Talking about this word cloud on @TheNewsAgents earlier and the ongoing fall out from Sunak leaving D-Day early – why it doesn't seem to have shifted voting intention polls, but has dragged down Rishi Sunak's personal approval ratings instead https://t.co/eUrMgg33np pic.twitter.com/DmQbWt1dMz
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There was one lady v pro Sunak, another wanting change, another wanting a protest vote so was going with reform but otherwise everyone else was “I really just don’t know” and many saying they didn’t know for the first time ever ahead of an election.
I wonder if this is the same across the whole country in real life and could it be that people who respond to polls largely feel obliged to give an answer (yes there are Don’t Knows) as they are en engaged in polling but largely there is still quite a lot to play for so over the next couple of weeks the Tories can go big on “Labour Tax Rises” and reduce the losses.
Is this prediction from Guido even 'better' than that Sion Simon magnum opus?
It's not the polling that is going to be more at variance with the actual result.
(On a point of pedantry, there have been few opportunities to vote at all since Sunak became PM)
piece was just so implicit and taken as read. That is what makes it so funny.
The latter had a large dollop of hubris missing in Guido's temporary Truss derangement.
It's more Leondamus than Sion Simon.
(I was thinking of the military side. Make an assault landing with fanfare, in association with the French, and then pull back in a hurry as the situation develops not necessarily to one's advantage elsewhere. But the politics, yes, I suppose it could match too ...)
I do live in a (historically) safe seat, and ignore unsolicited calls though. Which might have something to do with it.
Ethnic minority, party member,
working classetc.I also live in the most polled constituency at the 2015 general election.
I’ve never been polled so not sure if once you have agreed to be part of a company’s polling base they keep coming back to you or they find new people each time.
So someone who is actually bothered about spending their time responding to a pollster must be more politically engaged or bored than those who refused to take part - what is the proportion of people asked to take part who refuse v accept?
So there are obviously weaknesses in voxpops but there must also be weaknesses in polling. Obviously the polls are fairly accurate and get more so nearer the election but the point of interest is still valid that it seems there are a good chunk of people who haven’t decided and they can make the difference between ELE or a workable majority.
In the original version of the thread I did compare Sunak's exit as ignominious as the Dieppe Raid.
Fair enough, but that's deeply politically inept for a Prime Minister - especially in an election campaign.
Perhaps they had a massive row about it, guess we’ll have to wait for Sunak’s memoir to find out.
I’d know how to say to my boss “Sorry, but this is going to go on all day, and it’s going to be a bad look to leave early”.
You could probably create a third party surge all by yourself.
There's only so much a Foreign Secretary can do when a PM has made up his mind.
That grain is vastly overwhelmed by the endless desert planet of gaffedom of course. It was an almost unbelievably stupid way to conduct himself, let alone *during an election*.
But a grain, nonetheless.
You really need to be at least competent at both.
(Wasn't his initial defence that he went for the British bits, and just ducked out of the events involving foreigners?)
We've lost, inter alia, ICM, Populus, ComRes, and to a lesser extent Survation from the regular phone pollsters over the last few years.
I do like his daily collations of the campaign though.
Sunak needs to be questioned about this - why did he override his Foreign Sec's advice?
Chiquita Found Liable for Colombia Paramilitary Killings
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/colombia-chiquita-papers/2024-06-10/chiquita-found-liable-colombia-paramilitary-killings
Washington, D.C., June 10, 2024 – Today, an eight-member jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, found Chiquita Brands International liable for funding a violent Colombian paramilitary organization, the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), that was responsible for major human rights atrocities during the 1990s and 2000s. The weeks-long trial featured testimony from the families of the nine victims in the case, the recollections of Colombian military officials and Chiquita executives, expert reports, and a summary of key documentary evidence produced by Michael Evans, director of the National Security Archive’s Colombia documentation project.
“This historic ruling marks the first time that an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country,” according to a press release from EarthRights International, which represents victims in the case.
In 2007, Chiquita reached a sentencing agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in which it admitted to $1.7 million in payments to the AUC, which was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 2001. Chiquita paid a $25 million fine for violating a U.S. anti-terrorism statute but has never before had to answer to victims of the paramilitary group it financed. In 2018, Chiquita settled separate claims brought by the families of six victims of the FARC insurgent group, which was also paid by Chiquita for many years...
"But the country has already changed its mind about his rotten Brexit deal, and there would be no opportunity like Labour’s first 18 months to improve relations with the giant market on our doorstep. As the EU grapples with the problem of enlargement to its east and populism at home, the notion of a more flexible, less monolithic EU of concentric or interlocking circles is growing in potency."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour/2024/06/what-historic-labour-keir-starmer-win-mean-britain-election-andrew-marr
What I am looking for in Labour's manifesto is silence on the EU - that will (ironically) be a huge indicator to me where things are going. It will be a carte blance on EU trading relations and security agreements.
Sunak's actions on leaving the D-Day celebrations were very much a tacit expression of inward looking, isolationist ethos of the populist right, and its time has come.... I seriously think the country is turning a corner on brexit going into the next parliament.
I think it is because
1) Sunak was supposed to be representing us all, and people didn't like how he did that it; so something abstract becomes personal
2) It reifies a general sense people had about him anyway (arrogant, self-interested, no empathy)
and, if you are a Tory activist
3) It was an unforced error - they chose that schedule and didn't allow for events to overrun; then when they did, they made the wrong call. Any doubts you had about the campaign in weeks 1 and 2 were reinforced; another hit to morale.
The decision that Sunak would attend the British parts of the D-Day commemorations but dodge an international event later was made weeks ago.
“The official advice was that the second bit was optional,” a senior political source said. “We were told Starmer wouldn’t be there.” At that point, it seemed like the second half would be little more than a social gathering for world leaders. “It was billed as a lunch and that even Biden wouldn’t be there,” a second source said. In the event, it was one of the most moving ceremonies of the two-day gathering, with Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the foreign secretary, substituting for Sunak and standing alongside the American and French presidents.
However, civil servants are clear that it was a political decision to cut things short. One of Cameron’s closest allies also let it be known that they had advised Sunak to “do” the full schedule.
Another ally pointed out that in his 2014 party conference speech as leader, Cameron talked about how the then 70th anniversary of D-Day had been “the best moment of my year”, and that when he was prepping for the speech he told aides: “There’s a risk I may start crying here, because it gets me so emotional.”
A Whitehall source said Cameron was “apoplectic” about Sunak’s decision but, when asked why he had not “picked Sunak up by his lapels”, he said: “There is only so much I can do.”
There was also fury at Buckingham Palace, where courtiers pointed out that the King, who is being treated for cancer, was advised not to travel but was determined to do so, despite being in pain.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/infighting-on-the-beaches-behind-the-scenes-of-the-d-day-debacle-6rlvt8nr6
As I said at the time, ITV jump to the PM’s schedule, not the other way around. If he’d said he was available at 3am, then there would have been a studio full of people waiting for him at 2am, and nothing more would have been said on the subject.
But he's an unpopular man and it's been seized upon, it seems to have encapsulated all the reasons people don't like him. His overwrought apologies show it was and is hitting him hard including with remaining supporters.
Politics can be rough and he'll have to hope history is kinder to him as the electorate won't be.
But you, like an idiot, wanted to take over the world. And you don't realize there is no world anymore. It's only corporations.
Suspect that's closer to Rishi's worldview than is comfortable. In Goodwin-speak, the Conservatives may appeal to Somewheres, but they are run by and for Anywheres.
Which is one of the reasons for the fracture.
Twat.
Labour recognised the significance and lobbied to be included.
I've no idea why he's doing an interview a week ahead anyways. The agenda has moved on. There's the possibility of events like the Manchester bombing. The interview was pre-manifesto, broadcast post manifesto.
On that level alone it seems a bizarre decision.
NEW: Nigel Farage reveals he'd be happy to lead a Conservative-Reform merged party...
Suggestions slapped down by Tories across the party including PM...
Sunak looked defeated last night no doubt from the fallout over his DDay antics and, apparently, immediately following the event he got on a plane arriving in Italy at 1.00am for the G7 meeting which I expect he will be the last to leave
I may be wrong but I detect that he may be receiving some sympathy, and in any respect the mental strain on him and his family must be colossal and for as poor as he is, he just cannot leave behind the Johnson and Truss disasters and the only consolation is that it will be over in three weeks
Mind you Starmer was also poor last night, with the audience openly laughing at his 'father was a toolmaker', he was called a robot, and the audience member who heckled Sunak later said that neither Sunak or Starmer have the answers for the NHS
However, he is going to be PM 3 weeks tomorrow and then the real test begins for him, labour, the country and of course the future role of the conservative party in our politics
Nadine Dorries lost for words ... when asked on Times Radio by Andrew Neil:
"What is the difference between the Tory Campaign and the Bataan Death March?"
https://youtu.be/m6eI3L44AIE?t=7
Then there is the likely truth he employs an office full of diggers to dig up dirt, on the basis dirt can be financial gold. They are panning for gold. The whole operation is/also is as well the mission, a money making scheme, that’s likely given him a heated pool at home, perhaps even a decent golf handicap meaning he’s made it in life.
Hope this helps.
“My father was a toolmaker”
would be:
“Well yes, clearly he was”
And provided lots of momentum to Farage just days after he decided to stand.
https://x.com/rnaudbertrand/status/1801114239572328663?s=46
He didn't stay because he didn't want to stay.