I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Sunak isn't a "wet centrist" though. He's a weird combination of the things centrists can't stand about the Tory right, and the things the Tory right don't like about their party's self-described pragmatists.
So pleases and understands no one.
If the Tories do have a real disaster it's because they'll be a rare example of a party that managed to totally alienate both the moderate end of its voter coalition and its extreme end at the same time. Even Corbyn only managed one of those.
The odd thing is that Maggie got away with it, and the wet end of the party extended quite a bit further left in those days. Her talent as a politician? Different sort of threat from Socialists? Or has the old centre of the Conservative Party simply ceased to hold? Are the things that (say) Tugendhat and Braverman want incompatible in a way that wasn't true for (say) Patten and Ridley?
The Overton Window has simply shifted. Public opinion has moved significantly. Tory LE gains in 1968. And a win against the head in 1970. Corbyn 2017. They were harbingers of the new order. Thatcher simply took advantage of it when it did. Starmer is doing it now. That's all.
That supports my daughter's comment earlier about Embarrassing Dad Ed's antics cutting through in a positive way amongst her age group. I don't think any of them knew who he was before.
You can get 6/1 at Ladbrokes that Ed will be fired from a cannon before the campaign is out
I won't take that unless you have inside information!
I said the other night, and I stand by it, that if he does an Evel Knievel over some buses he will get my vote. And I would vote Leave again tomorrow.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
It was a great pity that she was forced out. Quite apart from the fact that she wouldn't have gone for a GE prematurely (because she wanted to go to the public with visible pay off to show for her supply-side reforms), she'd have done much better than this - and probably not brought on the return of Farage.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
He is wet, but not centrist.
Yeah. The entire problem with the Tory Party is that it has become unmoored from where the centre is. Just look at the polls. The centre right now is the far left of the LD's or the extreme right of Labour. It's Liz Kendall. That's where the median voter sits. You've done fuck all to appeal to them. Starmer's done loads. So you don't deserve to win. Or come second.
I wouldn't personally agree that the median voter sits on the centre right, because people are too contradictory.
He or she might have the views on business of Liz Kendall or Ed Davey, but the views on spending of Ed Miliband, or even Jeremy Corbyn.
I'm resigned to the liklihood of little fundamentally changing until something major happens. A war, or an IMF bailout.
Too many (of all ages) have got used to the state providing. That is simply unsustainable given our demographics.
Well, not necessarily if people accept higher immigration.
That's the key bee in their bonnet of Reform, obviously.
There's little to no evidence the unis selling visas to aspiring deliveroo drivers has helped anything.
There’s little evidence that that description has anything to do with reality. The Government’s own analysis has dismissed such characterisations.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
It was five minutes of silence with the message “Britain is Broken”
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
Corbyn in 2017 though got a hung parliament and was just 30 more gains from the Tories from winning most seats and becoming PM. Only Boris in 2019 managed to beat him convincingly and partly due to getting Leavers, many of whom love Farage, to back him to get Brexit done.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
You wouldn’t think Farage could get that many ping pong balls in there….
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
He is wet, but not centrist.
Yeah. The entire problem with the Tory Party is that it has become unmoored from where the centre is. Just look at the polls. The centre right now is the far left of the LD's or the extreme right of Labour. It's Liz Kendall. That's where the median voter sits. You've done fuck all to appeal to them. Starmer's done loads. So you don't deserve to win. Or come second.
I wouldn't personally agree that the median voter sits on the centre right, because people are too contradictory.
He or she might have the views on business of Liz Kendall or Ed Davey, but the views on spending of Ed Miliband, or even Jeremy Corbyn.
I'm resigned to the liklihood of little fundamentally changing until something major happens. A war, or an IMF bailout.
Too many (of all ages) have got used to the state providing. That is simply unsustainable given our demographics.
Well, not necessarily if people accept higher immigration.
That's the key bee in their bonnet of Reform, obviously.
There's little to no evidence the unis selling visas to aspiring deliveroo drivers has helped anything.
There’s little evidence that that description has anything to do with reality. The Government’s own analysis has dismissed such characterisations.
Neil O'Brian's analysis doesn't, nor do the whole cohort of ghost uni campuses in central London, or the frequent food delivery drivers using someone's account because they can't get their own due to no right to work.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
It was five minutes of silence with the message “Britain is Broken”
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
Actually in a weird way that is quite clever. I mean Reform don't want people looking too closely at policy and we are bombarded by all the TikTok / YouTube shorts nonsense, so it probably gets more attention. I think you play the national anthem rather than silence though.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
He is wet, but not centrist.
Yeah. The entire problem with the Tory Party is that it has become unmoored from where the centre is. Just look at the polls. The centre right now is the far left of the LD's or the extreme right of Labour. It's Liz Kendall. That's where the median voter sits. You've done fuck all to appeal to them. Starmer's done loads. So you don't deserve to win. Or come second.
I wouldn't personally agree that the median voter sits on the centre right, because people are too contradictory.
He or she might have the views on business of Liz Kendall or Ed Davey, but the views on spending of Ed Miliband, or even Jeremy Corbyn.
I'm resigned to the liklihood of little fundamentally changing until something major happens. A war, or an IMF bailout.
Too many (of all ages) have got used to the state providing. That is simply unsustainable given our demographics.
Well, not necessarily if people accept higher immigration.
That's the key bee in their bonnet of Reform, obviously.
There's little to no evidence the unis selling visas to aspiring deliveroo drivers has helped anything.
There’s little evidence that that description has anything to do with reality. The Government’s own analysis has dismissed such characterisations.
Neil O'Brian's analysis doesn't, nor do the whole cohort of ghost uni campuses in central London, or the frequent food delivery drivers using someone's account because they can't get their own due to no right to work.
I don’t believe Neil O’Brian, the assistant professor at the University of Oregon, has looked at this. Did you mean O’Brien, the Tory MP? He’s running a campaign and I suspect his claims are as accurate as the many other Tory claims we’ve heard in the campaign.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
My other half is ceasing to support the Conservatives. I am not surprised as we have both been pretty disenchanted since Teresa May resigned,and recent events are pretty indefensible. But what I am very surprised is that she is going Labour given we live on what must now be a Conservative-Loberal marginal.And I think most likely a Liberal gain.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
Right now, the populist right is getting its ass kicked by Labour, who are campaigning from the centre.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
Its not how big an investment is that matters but how successful it is.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
My other half is ceasing to support the Conservatives. I am not surprised as we have both been pretty disenchanted since Teresa May resigned,and recent events are pretty indefensible. But what I am very surprised is that she is going Labour given we live on what must now be a Conservative-Loberal marginal.And I think most likely a Liberal gain.
And the interesting thing is that she says it is because the Liberal candidate is an idiot. Which may well be the case, but it doesn't seem to matter whether the Labour guy is too, because he can't win.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
Right now, the populist right is getting its ass kicked by Labour, who are campaigning from the centre.
What would you have thought of a platform of being outside the single market, cutting immigration and building more prisons in 2015?
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
To shoot the Faragist fox, all Labour or the Conservatives need to do is be sensible about immigration, accept that current levels are unsustainable, and present concrete plans to a) reduce it to sustainable levels and b) build infrastructure to cope with the enormous influx that is already here.
Most people aren't racist, unfortunately only the racist party is saying anything about immigration at the moment.
Tories are sub 20 with 4 pollsters. Its over. They will disintegrate over the next 3 weeks. I cant see them being the opposition.
Yes. Lets pull this movement apart: 1) Labour are shedding the soft vote that had herded into their column. Losing a few to Green, more to LibDem, some to Reform. That will reduce the number of seats they win and the majorities they get in those seats 2) LibDems are getting a lot of attention and people like what they see. Not relevant nationally, but the target seats focus and the willingness to vote tactically will pay out. I know the party is playing it down citing past elections, but Sarah Olney's tale of woe last night is a tale of elections past, not the one in front of us 3) Reform are transformed - the Nigel has doubled their support and the Tory dam is breaking. That Jenkyns leaflet won't be the only one. Once the dam breaks properly the surge of Tory votes to Reform is unstoppable now - watch the flow accelerate the closer we get to polling day 4) Sorry Tories, its the end. Nobody is listening to you, and the bits they hear they laugh at - openly, to your face.
Unless something radical happens to abruptly reverse it, this is going to be the biggest electoral shift for a century. The Tories have launched the manifesto now, its not going to pull a Farage-shooting rabbit out of the hat. And "don't give Labour a super-majority?" Not remotely enough when voters are now heading off to spread their votes about away from Labour.
I know that ELE is "it couldn't happen here". But it IS. Look. Listen. Think. What possibly can avert it now? Fear of that anodyne Labour offer? Fear of Farage? A sudden "poor Rishi lets vote for him after all" movement?
I have no clue what that means for seats. It's going to be fun.
I mean this in the nicest possible way:
You must be shitting yourself you might actually win
Rochdale would make an above average MP, I think ?
(Admittedly that’s not the highest of bars.)
Oh I hope he does. Actually as (part of being) a kid I didn't live very far away from his seat - village/town called Cullen.
But I doubt Mrs Rochdale thought he would win when she gave him permission to run. I'm just making that sentence up though based on what most marriages are like. Who knows. It's a bit unfair cause he surely cannot be expected to answer anyway. So I'll leave it there
Cullen is IN the seat. Hustings there next Thursday! We've been promised an appearance by the Ross.
Do you ever get confused, whether you're in North Aberdeenshire OR East Moray? Or is it East Aberdeenshire and North Moray? AND how do you tell for sure?
Lead on MacDuff!
I created an acronym on day 1 - ANME. My problem is pronunciation. Depending which part of the country you are from our local places - my village included - are pronounced very differently.
As an incomer - and Cyber Nats are already telling me to fuck off out of their town / country - I want to get pronunciations as balanced as I can.
ANME - pronounced "anime"?
Regarding pronunciation, try putting an extra "f" when you say Banff = "ban'f'f". Or rather, always say one more "f" than whomever you're bandying words with does.
(Perhaps you should clear that with Malcolm f'first?)
Pity you can't tell cybernats to f-f-f-uck off themselves .
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
Its not how big an investment is that matters but how successful it is.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
And that's kind of the problem with taking an investment holiday for fourteen years.
A lot of the investment choices since 2010 has been about reducing the spend, rather than thinking about the return. That favours patch'n'mend over fixing the problems properly. Throwing more staff at a problem, because the upfront cost of rethinking the system is too scary, even if it would generate big long term savings.
And whilst that's OK as a short-term answer to a crisis, it's not sustainable over decades, and that's a fair bit of why we are where we are.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
Its not how big an investment is that matters but how successful it is.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
But our economy is also just as structurally unequipped to the benefit from the right kind of investment. too.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
Corbyn in 2017 though got a hung parliament and was just 30 more gains from the Tories from winning most seats and becoming PM. Only Boris in 2019 managed to beat him convincingly and partly due to getting Leavers, many of whom love Farage, to back him to get Brexit done.
That is a high risk strategy
Yes, but Corbyn did well in 2017 before he was exposed for what he was. By 2019 he was a busted flush, with some of his more pungent views and colleagues being exposed to the light. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant, and I believe five years of Farage as LOTO would bring all the loons out of the woodwork, resulting in a resounding defeat in 2029.
As I've been posting here for eight years hopefully I will still be around in five to eat my hat if I am wrong!
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
Right now, the populist right is getting its ass kicked by Labour, who are campaigning from the centre.
Yeah but Labour is just representing the centrist blob. Their popularity is not deep. When in government they will have all the same problems as the current government and people will be rapidly dissatisfied. The idea that at this point a 'centrist, detoxified' conservative party offering the same managerial solutions would be welcomed as the answer is unlikely. People will want some more radical solutions and the right will have these. It is what I think will happen next. No one should take comfort in a massive labour victory if the 'far right' become the main opposition.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
Its not how big an investment is that matters but how successful it is.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
And that's kind of the problem with taking an investment holiday for fourteen years.
A lot of the investment choices since 2010 has been about reducing the spend, rather than thinking about the return. That favours patch'n'mend over fixing the problems properly. Throwing more staff at a problem, because the upfront cost of rethinking the system is too scary, even if it would generate big long term savings.
And whilst that's OK as a short-term answer to a crisis, it's not sustainable over decades, and that's a fair bit of why we are where we are.
A period which included the HS2 spending isn't an investment holiday.
Which may be part of the problem - does the UK struggle with investment spending of particular types or sizes ?
And do UK politicians get drawn to investments which are described as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' ?
We need some research as to what investments have been successful in this country and what are the failures.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Are you ever going to accept that Boris and Truss have their share of the responsibility ?
Together with all the other Conservative politicians who have disgraced themselves during sine the last election ?
If you think that Sunak is terrible at politics then what does that say of the rest of the Conservatives party that Sunak was the only person left standing after the previous leadership failings ?
Oh absolutely, Boris and Truss failed as well.
But Sunak has spent the last two years doing fundamentally unConservative things. Growing the state, increasing the tax burden, restricting liberty.
He will not be remembered well by Conservative members.
And I totally agree with you - it shows the Parliamentary party as poor ground politicians. They should have ensured there was a proper contest after Truss resigned. By failing to do so, and then failing to oust Sunak when it became obvious he wasn't up to it, many, perhaps most of them, will end up losing their seats.
Did you vote for Truss in the first leadership election?
I did. I was very disappointed that her growth plans failed. I think we would probably both suggest that it was largely her own fault, however....
She tried to do too much, too quickly. She had a full two and half years ahead of her before she had to call an election.
It was also wrong end of the telescope....just cutting taxes will give you a sugar rush, but if you don't fix the productivity that sugar rush will crash and you will be putting them back up again.
We haven't had consistent periods of growth above 2% for nearly 20 years.
All that tax cuts and spending rises and other government 'stimulus' does is bring forward future economic activity.
Effectively it steals economic activity from the future.
The problem is that we've been doing it for so long that we're now living in the future from which the economic activity has been stolen.
To get genuine economic growth productivity growth is needed.
We need to do two things: 1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run. "But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure. "But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Borrowing more is not short term pain for long term gain.
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
But investment has been very low, by European standards.
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
Its not how big an investment is that matters but how successful it is.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
But our economy is also just as structurally unequipped to the benefit from the right kind of investment. too.
Look at Germany's for comparison, for instance.
We may be structurally different to Germany but that might mean some investments work better here than in Germany and some worse.
Bewailing that we're different to Germany or trying to imitate Germany when its not appropriate aren't going to bring positive results.
We need to find our own strengths and invest in them.
Altering our weaknesses is a much longer term and more fundamental process and might not be realistically possible.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
He is wet, but not centrist.
Yeah. The entire problem with the Tory Party is that it has become unmoored from where the centre is. Just look at the polls. The centre right now is the far left of the LD's or the extreme right of Labour. It's Liz Kendall. That's where the median voter sits. You've done fuck all to appeal to them. Starmer's done loads. So you don't deserve to win. Or come second.
I wouldn't personally agree that the median voter sits on the centre right, because people are too contradictory.
He or she might have the views on business of Liz Kendall or Ed Davey, but the views on spending of Ed Miliband, or even Jeremy Corbyn.
I'm resigned to the liklihood of little fundamentally changing until something major happens. A war, or an IMF bailout.
Too many (of all ages) have got used to the state providing. That is simply unsustainable given our demographics.
Well, not necessarily if people accept higher immigration.
That's the key bee in their bonnet of Reform, obviously.
There's little to no evidence the unis selling visas to aspiring deliveroo drivers has helped anything.
There’s little evidence that that description has anything to do with reality. The Government’s own analysis has dismissed such characterisations.
Neil O'Brian's analysis doesn't, nor do the whole cohort of ghost uni campuses in central London, or the frequent food delivery drivers using someone's account because they can't get their own due to no right to work.
I don’t believe Neil O’Brian, the assistant professor at the University of Oregon, has looked at this. Did you mean O’Brien, the Tory MP? He’s running a campaign and I suspect his claims are as accurate as the many other Tory claims we’ve heard in the campaign.
Good point, you've singlehandedly destroyed my argument by pointing out a one letter spelling mistake. I'd advise more using eyes and fewer fingers in ears.
We found what is probably a bot account, but also one we thought were bots, but actual real people. I am not really sure they have a clue what they are doing.
The BBC did a massive report on AI fakes based on a Twitter account which anyone can see is a parody. But not the BBC. The owner of the account then trolled the BBC in their response. It was class.
The BBC did a massive report on AI fakes based on a Twitter account which anyone can see is a parody. But not the BBC. The owner of the account then trolled the BBC in their response. It was class.
Yes I remember that one. They aren't exactly covering themselves in glory.
This week the Tories have adopted a strategy of warning that people who vote Reform could hand Labour a super-majority that would put Labour in power for a decade or more. Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
This week the Tories have adopted a strategy of warning that people who vote Reform could hand Labour a super-majority that would put Labour in power for a decade or more. Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
It's the small party "holding the balance of power" fallacy. The true believers are confident they will over perform, leading to NOM, and handing them the keys to the castle.
I’m seeing the phrase ‘A vote for the Tories is just a vote for Labour’ getting a ton of traction on socials…
Having reached the crossover point, it's perilously difficult for the Tories to make the argument in reverse without it rebounding back on them. People who want to punish the Tories but also don't want to give Labour a big majority can defect en masse to Reform.
We found what is probably a bot account, but also one we thought were bots, but actual real people. I am not really sure they have a clue what they are doing.
We found what is probably a bot account, but also one we thought were bots, but actual real people. I am not really sure they have a clue what they are doing.
That podcast contained a large number of inaccuracies. They took the word of a Green councillor and didn't fact check properly. They basically pushed a conspiracy about conspiracy theories.
BBC Verify is a basically a piss poor version of Bellingcat.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
Yep - there's a point where Reform is a wasted vote morphs into Conservative is a wasted vote
And Farage is banging that specific drum like a good'un.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
I missed the PPB, what was the shocking bit they got past the censors?
And what did Moffat do to upset MoonRabbit!?
Probably messed up the season finale. You know what he's like.
I’m seeing the phrase ‘A vote for the Tories is just a vote for Labour’ getting a ton of traction on socials…
Having reached the crossover point, it's perilously difficult for the Tories to make the argument in reverse without it rebounding back on them. People who want to punish the Tories but also don't want to give Labour a big majority can defect en masse to Reform.
Both Farage and Reform have higher favourability ratings than Sunak and the Conservatives.
One of the funniest things on YouTube imo is Jonathan Meades' reaction to journalist Mark Lawson's mentioning of the fact he'd just visited the Edward Heath Museum in Salisbury.
I see the Conservatives held Mottingham, with a swing to them, compared to 2022, and five times the votes Reform got. An indicator that Reform is overstated in the polling?
One of the funniest things on YouTube imo is Jonathan Meades' reaction to journalist Mark Lawson's mentioning of the fact he'd just visited the Edward Heath Museum in Salisbury.
Good morning. You haven’t done yourself any favours here.
Why is that even remotely funny? Arundells is a lovely house with views of the Cathedral. The museum is a fascinating collection. There are some wonderful photos and memorabilia, including of Heath’s time serving in WWII.
I imagine I’m a lot younger than you but I try to learn about the past. People complain about the lack of education in this country and then you post something as stupid as this.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Sunak isn't a "wet centrist" though. He's a weird combination of the things centrists can't stand about the Tory right, and the things the Tory right don't like about their party's self-described pragmatists.
So pleases and understands no one.
If the Tories do have a real disaster it's because they'll be a rare example of a party that managed to totally alienate both the moderate end of its voter coalition and its extreme end at the same time. Even Corbyn only managed one of those.
The odd thing is that Maggie got away with it, and the wet end of the party extended quite a bit further left in those days. Her talent as a politician? Different sort of threat from Socialists? Or has the old centre of the Conservative Party simply ceased to hold? Are the things that (say) Tugendhat and Braverman want incompatible in a way that wasn't true for (say) Patten and Ridley?
The real Thatcher is rather different to the mythical one. With the real one being much more pragmatic in getting where she wanted. Most obviously what's now known as 'Thatcherism' is basically a greatest hits from 11 years which misses out the fact that there were U-turns (even when saying 'not for turning'), accommodations made then abandoned at a later date. She increased taxes and then benefits in consecutive budgets. Paid off the miners before screwing them. Helped create the single market before all the Up Yours Delors stuff.
Which is not to say she isn't the ogre/heroine of popular myth (delete as applicable to your politics - I'm the former) but a far cleverer and more complex politician than her ersatz imitators who think that by saying things you achieve them.
There were also close run things, and of course she'd eventually be brought down by Europe. The very thing that may end up killing the Conservative Party by steering it down a populist cul-de-sac because it formalised a breach (it's by no means the only thing but symbolic) from the more moderate, working age voters who used to at least consider voting Tory but now are more likely to believe aliens built the pyramids than vote Conservative.
Braverman and Tugendhat aren't necessarily incompatible, they're just not very good and in a party that's become more and more detached from reality and sections of voters it needs to target or at least understand. The former because she's an arsonist who annoys pretty much everyone. The latter as he's not actually all that moderate in the scheme of things (compared to the pre-2016 Tories), and a bit like Sunak can't really change perceptions without a big fight with his party's right and vested interests that he almost certainly isn't up for.
Morning again. Catching up on sports news. Didn’t someone on here put a bet on Rory McIlroy for the US Open at pretty odds? If so that’s a promising start.
Also catching up on various news titbits and polling, broadcasts, and debates.
I’m not sure how anyone interested in politics can describe this is as a dull election? It’s the most interesting, and exciting, campaign of my life. I guess for different reasons 2019 and 2017 were also fun to watch, and I appreciate that if you are a Conservative party worker this must be hell on earth right now, but for neutrals it’s absolutely fascinating.
There are still so many permutations, from truly landscape altering to something more nuanced. Can anyone really say they are sure which way this is going from here?
The Russian banking sector seems to be collapsing...
Please expand.
What are the new metrics if so ? Is something qualitatively diffrerent, going on ?
The US has put further sanctions on the sector. AIUI, foreign banks that do business is Russia may be treated as though they are Russian, meaning that they will be subject to the same sort of sanctions.
Apparently many Russian online banks suddenly closed down Internet access, making it hard for people to access (take out) their money, and long queues have formed outside some physical banks. The Russian Central Bank have stopped trading in euros and dollars.
Some people claim the ruble is collapsing, but as far as I can tell, there are no signs of this on the official exchange rate. Though apparently one bank buys rubles at 50 to the dollar, and sells at 200.
I’m seeing the phrase ‘A vote for the Tories is just a vote for Labour’ getting a ton of traction on socials…
Having reached the crossover point, it's perilously difficult for the Tories to make the argument in reverse without it rebounding back on them. People who want to punish the Tories but also don't want to give Labour a big majority can defect en masse to Reform.
If the Yougov is anywhere near correct, Reform are surely second in my seat (Bassetlaw) right now.
There’s little real doubt that we are witnessing what in the US used to be called The Big Mo. I suggest there are two in action right now:
Reform are clearly on a march
Conservatives are even more clearly on a slide
(Labour are too but that’s probably more subtle and may well correlate with tactical voting as much as Lab-Ref switchers and anyway for now they remain miles ahead)
If the Tom Tugendhat’s of this world are in charge, 100 is enough to rebuild on.
If it’s Suella Braverman or Robert Jenrick, in future years they will be able to look back on when they were able to get 100.
If its Braverman or Jenrick the Tories will likely merge with Reform within 5 years if we keep FPTP
Would you join them, or would that be a step too far?
Reluctantly yes, I am still more of a Conservative than LD (who based on their manifesto are back to a Charles Kennedy social democratic rather than Cleggite Orange Book party which I might be able to support) and I could never join Labour. So I suppose I would probably just have to accept Farage as my party leader with Braverman or Jenrick as Deputy (Mogg I assume would get a senior role too).
I would prefer we remain a separate party though, ironically PR probably makes that more likely than FPTP if the Tories fall under 100 seats
I very much hope the Tories don’t throw in their lot with populist nationalism, as it ends as it always does in destruction and ashes.
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It’s been obvious this split was coming since at least 2010. The Tories have tried to be all things to too many polarised factions with opposing needs. In a way it’s surprising it held together so long,
I would be sad to see you throw your lot in with NF. You’re better than that.
I very much hope the Tories don’t throw in their lot with populist nationalism, as it ends as it always does in destruction and ashes.
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It starts with the B word.
If the Tories want to defeat Nigel Fucking Farage they have to admit the project he championed is a shitshow
Also catching up on various news titbits and polling, broadcasts, and debates.
I’m not sure how anyone interested in politics can describe this is as a dull election? It’s the most interesting, and exciting, campaign of my life. I guess for different reasons 2019 and 2017 were also fun to watch, and I appreciate that if you are a Conservative party worker this must be hell on earth right now, but for neutrals it’s absolutely fascinating.
There are still so many permutations, from truly landscape altering to something more nuanced. Can anyone really say they are sure which way this is going from here?
It is evidence that politics is subject to the same disruption as many areas of life. The conservative collapse though was foreshadowed in the 2019 Euro elections (why does this never get discussed) where they had a similar collapse/ 'extinction level event'. There was then a miraculous political reinvention which didn't last. What I find quite amusing is that, against this backdrop, people still cling to the idea that there are 'political norms' that still apply ie 'elections are won in the centre'. I think anything can happen, the arrival of 'reform' is just the beginning.
If the Tom Tugendhat’s of this world are in charge, 100 is enough to rebuild on.
If it’s Suella Braverman or Robert Jenrick, in future years they will be able to look back on when they were able to get 100.
If its Braverman or Jenrick the Tories will likely merge with Reform within 5 years if we keep FPTP
Would you join them, or would that be a step too far?
Reluctantly yes, I am still more of a Conservative than LD (who based on their manifesto are back to a Charles Kennedy social democratic rather than Cleggite Orange Book party which I might be able to support) and I could never join Labour. So I suppose I would probably just have to accept Farage as my party leader with Braverman or Jenrick as Deputy (Mogg I assume would get a senior role too).
I would prefer we remain a separate party though, ironically PR probably makes that more likely than FPTP if the Tories fall under 100 seats
I very much hope the Tories don’t throw in their lot with populist nationalism, as it ends as it always does in destruction and ashes.
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It’s been obvious this split was coming since at least 2010. The Tories have tried to be all things to too many polarised factions with opposing needs. In a way it’s surprising it held together so long,
I would be sad to see you throw your lot in with NF. You’re better than that.
Great post.
The fissure in the Conservative Party goes back, as you hint, even further. In 1995 didn’t John Major have to face down ‘the bastards’ who tried to oust him? John Redwood stood against him for the leadership and gained 1/4 of the parliamentary votes.
My biggest surprise is how long it took for people to realise the obvious; that Sunak was terrible at politics and would likely fall further during an election campaign.
Wet centrists will own this coming defeat for a long time.
Sunak isn't a "wet centrist" though. He's a weird combination of the things centrists can't stand about the Tory right, and the things the Tory right don't like about their party's self-described pragmatists.
So pleases and understands no one.
If the Tories do have a real disaster it's because they'll be a rare example of a party that managed to totally alienate both the moderate end of its voter coalition and its extreme end at the same time. Even Corbyn only managed one of those.
The odd thing is that Maggie got away with it, and the wet end of the party extended quite a bit further left in those days. Her talent as a politician? Different sort of threat from Socialists? Or has the old centre of the Conservative Party simply ceased to hold? Are the things that (say) Tugendhat and Braverman want incompatible in a way that wasn't true for (say) Patten and Ridley?
The real Thatcher is rather different to the mythical one. With the real one being much more pragmatic in getting where she wanted. Most obviously what's now known as 'Thatcherism' is basically a greatest hits from 11 years which misses out the fact that there were U-turns (even when saying 'not for turning'), accommodations made then abandoned at a later date. She increased taxes and then benefits in consecutive budgets. Paid off the miners before screwing them. Helped create the single market before all the Up Yours Delors stuff.
Which is not to say she isn't the ogre/heroine of popular myth (delete as applicable to your politics - I'm the former) but a far cleverer and more complex politician than her ersatz imitators who think that by saying things you achieve them.
There were also close run things, and of course she'd eventually be brought down by Europe. The very thing that may end up killing the Conservative Party by steering it down a populist cul-de-sac because it formalised a breach (it's by no means the only thing but symbolic) from the more moderate, working age voters who used to at least consider voting Tory but now are more likely to believe aliens built the pyramids than vote Conservative.
Braverman and Tugendhat aren't necessarily incompatible, they're just not very good and in a party that's become more and more detached from reality and sections of voters it needs to target or at least understand. The former because she's an arsonist who annoys pretty much everyone. The latter as he's not actually all that moderate in the scheme of things (compared to the pre-2016 Tories), and a bit like Sunak can't really change perceptions without a big fight with his party's right and vested interests that he almost certainly isn't up for.
IIRC Patten and Ridley were both grown up and MPs when the Conservative Party was still united and hungry for power. In contrast, Braverman and Tudgenhat are relative newcomers, and became MPs only when the Conservatives were already bitterly divided and Johnson was busy expelling everybody he did not ike or saw as a threat.
I’m seeing the phrase ‘A vote for the Tories is just a vote for Labour’ getting a ton of traction on socials…
Having reached the crossover point, it's perilously difficult for the Tories to make the argument in reverse without it rebounding back on them. People who want to punish the Tories but also don't want to give Labour a big majority can defect en masse to Reform.
Why would they want to avoid a Labour majority to pump up a Farage win "en masse"? Best to register one's disapproval of Labour by voting Green or LD to prevent Farage coming up on the rails.
Scouting round for constituency betting opportunities, my eyes have alighted on the LDs in Torbay and the Tories in Stratford. Anyone have some news from these fronts?
I see the LDs had a strong result in a Torbay council election last night, but I'm not see if you can read across from it to the GE.
If you want to file something under 'what were we thinking' it is statements like this in a job description for a London Council:
"We especially encourage applications from a global majority background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments."
My sense is that things like this will fuel a right wing/populist backlash. Unsurprisingly this is a Labour Council. It will be used very cleverly by people like Nigel Farage.
Scouting round for constituency betting opportunities, my eyes have alighted on the LDs in Torbay and the Tories in Stratford. Anyone have some news from these fronts?
I see the LDs had a strong result in a Torbay council election last night, but I'm not see if you can read across from it to the GE.
The good news for the Tories in Stratford is that Nadhim Zahawi is not the candidate
Scouting round for constituency betting opportunities, my eyes have alighted on the LDs in Torbay and the Tories in Stratford. Anyone have some news from these fronts?
I see the LDs had a strong result in a Torbay council election last night, but I'm not see if you can read across from it to the GE.
A week ago I think, Mr Punter. Unlikely to have been another one.
Then the Tory majority collapsed from about 800 to about 20, writing from memory.
I suspect that that means that the Lib Dems are well organised in Torbay.
This week the Tories have adopted a strategy of warning that people who vote Reform could hand Labour a super-majority that would put Labour in power for a decade or more. Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
I think this lack of belief in a likely Labour majority is of a piece with other aspects of conspiracist thinking in Reform. I expect, whatever the result, Farage to claim that he was cheated in the election. If Labour do win the 400+ seats currently being forecast then Reform voters will be so surprised by that they will easily believe something funny was going on.
I very much hope the Tories don’t throw in their lot with populist nationalism, as it ends as it always does in destruction and ashes.
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It starts with the B word.
If the Tories want to defeat Nigel Fucking Farage they have to admit the project he championed is a shitshow
Too many of them still think ‘Get Brexit Done’ succeeded because people were desperate for Brexit, whereas the truth is that we were fed up with Brexit and wanted our politicians to turn their attention to all the other stuff. Which the lying tub of lard never did.
This week the Tories have adopted a strategy of warning that people who vote Reform could hand Labour a super-majority that would put Labour in power for a decade or more. Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
I think this lack of belief in a likely Labour majority is of a piece with other aspects of conspiracist thinking in Reform. I expect, whatever the result, Farage to claim that he was cheated in the election. If Labour do win the 400+ seats currently being forecast then Reform voters will be so surprised by that they will easily believe something funny was going on.
It's difficult to overstate the bubble effect of local Facebooks groups. I live in a hotbed of cycling, coffee and pro-Palestinian sentiment and even my FB group if full of people who are likely Reform voters, railing against net-zero, cyclists, gentrification and "Meghan".
If you point out that the Conservatives/Reform get barely any votes in these wards you get a kind of stunned silence - or lots of abuse. If it's like that in an area with Green/SNP/Labour councillors, I can't even imagine what it's like Lincolnshire, Essex etc.
I very much hope the Tories don’t throw in their lot with populist nationalism, as it ends as it always does in destruction and ashes.
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It starts with the B word.
If the Tories want to defeat Nigel Fucking Farage they have to admit the project he championed is a shitshow
Too many of them still think ‘Get Brexit Done’ succeeded because people were desperate for Brexit, whereas the truth is that we were fed up with Brexit and wanted our politicians to turn their attention to all the other stuff. Which the lying tub of lard never did.
I am not sure Sunak can fall any further but it hardly matters as nobody is listening to him
Having said that when the 4th July arrives and the country expects a huge landslide do not be surprised if many conservatives hold their nose and vote for the party
Its definitely possible. Hold your nose happens an awful lot.
But, and its a big but.
The remaining people still prone to vote Tory appear to want Farage and not Sunak or any of the 3rd rate Farage wannabes who may survive the electoral cull.
If the current momentum continues - and its accelerating remember - then the stampede to back the Nigel will be similar to the GOP stampede to back Trump.
I think Farage-ism needs to be tested to destruction, like Corbynism was.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
I keep hearing this idea 'elections are won from the centre' from everyone. It just seems obvious to me, that if the centre stops being able to deliver, then people will look for a more radical alternative; and the more radical alternative will come from the right. Particularly if the failing centre is represented by a Labour government.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
Right now, the populist right is getting its ass kicked by Labour, who are campaigning from the centre.
Yeah but Labour is just representing the centrist blob. Their popularity is not deep. When in government they will have all the same problems as the current government and people will be rapidly dissatisfied. The idea that at this point a 'centrist, detoxified' conservative party offering the same managerial solutions would be welcomed as the answer is unlikely. People will want some more radical solutions and the right will have these. It is what I think will happen next. No one should take comfort in a massive labour victory if the 'far right' become the main opposition.
Votes for Farage will produce less than a handful of MPs, they will only diminish the number of Tory MPs, so who will be the main opposition? It will still be the Tory party or an outside chance the LibDems.
This week the Tories have adopted a strategy of warning that people who vote Reform could hand Labour a super-majority that would put Labour in power for a decade or more. Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
Reform voters are confused and ill-informed? Is this a surprise?
Comments
Public opinion has moved significantly.
Tory LE gains in 1968. And a win against the head in 1970.
Corbyn 2017. They were harbingers of the new order.
Thatcher simply took advantage of it when it did.
Starmer is doing it now.
That's all.
Ed, are you reading? I’m in a seat you could win.
Let him be the LOTO for five years, stand as leader of RefCon in 2029, and get defeated on a hard right platform.
Perhaps the Conservatives will see sense and start rebuilding from there.
Elections in the UK are won from the centre.
That PPB earlier - wowsers! And then the poll lead. And then the "A vote for the Conservatives is a wasted vote"
https://x.com/nigel_farage/status/1801328700446937145
That is a high risk strategy
What are the new metrics if so ? Is something qualitatively diffrerent, going on ?
1. Spend money to save money. One point repeated by multiple contributors in tonight's debate is that we're spending money on the wrong things. Cutting preventative medicine and then wondering why we need to firefight medical emergencies at a much higher cost. We need to spend cash up front on prevention to save more money. Higher spend now to lower spend in the long run.
"But how do we pay for it" - we BORROW. Like a convenience store investing in new fridges with doors. Cash spent up front to save more in lower leccy costs. Short term pain, long term gain.
2. We incentivise investment. Capitalism has become a dirty word, replaced by subsidy which is practically communism in today's moron Tory party. Invest in jobs, skills, training, infrastructure. To draw in all that foreign investment looking for something chunky to park money in. We can't improve productivity by having a poorly educated poorly trained disinterested workforce reliant on barely functional infrastructure.
"But how do we pay for it" - again we need to think longer term.
Here in the NE this is my frustration with the row over energy. We absolutely need to keep drilling oil and gas whilst it is still economical to do so - the alternative is to import it. But our reliance on it is winding down as are the affordable resources to tap. So we need to invest heavily -as happened 50 years ago into oil and gas - to put renewables here at the heart of the UK's energy sector. And it has bizarrely turned into a political football. No wonder investment is so hard to secure...
Britain needs Reform"
Static. No music or sound. For 5 minutes.
https://twitter.com/chiller/status/1801327909740728762
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zHyH6PHFzc
LAB: 41% (-4)
CON: 21% (-1)
REF: 17% (+3)
LDM: 11% (+1)
GRN: 6% (+1)
via @NorstatUKPolls, 10-12 Jun
(Changes with 5 Jun)
https://x.com/oprosuk/status/1801378488017895839
Hung Parliament is 23.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/13/the-full-story-of-sunak-and-melonis-special-relationship/
It is short term gain for long term pain.
If you want to spend more to save money then take the short term pain by increasing taxes and/or reducing other spending.
We've had two decades of borrowing more for 'investment' but the long term gain has never been achieved.
I am often characterised as 'right wing' but I am not. I am probably going to vote Labour. I just have a strong sense this is how things will work out.
LAB: 39% (-7)
CON: 19% (-1)
RFM: 17% (+3)
LDM: 10% (+2)
via @PeoplePolling, 11-12 Jun
(Changes with 16 May)
https://x.com/oprosuk/status/1801379309875020250
No wonder we haven't seen any gain, from it.
A small investment with a positive rate of return is better than any investment which has a negative return.
And if an investment has a negative rate of return then the bigger it is the worse it is.
On a betting site everyone should be aware of this.
Most people aren't racist, unfortunately only the racist party is saying anything about immigration at the moment.
A lot of the investment choices since 2010 has been about reducing the spend, rather than thinking about the return. That favours patch'n'mend over fixing the problems properly. Throwing more staff at a problem, because the upfront cost of rethinking the system is too scary, even if it would generate big long term savings.
And whilst that's OK as a short-term answer to a crisis, it's not sustainable over decades, and that's a fair bit of why we are where we are.
Look at Germany's for comparison, for instance.
The answers to our structural economic problems are in Northern Europe, not the U.S.
As I've been posting here for eight years hopefully I will still be around in five to eat my hat if I am wrong!
Which may be part of the problem - does the UK struggle with investment spending of particular types or sizes ?
And do UK politicians get drawn to investments which are described as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' ?
We need some research as to what investments have been successful in this country and what are the failures.
And then adjust future investment accordingly.
Bewailing that we're different to Germany or trying to imitate Germany when its not appropriate aren't going to bring positive results.
We need to find our own strengths and invest in them.
Altering our weaknesses is a much longer term and more fundamental process and might not be realistically possible.
Bot or not: Are fake accounts swaying voters towards Reform UK?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1335nj316lo
We found what is probably a bot account, but also one we thought were bots, but actual real people. I am not really sure they have a clue what they are doing.
From the Times (paywall) https://www.thetimes.com/article/cdc8d582-17fc-4757-8f4b-ddcee80fdfdb
Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority.
https://www.devonlive.com/news/news-opinion/live-conspiracyland-totnes-bonkers-its-8530546
BBC Verify is a basically a piss poor version of Bellingcat.
https://xcancel.com/pic/orig/media/GP8JNX-WcAAKX1T.png
One of the funniest things on YouTube imo is Jonathan Meades' reaction to journalist Mark Lawson's mentioning of the fact he'd just visited the Edward Heath Museum in Salisbury.
On this video at 11 mins 40 secs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkK-SKnBpg
But thanks for it non the less.
Why is that even remotely funny? Arundells is a lovely house with views of the Cathedral. The museum is a fascinating collection. There are some wonderful photos and memorabilia, including of Heath’s time serving in WWII.
I imagine I’m a lot younger than you but I try to learn about the past. People complain about the lack of education in this country and then you post something as stupid as this.
https://thehill.com/homenews/4720980-clarence-thomas-fails-to-disclose-three-harlan-crow-trips-senate-records-show/
Which is not to say she isn't the ogre/heroine of popular myth (delete as applicable to your politics - I'm the former) but a far cleverer and more complex politician than her ersatz imitators who think that by saying things you achieve them.
There were also close run things, and of course she'd eventually be brought down by Europe. The very thing that may end up killing the Conservative Party by steering it down a populist cul-de-sac because it formalised a breach (it's by no means the only thing but symbolic) from the more moderate, working age voters who used to at least consider voting Tory but now are more likely to believe aliens built the pyramids than vote Conservative.
Braverman and Tugendhat aren't necessarily incompatible, they're just not very good and in a party that's become more and more detached from reality and sections of voters it needs to target or at least understand. The former because she's an arsonist who annoys pretty much everyone. The latter as he's not actually all that moderate in the scheme of things (compared to the pre-2016 Tories), and a bit like Sunak can't really change perceptions without a big fight with his party's right and vested interests that he almost certainly isn't up for.
I’m not sure how anyone interested in politics can describe this is as a dull election? It’s the most interesting, and exciting, campaign of my life. I guess for different reasons 2019 and 2017 were also fun to watch, and I appreciate that if you are a Conservative party worker this must be hell on earth right now, but for neutrals it’s absolutely fascinating.
There are still so many permutations, from truly landscape altering to something more nuanced. Can anyone really say they are sure which way this is going from here?
Apparently many Russian online banks suddenly closed down Internet access, making it hard for people to access (take out) their money, and long queues have formed outside some physical banks. The Russian Central Bank have stopped trading in euros and dollars.
Some people claim the ruble is collapsing, but as far as I can tell, there are no signs of this on the official exchange rate. Though apparently one bank buys rubles at 50 to the dollar, and sells at 200.
https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-stock-exchange-trade-halted-ruble-collapse-sanctions-1912161
Reform are clearly on a march
Conservatives are even more clearly on a slide
(Labour are too but that’s probably more subtle and may well correlate with tactical voting as much as Lab-Ref switchers and anyway for now they remain miles ahead)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Mo
The country desperately needs a one nation Conservative party, founded on conservative principles and with competence at its core. I would consider voting for a prospectus led by a Rory Stewart type but never ever any of these ideologues. You need to rebuild around a pragmatic, achievable, positive offer.
It’s been obvious this split was coming since at least 2010. The Tories have tried to be all things to too many polarised factions with opposing needs. In a way it’s surprising it held together so long,
I would be sad to see you throw your lot in with NF. You’re better than that.
If the Tories want to defeat Nigel Fucking Farage they have to admit the project he championed is a shitshow
The fissure in the Conservative Party goes back, as you hint, even further. In 1995 didn’t John Major have to face down ‘the bastards’ who tried to oust him? John Redwood stood against him for the leadership and gained 1/4 of the parliamentary votes.
Scouting round for constituency betting opportunities, my eyes have alighted on the LDs in Torbay and the Tories in Stratford. Anyone have some news from these fronts?
I see the LDs had a strong result in a Torbay council election last night, but I'm not see if you can read across from it to the GE.
"We especially encourage applications from a global majority background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments."
My sense is that things like this will fuel a right wing/populist backlash. Unsurprisingly this is a Labour Council. It will be used very cleverly by people like Nigel Farage.
Then the Tory majority collapsed from about 800 to about 20, writing from memory.
I suspect that that means that the Lib Dems are well organised in Torbay.
If you point out that the Conservatives/Reform get barely any votes in these wards you get a kind of stunned silence - or lots of abuse. If it's like that in an area with Green/SNP/Labour councillors, I can't even imagine what it's like Lincolnshire, Essex etc.
It's 'lying, drunken tub of lard.'