not divided any more than the left is or you can add Labour and Greens and Lib Dems altogether.
People who vote for different parties have different views. That's their choice.
My final vote guesstimate would probably be that, except the taking 2% from the Greens and giving it to the LibDems.
it does look reasonable, until youj remember that this means cataclysm for the Tories. On your figures, Baxtered:
Labour: 456 Tories: 95 LDs: 55 Reform: 3 SNP: 14
Actually that does look quite plausible. Horrific for the Tories but not extinction, quite, some of them may see that as a relief - high two figures!
Three years ago we would have been debating a 95 seat majority for the Tories, not 95 MPs in total.
Tories and Reform combined though on 35% of the vote, which is actually higher than the 33% for the Tories plus Referendum party and UKIP in 1997. Yet Major's Tories got 70 more seats than is projected for Sunak's Tories with 12% of the vote netting Reform a mere 3 seats.
FPTP now working against a divided right
FPTP working against divided blocks. You are right. But is it the most difficult conclusion to come to though? And did you make this same point on 1983 landslide night, or just presume the winners were so popular and brilliant?
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
Yes I would have made the same point in 1983. It was the division between the SDP and Labour blocks under FPTP which ensured Thatcher a landslide majority of nearly 150.
Few seem to appreciate that this scandal, the blood contamination case, the Andy Malkinson case (and other similar ones), the endless NHS and Police scandals are all symptomatic of a shredded administrative and political class lacking in competence, integrity and either the ability to admit to or willingness to correct mistakes.
I found myself in disagreement with this paragraph.
But only because you forgot to mention education...
It's a very long list. Ours was not meant to be comprehensive.
Very good piece.
I’m not usually one to demand heads roll for scandals, but I make exceptions for the Post Office and for those who covered up the grooming gangs.
There’s more than a decade of PO senior management who conspired to cover up this scandal, and their victims deserve to see them in court.
Thank you Sandpit.
As the Inquiry approaches its end, it creeps nearer and nearer to the political arena. We will soon be seeing Vince Cable and Jo Swinson giving evidence. There will also be a small number of Civil Servants appearing.
As Ms C explained to me, the terms of the Inquiry were crafted by Civil Servants so it should come as no surprise that its remit stops a little short of scrutinising the role of the Civil Service and its Political masters. My guess is that they will say they were lied to, and in any case didn't make any decisions concerning prosecutions. I doubt even Jason Beer will be able to pierce that veil.
There will however be some prosecutions, I think. I just hope they go a bit beyond Paula Vennells and her immediate buddies. She deserves it, but scapegoating her would only assist the cover-up.
The most interesting witness will probably be Gareth Jenkins, the chief software engineer who designed and updated the Horizon computer system.
Topping the list with over 40% postal votes are the Sunderland constistuencies, at the bottom other than the Northern Ireland constistuencies was Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner at 7% and then a number of Birmingham constituencies at 10%.
The North East has a high level of postal votes because the 2004 referendum was all postal votes. The 10 constituencies have 30% and over postal votes and 8 are in the North East, with only Stevenage (32%) and Altrincham and Sale West (30%) outside.
The surprising statistic is that only 84% of postal ballots were returned. I would have expected the figure to be over 90%.
My final vote guesstimate would probably be that, except the taking 2% from the Greens and giving it to the LibDems.
it does look reasonable, until youj remember that this means cataclysm for the Tories. On your figures, Baxtered:
Labour: 456 Tories: 95 LDs: 55 Reform: 3 SNP: 14
Actually that does look quite plausible. Horrific for the Tories but not extinction, quite, some of them may see that as a relief - high two figures!
Three years ago we would have been debating a 95 seat majority for the Tories, not 95 MPs in total.
Tories and Reform combined though on 35% of the vote, which is actually higher than the 33% for the Tories plus Referendum party and UKIP in 1997. Yet Major's Tories got 70 more seats than is projected for Sunak's Tories with 12% of the vote netting Reform a mere 3 seats.
FPTP now working against a divided right
FPTP working against divided blocks. You are right. But is it the most difficult conclusion to come to though? And did you make this same point on 1983 landslide night, or just presume the winners were so popular and brilliant?
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
Yes I would have made the same point in 1983. It was the division between the SDP and Labour blocks under FPTP which ensured Thatcher a landslide majority of nearly 150.
Except the evidence is that without the SDP Thatcher's majority might have been bigger, not smaller. Forced choice more SDP voters wanted Thatcher than Foot.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
One rarely discussed problem about the law in 1984 was that it bred a profusion of wise-guy defence lawyers for minor crimes - especially speeding. If you or I got caught by a camera, we paid our £100 or whatever: if a prominent footballer got caught he paid Mr Shyster QC £5000 to demonstrate the camera hadn't been checked lately, and the footballer kept his licence to keep zooming around in his Maserati.
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
It's better for people to be found innocent when they may have been guilty than the reverse.
But the main point is that surely it should be for juries and judges to use their common sense to decide whether or not evidence is reliable. You can't rely on a law to say that either computers are definitely reliable or not reliable.
The problem is more subtle. Daily life, and criminal court life is a fragment of it, relies on presumptions, eg that a till receipt reflects the data that was put into it, or that what is heard in a phone call is a correlate of what was said.
Computers and digital technology render these issues universal. To prove everything from first principles is impractical. The law provides that various presumptions can be made. They are all rebuttable. But this is not easy, and of course usually not true either.
Getting the balance right does not have an obvious solution.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
We've discussed this before.
Without claiming the courts are perfect, it's important to note that neither judge nor jury can easily detect when an apparently respectable expert witness is perjuring themself - and that is yet more difficult in cases relying on computer evidence, when government has passed legislation effectively saying that it can't be challenged. (One of the most disgraceful - and predictably idiotic - pieces of legislation ever to hit the statute book.)
British courts are not investigators - they can only deal with the evidence presented to them.
The law of evidence has to make presumptions, though they are all rebuttable. And this is the difficulty in an electronic digital age.
To take a naive example, if a piece of evidence is what Y says that X said in a phone call, there is a presumption not that Y is telling the truth, but that in the actual world what Y heard relates reliably to what X said because the telephone message heard is a correlate of what is said.
If the prosecution had to prove this with expert evidence every time, the entire system would collapse.
The computer problem, and the digital world generally, is a more or less infinite extension of this problem.
The current law places the burden of proof, in criminal cases relying on computer evidence, on the defendant. That is a clear injustice.
It's not an simple problem, as you note, but the current solution is plain wrong.
What is tricky is suggesting what would be the right approach. The wrong ones are clear enough. I can't see a way through it. Large scale real world presumptions are absolutely essential to the operation of law, as they are to daily life.
The presumption that what Nigelb wrote has a correlate in what I have just read relies upon the reliability of a staggeringly complex global operation which would take massive expertise to unravel and prove or disprove in its entirety.
In the big picture I would like to see a national public defence forensic service dedicated to assisting the defence in criminal cases charged with the task of sorting exactly these sorts of issues, both in individual cases and in spotting generic problems. I shall be waiting quite a time.
At an absolute minimum, crafting some possible exceptions to the current iron rule ought to be possible. It's a matter of plain fact that computers do not operate as deterministic machines, and the product of given programs is subject to error. The statute could be made to recognise that.
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
Fieldwork 7-10 June, whereas YouGov was 10-11 June.
I'm not saying YouGov is more accurate - it may well be an outlier and I'm scpetical of the idea the Lib Dem manifesto launch would have given them an appreciable boost. But there is a tendency on this site to assume the most recently published poll has the most recent fieldwork - in this case, the Verian/Kantar data is older thean the YouGov.
My final vote guesstimate would probably be that, except the taking 2% from the Greens and giving it to the LibDems.
it does look reasonable, until youj remember that this means cataclysm for the Tories. On your figures, Baxtered:
Labour: 456 Tories: 95 LDs: 55 Reform: 3 SNP: 14
Actually that does look quite plausible. Horrific for the Tories but not extinction, quite, some of them may see that as a relief - high two figures!
Three years ago we would have been debating a 95 seat majority for the Tories, not 95 MPs in total.
Tories and Reform combined though on 35% of the vote, which is actually higher than the 33% for the Tories plus Referendum party and UKIP in 1997. Yet Major's Tories got 70 more seats than is projected for Sunak's Tories with 12% of the vote netting Reform a mere 3 seats.
FPTP now working against a divided right
FPTP working against divided blocks. You are right. But is it the most difficult conclusion to come to though? And did you make this same point on 1983 landslide night, or just presume the winners were so popular and brilliant?
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
Yes I would have made the same point in 1983. It was the division between the SDP and Labour blocks under FPTP which ensured Thatcher a landslide majority of nearly 150.
Except the evidence is that without the SDP Thatcher's majority might have been bigger, not smaller. Forced choice more SDP voters wanted Thatcher than Foot.
The SDP Leader Roy Jenkins was ex Labour, with PR of course it would have been a hung parliament even in 1983 and Thatcher would likely have had to do a deal with Jenkins to stay PM
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
I do think Lab have started to fall back a bit to just over 40. Will that continue? Will it matter?
Agreed. Not a lot, but a bit.
But then so have the tories so in the bigger picture it may even help a Labour majority.
On the Post Office specifically, does it need saving at all? Does it have any functions that cannot be performed by other organisations?
On governance of public institutions more generally, I am not sure what to suggest.
The most obvious thing is to suggest that change can only come following leadership from the top. We would need our politicians to show a clear example of choosing to do something that is difficult and right, rather than easier and in their self-interest. When government is run on the principle of escaping scrutiny, of finding spin lines to talk away failure, of never admitting to a mistake if it can be avoided, then it is no surprise that the leadership of other institutions follow suit.
Any government inevitably makes lots of mistakes. Everyone inevitably makes lots of mistakes. I don't expect us to become better at admitting them, but I think if we did so it would improve things.
Yes, it would.
The causes of the scandal are many and various but no-one can dispute that the failureof the sole shareholder, the Government, to hold the organisation properly to account was a majorfactor. That is something that can be addressed right now in respect of all Government owned businessed, and at precious little cost.
It's too late for the PO, but others could benefit from an acceptance by politicians that they are responsible for enduring proper accountability of such bodies.
It is after one very good reason why we elect them.
The politicans will of course argue that the *whole point* of separating these organisations from direct government into Qangoes, is so that the ministers don’t find their own heads of the chopping block when things go wrong.
It doesn't work. Worse, Ministers do still get it in the neck, but it is the wrong Ministers, and usually long after the damage has been done. Take Ed Davey, for example. He got targeted when the topic hit the headlines, yet he was no worse than all the others. He may even have been a fraction better in that he did actually meet with Bates, although nothing positive came of it. By contrast, the one Minister to earn praise from Bates for his genuine attempt to get involved, Norman Lamb, got zero credit for it.
The system is wrong. Ministers have to get involved, and be given time to get on top of their brief. That's an improvement that could easily be made made, and would cost little.
It is bonkers how often we move ministers around from post to post often with zero experience or even interest in their new ministry beyond the next rung on their political ladder.
Cabinet ministers should have a couple of years experience either as a junior minister/shadow in that department or on the relevant select committee. Our governance would improve loads and it doesn't cost anything to do.
We need to be a bit careful with this. In our system, ministers decide policy and civil servants enact it. Our problem is not that ministers are inexpert but that they are incurious (and in the worst cases ignorant and lazy in addition). The PO ministers should have asked more questions, and drilled down into the answers. The Health Secretary can pledge better treatment of sepsis but we do not expect them to carry an ophthalmoscope and prescription pad.
Nah, the random merry-go-round of ministerial appointments is a disaster. We have had 13 housing ministers in the last 10 years as one example.
Appoint people with some experience in or at least understanding of the field and then give them longer to get on with it.
And under David Cameron there was very little movement and what did we get? There does need to be a happy medium, yes, but the problem is not that ministers know nothing and care less, but that any projects are shelved whenever the sponsoring minister is shuffled away.
Do the PB Sports-Loving Sky Refuseniks also refuse to watch Sky Sports at their friends' houses and in the pub?
Or is it just screening it in their own homes they object to?
I took my Dad to a sports bar showing one of the 2019 Ashes Test matches for an agreeably boozy lunch after a morning walk along the Water of Leith, once, yes.
Apparently humans are also inconsistent. Surprise!
The Sky Sports are particularly good at is refreshing themselves and innovation. They are way ahead of everybody else in the quality of the analysis and who they pick to present this.
Watching Henry explain Man City on MNF was a masterclass in how people, who are in the game and know the game at the very highest level, think about it and what is trying to be achieved.
Same with the cricket, they brutally axed all the old duffers and in came the likes of Kumar Sangakkara. Not only a legendary player but is involved with strategy in IPL.
Golf, for the Masters, they will have Butch Harmon, the man who coaches or has coached nearly all the best players in the game.
The "it was posher not to have Sky" takes are thoroughly dumb. No, your parents just weren't in to watching live sport.
At the time, it was the "colour tv" of the 60s. The same as having one of the early big screens (the ones that weighed a tonne and because CRT absolutely huge lump behind, and on wheels). It was a bit of a status symbol. In general, kids who had it showed it is off, those that didn't, wanted their parents to get it.
I am sure for the Guardian reading chatting classes in North London it was seen for the commoner, but wider society it was up there with having a new car regularly.
Obviously Sunak's point is that is parents were making decent money, but they spent it all on his education and not the luxuries in life.
Sunak's problem is that this approach just smacks of self-righteousness, another form of privilege. Not only am I richer than you, but I am better than you. I don't think it's the winning strategy he thinks it is with most voters.
I think you bias is clouding your judgement on this one comment. If he had tried to claim they went without food and water for him to go to a top school, it would have been a lie.
But the point he is making (and has made before) his parents used every spare penny to spend him there and as a result they went without the luxuries that middle class families of the time regularly bought. Sky was one of the bit things at the time that people got to say I'm doing alright me.
However, if I was a political adviser I wouldn't open that can of worms, as the media are juvenile.
Not really, personally I have sympathy with his position as I also come from a background of pushy middle class people who take pride in doing without frivolities and for whom education is everything. But most people are not like this (one of the benefits of state education is that you learn this fact) and so I think for a lot of voters they will hear the sound of sneering in these kinds of comments. He'd be better off not saying anything about it at all IMHO.
There is still quite a lot of weird sneering about Sky Sports. People take pride in not having it, despite the fact they claim to love sports. I have a friend who is absolutely mad for netball, both playing and watching. But she never sees any of the games as she point blank refuses to pay for Sky – despite being very high income.
This is despite the fact that Sky Sports is by far and away the best value of any TV network. The sheer quality and quantity of top level sports of all kinds you get for the subscription fee is incredible. It is much better value than BBC TV.
And Sky News is the best news channel (although that is not saying much – all the UK news channels are relatively poor, particular BBC News, which is hopeless these days and continues to employ the unbearable and shit Laura K).
I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge. Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off.
I also strongly object to the business model of paying for exclusive rights to something and then charging monopoly rents for it. It takes the piss.
"I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge"
Then you have moved to the perfect place: Ireland
No, Northern Ireland.
And it's not "grudges".
It is the ability to perfectly remember (all the time) 1000 years of hideous wrongs done to us'ns. Combined with the ability not to remember the hideous wrongs we are perpetrating *at this moment* on them'ns.
The Republic is perfect precisely because all the grudges are historical, and there are no hideous wrongs being perpetrated at this moment.
Some errrr “customers” of the Catholic Church have entered the chat.
Do the PB Sports-Loving Sky Refuseniks also refuse to watch Sky Sports at their friends' houses and in the pub?
Or is it just screening it in their own homes they object to?
I took my Dad to a sports bar showing one of the 2019 Ashes Test matches for an agreeably boozy lunch after a morning walk along the Water of Leith, once, yes.
Apparently humans are also inconsistent. Surprise!
We have established your irrationality and inconsistency now, for which I thank you.
I find the whole thing Sky Sports Refuse-ism bizarre – but it is undoubtably A Thing. And there are millions like you. You are not at all unusual in this regard.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
One rarely discussed problem about the law in 1984 was that it bred a profusion of wise-guy defence lawyers for minor crimes - especially speeding. If you or I got caught by a camera, we paid our £100 or whatever: if a prominent footballer got caught he paid Mr Shyster QC £5000 to demonstrate the camera hadn't been checked lately, and the footballer kept his licence to keep zooming around in his Maserati.
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
PB Pedantry. Nobody was zooming around in a Maserati in 1984 as they would all break down within 20 metres of leaving the house as lovely as they were.
Many commentators on the scandal have highlighted the catastrophic decision of the Law Commission to reverse the prior principle that the technology had to be proven sound. This will no doubt be mentioned in Sir Wyn's report when it is published.
The Law Commission will probably take eff all notice, or even apologise to the SubPostMasters, but I expect we will see the law changed quietly in due course.
There are other and better ways of restraining the Dura Aces of this world.
Change - about all you'll be left with once Reeves starts taxing you
Come on please spare us this kind of thing. It’s just straight out of the CCHQ playbook. Regardless of which Party it comes from this site deserves better.
On the Post Office specifically, does it need saving at all? Does it have any functions that cannot be performed by other organisations?
On governance of public institutions more generally, I am not sure what to suggest.
The most obvious thing is to suggest that change can only come following leadership from the top. We would need our politicians to show a clear example of choosing to do something that is difficult and right, rather than easier and in their self-interest. When government is run on the principle of escaping scrutiny, of finding spin lines to talk away failure, of never admitting to a mistake if it can be avoided, then it is no surprise that the leadership of other institutions follow suit.
Any government inevitably makes lots of mistakes. Everyone inevitably makes lots of mistakes. I don't expect us to become better at admitting them, but I think if we did so it would improve things.
Yes, it would.
The causes of the scandal are many and various but no-one can dispute that the failureof the sole shareholder, the Government, to hold the organisation properly to account was a majorfactor. That is something that can be addressed right now in respect of all Government owned businessed, and at precious little cost.
It's too late for the PO, but others could benefit from an acceptance by politicians that they are responsible for enduring proper accountability of such bodies.
It is after one very good reason why we elect them.
The politicans will of course argue that the *whole point* of separating these organisations from direct government into Qangoes, is so that the ministers don’t find their own heads of the chopping block when things go wrong.
It doesn't work. Worse, Ministers do still get it in the neck, but it is the wrong Ministers, and usually long after the damage has been done. Take Ed Davey, for example. He got targeted when the topic hit the headlines, yet he was no worse than all the others. He may even have been a fraction better in that he did actually meet with Bates, although nothing positive came of it. By contrast, the one Minister to earn praise from Bates for his genuine attempt to get involved, Norman Lamb, got zero credit for it.
The system is wrong. Ministers have to get involved, and be given time to get on top of their brief. That's an improvement that could easily be made made, and would cost little.
It is bonkers how often we move ministers around from post to post often with zero experience or even interest in their new ministry beyond the next rung on their political ladder.
Cabinet ministers should have a couple of years experience either as a junior minister/shadow in that department or on the relevant select committee. Our governance would improve loads and it doesn't cost anything to do.
We need to be a bit careful with this. In our system, ministers decide policy and civil servants enact it. Our problem is not that ministers are inexpert but that they are incurious (and in the worst cases ignorant and lazy in addition). The PO ministers should have asked more questions, and drilled down into the answers. The Health Secretary can pledge better treatment of sepsis but we do not expect them to carry an ophthalmoscope and prescription pad.
Nah, the random merry-go-round of ministerial appointments is a disaster. We have had 13 housing ministers in the last 10 years as one example.
Appoint people with some experience in or at least understanding of the field and then give them longer to get on with it.
I would go further, and if there are no MPs with relevant experience, appoint someone from the Lords, or and outside expert as Minister.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Labour now below 1997 New Labour voteshare levels with both Survation and Verian but heading for more seats thanks to the divide on the right
Erm, not because of “the divide on the right”
But because of how shit the Conservative Party are right now in most voters’ eyes. Dress it up how you like, add 2 + 2 and make yourself whatever figure you like, but it’s the pants performance of the tories which more than any other single factor is driving this General Election.
Fact my friend.
No it is the divide on the right giving the Tories 100 seats not 200+ seats under FPTP
No, it's not.
It's that people don't want to vote for your version of the Tories.
The right is not divided any more than the left is or you can add Labour and Greens and Lib Dems altogether.
People who vote for different parties have different views. That's their choice.
I can't see the Tories getting a bounce from their manifesto launch. Not only did it have naff all red meat and rubbish policies, but the conversation moved on rapidly. There isn't even an ongoing row about anything to get any PR buzz.
Its like doing a social media ad campaign and by the next day nobody is talking about it.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
The reason it was repealed was that a tedious number of defendants kept on raising concerns with computer evidence. Remember the cases regarding ATMs?
Which meant that prosecutions were slowed down and worse, Proper People (lawyers) were being forced to try and understand IT.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
We've discussed this before.
Without claiming the courts are perfect, it's important to note that neither judge nor jury can easily detect when an apparently respectable expert witness is perjuring themself - and that is yet more difficult in cases relying on computer evidence, when government has passed legislation effectively saying that it can't be challenged. (One of the most disgraceful - and predictably idiotic - pieces of legislation ever to hit the statute book.)
British courts are not investigators - they can only deal with the evidence presented to them.
The law of evidence has to make presumptions, though they are all rebuttable. And this is the difficulty in an electronic digital age.
To take a naive example, if a piece of evidence is what Y says that X said in a phone call, there is a presumption not that Y is telling the truth, but that in the actual world what Y heard relates reliably to what X said because the telephone message heard is a correlate of what is said.
If the prosecution had to prove this with expert evidence every time, the entire system would collapse.
The computer problem, and the digital world generally, is a more or less infinite extension of this problem.
The current law places the burden of proof, in criminal cases relying on computer evidence, on the defendant. That is a clear injustice.
It's not an simple problem, as you note, but the current solution is plain wrong.
What is tricky is suggesting what would be the right approach. The wrong ones are clear enough. I can't see a way through it. Large scale real world presumptions are absolutely essential to the operation of law, as they are to daily life.
The presumption that what Nigelb wrote has a correlate in what I have just read relies upon the reliability of a staggeringly complex global operation which would take massive expertise to unravel and prove or disprove in its entirety.
In the big picture I would like to see a national public defence forensic service dedicated to assisting the defence in criminal cases charged with the task of sorting exactly these sorts of issues, both in individual cases and in spotting generic problems. I shall be waiting quite a time.
At an absolute minimum, crafting some possible exceptions to the current iron rule ought to be possible. It's a matter of plain fact that computers do not operate as deterministic machines, and the product of given programs is subject to error. The statute could be made to recognise that.
I used to work on bit-reproducible computer code. One of the tests after making changes was that the results would be bit-reproducible across different processor decompositions.
Change - about all you'll be left with once Reeves starts taxing you
Come on please spare us this kind of thing. It’s just straight out of the CCHQ playbook. Regardless of which Party it comes from this site deserves better.
Narrator: sadly, it deserved -- and got -- worse
It was years before rabbits returned to frolic in the irradiated ruins
That's the best RefCon poll movement for a while: up 3 points net. But only good compared with their dire score last time. It's LLG 60 RefCon 35, one of the best LLG leads across the pollsters.
No real evidence for a Lib Dem surge. I think that YouGov was an outlier. Plenty of evidence for a Reform surge.
No point adding G to LL
Most Greens will not vote for LAB under any circumstances
Sky has always provided a fantastic sports service, and Murdoch is a grim, plutocratic opportunist who has helped to immeasurably impoverish British television, newspapers and public life, primarily through his influence on Thatcher's reshaping of broadcasting in the 1980's. Partly as a result, British television overal is a shadow of its former self, but Sky TV still provides an excellent range of sports coverage.
Indeed. But Sky TV is nowt to do with Murdoch anymore. It was sold to Comcast six years ago!!
Indeed, I do know about that too. But I think some people just can't forgive Sky its original role, which I do partly understand.
We've gone from having world-leading television standards, to essentially average television that continental professionals don't think that much of, in the space of just two and a half decades. I accept that someone was going to eventally break the old terrestrial monopoly, but he skewed the new process and regulatory framework, by using what was essentially corruption, and resulting in less interesting TV across the board Still, I accept that there"s no reason why a new Sky now owned by someone else should have to accept any blame for any of that.
Sky has always provided a fantastic sports service, and Murdoch is a grim, plutocratic opportunist who has helped to immeasurably impoverish British television, newspapers and public life, primarily through his influence on Thatcher's reshaping of broadcasting in the 1980's. Partly as a result, British television overal is a shadow of its former self, but Sky TV still provides an excellent range of sports coverage.
Indeed. But Sky TV is nowt to do with Murdoch anymore. It was sold to Comcast six years ago!!
Indeed, I do know about that too. But I think some people just can't forgive Sky is original role, which I do partly understand.
We've gone from having world-leading television standards, to essentially average television that continental professionals don't think that much of, in the space of just two and a half decades. I accept that someone was going to evebtually break the old terrestrial monopoly, but he skewed the new process and regulatory framework, by usimg what was essentially corruption, and partly resulting in much less interesting TV, across the board Still, I accept that there"s no reason why a new Sky now owned by someone else should have to accept any blame for that.
Before Sky, cricket was still being broadcast where the main shot was from one end only because the BBC didn't think it was needed to show it from both ends. Today, the thought you watched half a test match where the main thing in spot was the wicketkeepers arse is just weird.
On the sports side of things, Sky revolutionised the coverage of sport in the UK. Interestingly, CH4 getting the cricket for a few years, also gave it another rocket boost, with Hawkeye, snicko, etc.
Sky had to offer a better product and continue to do so, otherwise they would fail like ITV Digital.
BBC famously drop the ball on things like the Wire, they put it on at like 1am when they had the rights.
Change - about all you'll be left with once Reeves starts taxing you
Come on please spare us this kind of thing. It’s just straight out of the CCHQ playbook. Regardless of which Party it comes from this site deserves better.
The "it was posher not to have Sky" takes are thoroughly dumb. No, your parents just weren't in to watching live sport.
At the time, it was the "colour tv" of the 60s. The same as having one of the early big screens (the ones that weighed a tonne and because CRT absolutely huge lump behind, and on wheels). It was a bit of a status symbol. In general, kids who had it showed it is off, those that didn't, wanted their parents to get it.
I am sure for the Guardian reading chatting classes in North London it was seen for the commoner, but wider society it was up there with having a new car regularly.
Obviously Sunak's point is that is parents were making decent money, but they spent it all on his education and not the luxuries in life.
Sunak's problem is that this approach just smacks of self-righteousness, another form of privilege. Not only am I richer than you, but I am better than you. I don't think it's the winning strategy he thinks it is with most voters.
I think you bias is clouding your judgement on this one comment. If he had tried to claim they went without food and water for him to go to a top school, it would have been a lie.
But the point he is making (and has made before) his parents used every spare penny to spend him there and as a result they went without the luxuries that middle class families of the time regularly bought. Sky was one of the bit things at the time that people got to say I'm doing alright me.
However, if I was a political adviser I wouldn't open that can of worms, as the media are juvenile.
Not really, personally I have sympathy with his position as I also come from a background of pushy middle class people who take pride in doing without frivolities and for whom education is everything. But most people are not like this (one of the benefits of state education is that you learn this fact) and so I think for a lot of voters they will hear the sound of sneering in these kinds of comments. He'd be better off not saying anything about it at all IMHO.
There is still quite a lot of weird sneering about Sky Sports. People take pride in not having it, despite the fact they claim to love sports. I have a friend who is absolutely mad for netball, both playing and watching. But she never sees any of the games as she point blank refuses to pay for Sky – despite being very high income.
This is despite the fact that Sky Sports is by far and away the best value of any TV network. The sheer quality and quantity of top level sports of all kinds you get for the subscription fee is incredible. It is much better value than BBC TV.
And Sky News is the best news channel (although that is not saying much – all the UK news channels are relatively poor, particular BBC News, which is hopeless these days and continues to employ the unbearable and shit Laura K).
I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge. Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off.
I also strongly object to the business model of paying for exclusive rights to something and then charging monopoly rents for it. It takes the piss.
"I am far from perfect, and one of my imperfections is my ability to hold a grudge"
Then you have moved to the perfect place: Ireland
No, Northern Ireland.
And it's not "grudges".
It is the ability to perfectly remember (all the time) 1000 years of hideous wrongs done to us'ns. Combined with the ability not to remember the hideous wrongs we are perpetrating *at this moment* on them'ns.
The Republic is perfect precisely because all the grudges are historical, and there are no hideous wrongs being perpetrated at this moment.
Some errrr “customers” of the Catholic Church have entered the chat.
Apologies. Implicit in my statement was that no hideous wrongs are being perpetrated by others.
Irish society is, alas, perfectly capable of inflicting hideous wrongs on itself.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Greens will be lucky to get half that after TV, so add 2 to both LibDem and Lab.
Kantor had a spell of giving Tories the most favourable polling of all the polls. Go back 4 years and Con 20 in Kantor poll would have seemed fantasy. Perhaps it is. Or what happens when you try a Genny Lec with a leader with such abysmal ratings.
The grass wasn’t as tasty as usual, so went across to the other side and the grass was abysmal. But there was no time left to go elsewhere.
Maybe in hindsight should have stuck with Boris longer in mid term to see if he could have pulled things round. The lesson learned is, can only really get away with 1 PM change between elections, get the timing and decision right.
SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP
LOL!
I am very very sorry, and I must apologies profusely for my mistake. I only hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
In future I shall refer to it only as, Snappy Lec.
“Sorry I’m late for this pointless in the can interview, D Day Memorial over ran” is now entering the media narrative. NET positive for Tories if it keeps slumping economy off the main point.
Labour must be sick, their opportunity to be scrutinised and explain their policies in detail, is getting drowned out by Sunak day after day. Starmer will have to result to bog snorkelling just to get somewhere in the news, and remind people he’s still part of this.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
The Judges and Courts are servants of the Law. The Law was written that computer evidence should be accepted as infallible. There was no basis for the Courts to kick up a fuss, because the central error was that the computer evidence was very fallible indeed, and they were forbidden from thinking otherwise.
A judge eventually decided that the computer evidence wasn't reliable, in 2019. If that could happen then, why couldn't it have happened earlier?
Because that verdict was the result of an appeal on behalf of hundreds of postmasters, and relied on evidence presented to the court which was gathered over many years.
It could have happened earlier had anyone in government asked tougher questions of the Post Office which they own on our behalf.
But it's not something the courts could have done on their own.
Note that lawyers have regularly protested (and still protest) the state of the law on computer evidence. Which you can blame Blair's government for.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged ...The legal presumption that computers are reliable stems from an older common law principle that “mechanical instruments” should be presumed to be in working order unless proven otherwise. That assumption means that if, for instance, a police officer quotes the time on their watch, a defendant cannot force the prosecution to call a horologist to explain from first principles how watches work. For a period, computers lost that protection in England and Wales. A 1984 act of parliament ruled that computer evidence was only admissible if it could be shown that the computer was used and operating properly. But that act was repealed in 1999, just months before the first trials of the Horizon system began...
It effectively means that the burden of proof is on the defendant. An impossible hurdle.
Whoever wrote that law in 1984 was extremely wise.
The reason it was repealed was that a tedious number of defendants kept on raising concerns with computer evidence. Remember the cases regarding ATMs?
Which meant that prosecutions were slowed down and worse, Proper People (lawyers) were being forced to try and understand IT.
It’s one thing to say that computers themselves are reliable - but a brand new piece of software, written specifically for the application concerned with the court case, and not signed off by either the vendor nor their customer, on the other hand…
Oh, and prosecutors are still losing speeding cases, because police forces still don’t have a good way of managing calibration certificates for speed guns. Given that they already have systems in place for monitoring movement of gun guns, it should really be a trivial exercise.
I can say growing up no new car, no pets, no sky....I must be in line for leader of a political party.
I grew up with oil fired heating and peat in the fire.
Join the back of the queue.
Nah you see that's the mistake you are making, you can't be really poor, that's not allowed. You have to just appear to be in touch with the struggle.
You had heating? I grew up with one coal fire and a couple of paraffin heaters. And permanent frost on the inside of the windows from November to March. And I wasn't poor, because in the late 1940s the majority of the population were just like us. Most of us didn't live in houses or flats we, or our parents owned, didn't have electricity and thought ourselves bloody lucky to have a house at all, because most of our neighbourhood was a huge bombsite.
I can say growing up no new car, no pets, no sky....I must be in line for leader of a political party.
I grew up with oil fired heating and peat in the fire.
Join the back of the queue.
Nah you see that's the mistake you are making, you can't be really poor, that's not allowed. You have to just appear to be in touch with the struggle.
You had heating? I grew up with one coal fire and a couple of paraffin heaters. And permanent frost on the inside of the windows from November to March. And I wasn't poor, because in the late 1940s the majority of the population were just like us. Most of us didn't live in houses or flats we, or our parents owned, didn't have electricity and thought ourselves bloody lucky to have a house at all, because most of our neighbourhood was a huge bombsite.
As for the idea of having any kind of car...
My Grandad was the first to have a car and a tv in their area. Imagine explaining that to youth of today....what did you use the internet on then ;-)
The Sky Sports are particularly good at is refreshing themselves and innovation. They are way ahead of everybody else in the quality of the analysis and who they pick to present this.
Watching Henry explain Man City on MNF was a masterclass in how people, who are in the game and know the game at the very highest level, think about it and what is trying to be achieved.
Same with the cricket, they brutally axed all the old duffers and in came the likes of Kumar Sangakkara. Not only a legendary player but is involved with strategy in IPL.
Golf, for the Masters, they will have Butch Harmon, the man who coaches or has coached nearly all the best players in the game.
Yes, it's exceptionally high quality coverage. £30/month is an absolute steal – and it's possible to get it cheaper as part of a wider cable package.
There is one aspect of this which I am staggered has never been even hinted at, let alone discussed. The failure of the Post Office is obvious and they deserve a special depth of hell. But what about the Courts ???
It is the job of the courts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They failed even more spectacularly that the Post Office in their alloted task. Quite frankly it is the Judges that allowed these miscarriages of justice to occur in the courts they were presiding over who should be in these open cells.
If someone tries to stitch me up, and some have tried at a much lower level then I would rely on the courts to dig down to the truth. THEY DID NOT DO THIS. Why are they not at the receiving end of everyone's wrath, they are mine.
We've discussed this before.
Without claiming the courts are perfect, it's important to note that neither judge nor jury can easily detect when an apparently respectable expert witness is perjuring themself - and that is yet more difficult in cases relying on computer evidence, when government has passed legislation effectively saying that it can't be challenged. (One of the most disgraceful - and predictably idiotic - pieces of legislation ever to hit the statute book.)
British courts are not investigators - they can only deal with the evidence presented to them.
The law of evidence has to make presumptions, though they are all rebuttable. And this is the difficulty in an electronic digital age.
To take a naive example, if a piece of evidence is what Y says that X said in a phone call, there is a presumption not that Y is telling the truth, but that in the actual world what Y heard relates reliably to what X said because the telephone message heard is a correlate of what is said.
If the prosecution had to prove this with expert evidence every time, the entire system would collapse.
The computer problem, and the digital world generally, is a more or less infinite extension of this problem.
The current law places the burden of proof, in criminal cases relying on computer evidence, on the defendant. That is a clear injustice.
It's not an simple problem, as you note, but the current solution is plain wrong.
What is tricky is suggesting what would be the right approach. The wrong ones are clear enough. I can't see a way through it. Large scale real world presumptions are absolutely essential to the operation of law, as they are to daily life.
The presumption that what Nigelb wrote has a correlate in what I have just read relies upon the reliability of a staggeringly complex global operation which would take massive expertise to unravel and prove or disprove in its entirety.
In the big picture I would like to see a national public defence forensic service dedicated to assisting the defence in criminal cases charged with the task of sorting exactly these sorts of issues, both in individual cases and in spotting generic problems. I shall be waiting quite a time.
At an absolute minimum, crafting some possible exceptions to the current iron rule ought to be possible. It's a matter of plain fact that computers do not operate as deterministic machines, and the product of given programs is subject to error. The statute could be made to recognise that.
That won't do really. It's not an iron rule, it's a rebuttable presumption which is totally different. Iron rules are irrebuttable. And not a good idea. (Like Rwanda is a safe country).
The Sky Sports are particularly good at is refreshing themselves and innovation. They are way ahead of everybody else in the quality of the analysis and who they pick to present this.
Watching Henry explain Man City on MNF was a masterclass in how people, who are in the game and know the game at the very highest level, think about it and what is trying to be achieved.
Same with the cricket, they brutally axed all the old duffers and in came the likes of Kumar Sangakkara. Not only a legendary player but is involved with strategy in IPL.
Golf, for the Masters, they will have Butch Harmon, the man who coaches or has coached nearly all the best players in the game.
Yes, it's exceptionally high quality coverage. £30/month is an absolute steal – and it's possible to get it cheaper as part of a wider cable package.
I would pay £30/month just to listen to Kumar Sangakkara talk about anything!
Yes a lot of polling variability. And fairly ridiculous that someone who has not lived here or paid our main taxes for 20-30 years still has a vote. Hope this is reversed swiftly.
I wonder if Tories really war gamed it, before given the 3 million foreign legion votes?
Are these people Remainers or Brexiteers? Are they close to family in UK struggling from what the Tory’s have done to the country - sewage in all the water, NHS waiting lists, out of touch Prime Minister during cost of living crisis etc.
Survation data has slightly different fieldwork dates ('5-11 June, 60% conducted 10-11 June) - but imagine it's methodology playing a big part of the difference.
See also: another poll showing the Greens on 8%!
Labour now below 1997 New Labour voteshare levels with both Survation and Verian but heading for more seats thanks to the divide on the right
Erm, not because of “the divide on the right”
But because of how shit the Conservative Party are right now in most voters’ eyes. Dress it up how you like, add 2 + 2 and make yourself whatever figure you like, but it’s the pants performance of the tories which more than any other single factor is driving this General Election.
Fact my friend.
No it is the divide on the right giving the Tories 100 seats not 200+ seats under FPTP
No, it's not.
It's that people don't want to vote for your version of the Tories.
The right is not divided any more than the left is or you can add Labour and Greens and Lib Dems altogether.
People who vote for different parties have different views. That's their choice.
this post is just plain bonkers
No, it's backed by evidence.
If Lib Dems wanted to vote Labour they'd vote Labour. They don't, as they don't want to, for whatever reason which is their free choice.
If Reform voters wanted to vote Tory they'd vote Tory. They don't as they don't want to which is their free choice.
Adding disparate parties together and pretending they're a division or a whole is what's bonkers.
Change - about all you'll be left with once Reeves starts taxing you
Come on please spare us this kind of thing. It’s just straight out of the CCHQ playbook. Regardless of which Party it comes from this site deserves better.
Brooke has become an unbearable partisan bore.
Much worse than that, his keyboard frequently loses its apostrophe function.
I wonder if Tories really war gamed it, before given the 3 million foreign legion votes?
Are these people Remainers or Brexiteers? Are they close to family in UK struggling from what the Tory’s have done to the country - sewage in all the water, NHS waiting lists, out of touch Prime Minister during cost of living crisis etc.
If you aren't in the UK for over 10 years that seems long enough for you to no longer be able to vote. That's two parliaments (and in modern history 10 PMs) down the line.
How many people who haven't lived in the UK for over 15 years are ever coming back? Very few I would guess. Obviously if you do return permanently, then you should be able to vote again.
Few seem to appreciate that this scandal, the blood contamination case, the Andy Malkinson case (and other similar ones), the endless NHS and Police scandals are all symptomatic of a shredded administrative and political class lacking in competence, integrity and either the ability to admit to or willingness to correct mistakes.
I found myself in disagreement with this paragraph.
But only because you forgot to mention education...
It's a very long list. Ours was not meant to be comprehensive.
Very good piece.
I’m not usually one to demand heads roll for scandals, but I make exceptions for the Post Office and for those who covered up the grooming gangs.
There’s more than a decade of PO senior management who conspired to cover up this scandal, and their victims deserve to see them in court.
Thank you Sandpit.
As the Inquiry approaches its end, it creeps nearer and nearer to the political arena. We will soon be seeing Vince Cable and Jo Swinson giving evidence. There will also be a small number of Civil Servants appearing.
As Ms C explained to me, the terms of the Inquiry were crafted by Civil Servants so it should come as no surprise that its remit stops a little short of scrutinising the role of the Civil Service and its Political masters. My guess is that they will say they were lied to, and in any case didn't make any decisions concerning prosecutions. I doubt even Jason Beer will be able to pierce that veil.
There will however be some prosecutions, I think. I just hope they go a bit beyond Paula Vennells and her immediate buddies. She deserves it, but scapegoating her would only assist the cover-up.
The most interesting witness will probably be Gareth Jenkins, the chief software engineer who designed and updated the Horizon computer system.
Sir Wyn evidently thinks so too. He's allowed four days.
Ms C and I have both been surprised and a little disappointed that no PO witness has completely broken ranks and told it like it really is. It is just possible Jenkins may be the one. He has little to lose. He's the number one candidate for a perjury charge, he's not of the PO, and at his age you'd think he'd do anything to stay out of chokey - even turn King's Evidence.
Labour to receive fewer votes (12,877,918 votes) than they got at 2017 General Election
Current price 13/8 the price when I placed a bet was 8/1
Based on likely reduced turnout I reckon Lab will need to be on circa 44 to exceed the 2017 figure DYOR
That's an interesting bet. People often conflate 2017 and 2019 and forget that Magic Grandpa did rather well in the former (and terribly in the latter).
The forgetting is often deliberate (I'm looking at you HUYFD 😀) in order to beat Starmer with the "worse than Corbyn" stick. But that narrative leads to the odds you quote. Getting fewer actual votes is distinctly possible.
Comments
Appoint people with some experience in or at least understanding of the field and then give them longer to get on with it.
Edit - they use a 'random probability' panel
No-one is now defending the 1999 law change. But has anyone suggested a foolproof system to replace it with? One that doesn't just re-create a load of scofflaw Maserati yobbos?
Boris would still have got 200+ Tory seats but had he lost then Sunak would have been in prime contention to be Leader of the Opposition after Boris had led the Tories to defeat and then shift the party back towards the centre.
Now Sunak will lead the Tories to the worst defeat in their history, see heavy leakage to Reform and the party will conclude had Boris been leader they might have won and the party needs to move further right in opposition to reduce leakage to Reform.
Sunak should have kept his ego in check and desire to be PM as soon as possible.
David Miliband for example did in 2009 and did not challenge Brown and won the members and MPs vote in 2010 to be Labour leader in Opposition, only the unions elected Ed Miliband
On the other hand though, are you adding Ref on Con thinking they all want to vote for Sunak? You think there will be absolutely zero Reform to Labour tactical voting on July 4th? No late swing coming to Labour from Reform?
It’s more subtle than black and white ideology isn’t it? Reform have 15% made up of many adamantly not voting Tory at this election, is the truth isn’t it? Sunak’s government really has shrunk the base?
"Given what Murdoch has done with his newspapers I would find it hard to have anything to do with him, and therefore Sky, even though he sold them off."
Part of the meaning of the word grudge is that it is a feeling of resentment that persists longer than the cause for that resentment. So my use of grudge implies knowledge that Murdoch no longer owns Sky and that there's something irrational about holding a grudge against Sky on that basis.
Humans are irrational, who knew?
But the main point is that surely it should be for juries and judges to use their common sense to decide whether or not evidence is reliable. You can't rely on a law to say that either computers are definitely reliable or not reliable.
The US cricket star who once played for India
Every Friday evening, he would drive for six hours to Los Angeles to play a match on Saturday. Then he’d drive back to play a match in San Francisco on Sunday.
“In the club [in Los Angeles], there were three to four players who were part of the American team,” he says. “It was then I got to know that America had a cricket team.”
“On long weekends, they organised tournaments in the country, mostly in Florida, where even players from the West Indies would participate.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c511x170v2wo
The presumption that what Nigelb wrote has a correlate in what I have just read relies upon the reliability of a staggeringly complex global operation which would take massive expertise to unravel and prove or disprove in its entirety.
In the big picture I would like to see a national public defence forensic service dedicated to assisting the defence in criminal cases charged with the task of sorting exactly these sorts of issues, both in individual cases and in spotting generic problems. I shall be waiting quite a time.
Co-leader Carla Denyer said her family had second-hand cars throughout most of her childhood. A terrible burden that’s shared by 82% of passenger vehicles right now…
Adrian Ramsay had an even better one: he wasn’t allowed pets until he forced his parents to relent.
https://order-order.com/2024/06/12/green-co-leaders-struggle-he-wasnt-allowed-a-pet-as-a-child/
I always thought that really greenie greens wouldn't really be comfortable with having pets. Breeding animals for human pleasure, many in small cages all day.
GE Voting intention (Scotland)
(changes vs Ipsos Jan 2024 poll)
· SNP: 36% (-3)
· Labour: 36% (+4)
· Conservatives: 13% (-1)
· Liberal Democrats: 5% (-1)
· Reform UK: 4% (+1)
· Scottish Green Party: 3% (-1)
· Alba Party: 1% (unchanged)
· Other: 1% (+1)
3 to 9 June
As the Inquiry approaches its end, it creeps nearer and nearer to the political arena. We will soon be seeing Vince Cable and Jo Swinson giving evidence. There will also be a small number of Civil Servants appearing.
As Ms C explained to me, the terms of the Inquiry were crafted by Civil Servants so it should come as no surprise that its remit stops a little short of scrutinising the role of the Civil Service and its Political masters. My guess is that they will say they were lied to, and in any case didn't make any decisions concerning prosecutions. I doubt even Jason Beer will be able to pierce that veil.
There will however be some prosecutions, I think. I just hope they go a bit beyond Paula Vennells and her immediate buddies. She deserves it, but scapegoating her would only assist the cover-up.
Neither of those points have been proven.
Kinnock goes dog whistling
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/12/neil-kinnock-labour-should-leave-room-to-raise-taxes/
Or is it just screening it in their own homes they object to?
It's that people don't want to vote for your version of the Tories.
The right is not divided any more than the left is or you can add Labour and Greens and Lib Dems altogether.
People who vote for different parties have different views. That's their choice.
According to Yougov 34% of 2019 Conservative voters now back ReformUK but only 2% of 2019 Labour voters and 2% of 2019 LDs back ReformUK
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Sky_VI_240604.pdf
You will of course be aware that Comcast is even more of a sports monopolist than was the Dirty Digger.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ulster/2024/0612/1454365-ulster-donaldson/
Computers and digital technology render these issues universal. To prove everything from first principles is impractical. The law provides that various presumptions can be made. They are all rebuttable. But this is not easy, and of course usually not true either.
Getting the balance right does not have an obvious solution.
It's a matter of plain fact that computers do not operate as deterministic machines, and the product of given programs is subject to error.
The statute could be made to recognise that.
I'm not saying YouGov is more accurate - it may well be an outlier and I'm scpetical of the idea the Lib Dem manifesto launch would have given them an appreciable boost. But there is a tendency on this site to assume the most recently published poll has the most recent fieldwork - in this case, the Verian/Kantar data is older thean the YouGov.
But then so have the tories so in the bigger picture it may even help a Labour majority.
Apparently humans are also inconsistent. Surprise!
Watching Henry explain Man City on MNF was a masterclass in how people, who are in the game and know the game at the very highest level, think about it and what is trying to be achieved.
Same with the cricket, they brutally axed all the old duffers and in came the likes of Kumar Sangakkara. Not only a legendary player but is involved with strategy in IPL.
Golf, for the Masters, they will have Butch Harmon, the man who coaches or has coached nearly all the best players in the game.
Join the back of the queue.
I find the whole thing Sky Sports Refuse-ism bizarre – but it is undoubtably A Thing. And there are millions like you. You are not at all unusual in this regard.
Current VI
Conservative 160
Labour 280
Liberal Democrat 75
Reform UK 77
Other 89
Undecided 181
Published VI Con 23 Lab 41 LD 10 Ref 12 Green 6 Others 7
2019 GE
Conservative 314
Labour 265
Liberal Democrat 81
Green 19
SNP 32
Other 31
He only uses the Blair playbook to win over ex Conservative voters
The Law Commission will probably take eff all notice, or even apologise to the SubPostMasters, but I expect we will see the law changed quietly in due course.
There are other and better ways of restraining the Dura Aces of this world.
Its like doing a social media ad campaign and by the next day nobody is talking about it.
Which meant that prosecutions were slowed down and worse, Proper People (lawyers) were being forced to try and understand IT.
Most Greens will not vote for LAB under any circumstances
We've gone from having world-leading television standards, to essentially average television that continental professionals don't think that much of, in the space of just two and a half decades. I accept that someone was going to eventally break the old terrestrial monopoly, but he skewed the new process and regulatory framework, by using what was essentially corruption, and resulting in less interesting TV across the board Still, I accept that there"s no reason why a new Sky now owned by someone else should have to accept any blame for any of that.
On the sports side of things, Sky revolutionised the coverage of sport in the UK. Interestingly, CH4 getting the cricket for a few years, also gave it another rocket boost, with Hawkeye, snicko, etc.
Sky had to offer a better product and continue to do so, otherwise they would fail like ITV Digital.
BBC famously drop the ball on things like the Wire, they put it on at like 1am when they had the rights.
How do you work that out? Are you using unweighted figures or something? Reform 77 seats?!! Others 89?? Wtf.
Bunged into Electoral Calculus without any tactical voting the Survation gives:
Conservative 102
Labour 458
Liberal Democrats 46
Green 2
SNP 14
Reform 3
p.s. The Greens certainly didn't win 19 MPs in 2019
A reminder that Survation gave:
Cons 23%
Labour 41%
LibDems 10%
Reform 12%
Greens 6%
SNP 3%
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?type=scotland&SCOTCON=13&SCOTLAB=36&SCOTLIB=5&SCOTNAT=36&SCOTReform=4&SCOTGreen=3&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
Irish society is, alas, perfectly capable of inflicting hideous wrongs on itself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clwe2wj01gjo
In future I shall refer to it only as, Snappy Lec.
“Sorry I’m late for this pointless in the can interview, D Day Memorial over ran” is now entering the media narrative. NET positive for Tories if it keeps slumping economy off the main point.
Labour must be sick, their opportunity to be scrutinised and explain their policies in detail, is getting drowned out by Sunak day after day. Starmer will have to result to bog snorkelling just to get somewhere in the news, and remind people he’s still part of this.
Oh, and prosecutors are still losing speeding cases, because police forces still don’t have a good way of managing calibration certificates for speed guns. Given that they already have systems in place for monitoring movement of gun guns, it should really be a trivial exercise.
As for the idea of having any kind of car...
Labour to receive fewer votes (12,877,918 votes) than they got at 2017 General Election
Current price 13/8 the price when I placed a bet was 8/1
Based on likely reduced turnout I reckon Lab will need to be on circa 44 to exceed the 2017 figure DYOR
Are these people Remainers or Brexiteers? Are they close to family in UK struggling from what the Tory’s have done to the country - sewage in all the water, NHS waiting lists, out of touch Prime Minister during cost of living crisis etc.
If Lib Dems wanted to vote Labour they'd vote Labour. They don't, as they don't want to, for whatever reason which is their free choice.
If Reform voters wanted to vote Tory they'd vote Tory. They don't as they don't want to which is their free choice.
Adding disparate parties together and pretending they're a division or a whole is what's bonkers.
Much worse than that, his keyboard frequently loses its apostrophe function.
How many people who haven't lived in the UK for over 15 years are ever coming back? Very few I would guess. Obviously if you do return permanently, then you should be able to vote again.
Ms C and I have both been surprised and a little disappointed that no PO witness has completely broken ranks and told it like it really is. It is just possible Jenkins may be the one. He has little to lose. He's the number one candidate for a perjury charge, he's not of the PO, and at his age you'd think he'd do anything to stay out of chokey - even turn King's Evidence.
The forgetting is often deliberate (I'm looking at you HUYFD 😀) in order to beat Starmer with the "worse than Corbyn" stick. But that narrative leads to the odds you quote. Getting fewer actual votes is distinctly possible.