Labour manifesto suggests they will look to severely limit leasehold, even for flats, which is interesting.
Good. Commonhold works perfectly well in the rest of the world, including Scotland.
Leasehold is a scam that lets "managing agents" pick your pocket and line theirs with backhanders from dubious contractors.
It's also a huge barrier to getting people in the UK to actually want to live in high density housing, which we need more of.
I've said previously, as a leaseholder in London the Conservatives lost me completely over the last 5 years, siding with developers picking my pocket time and time again.
Leeds band Pest Control wrote: “We cannot sacrifice the principles held by this band and by the scene we come from and represent, just for personal gain.”
As a result of their boycott, punk bands Speed, Scowl and Zulu also pulled out of the festival over the Barclays sponsorship, criticising the bank for the financial services it provides.
British metalcore band Ithaca joined the boycott on Tuesday evening.
I am into metalcore and even I don't know who they are.
So why would you give up what’s likely to be six figures in sponsorship, for a bunch of bands no-one has heard of, and when the tickets are sold already?
From a business sense, its crazy.
My understanding is that festivals are hugely high risk operations and profitability is very much tied to things out of the operators control e.g. weather. The reason they take sponsorships is to level out the variance and give a level of stability.
Unless its a Live Nation owned festival (who are just so massive they can ride out the variance and they also sell the tickets through Ticketmaster), giving into this stuff, you are just making life so hard in the future. Companies are going to be really wary of wanting to do business with you in case you fold like deckchair because a handful of bands nobody has heard of throw a hissy fit.
To be clear I will happily take any money Barclays want to offer me to host any sort of festival in my back garden. I have no awkward principles to get in the way, just an escalating rate card.
Quite how the Greens manage to be going UP at this stage of a campaign defeats me. They must be due a slide soon.
Interesting that the Tories just keep plunging though.
I really wonder if we might get a Faragasm (I shuddered typing that) and further Tory collapse next week. It feels like the circumstances are right for it - if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon.
Those figures give Reform just 3 seats when Baxtered, but must be close to that hypothetical point where they start to net gains in large numbers.
Yes, agreed. The key thing is where those votes are distributed, and I’m not sure models like Baxter are going to really pick up on that.
High teens-low 20s, I’d say they must be on for about 20-50 seats.
It's hard to say, but here's a thought....
We've discussed tactical voting plenty, usually in a Lab/LD context. But what if Labour supporters who are strongly anti-immigration start to feel Starmer has the contest safely won anyway? Why wouldn't they vote tactically for Reform?
Probably a good thing for Reform that this didn’t happen - this seems like steady growth at the moment. Don't want flash and bang; there's plenty of time.
Quite how the Greens manage to be going UP at this stage of a campaign defeats me. They must be due a slide soon.
Interesting that the Tories just keep plunging though.
I really wonder if we might get a Faragasm (I shuddered typing that) and further Tory collapse next week. It feels like the circumstances are right for it - if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon.
Those figures give Reform just 3 seats when Baxtered, but must be close to that hypothetical point where they start to net gains in large numbers.
Yes, agreed. The key thing is where those votes are distributed, and I’m not sure models like Baxter are going to really pick up on that.
High teens-low 20s, I’d say they must be on for about 20-50 seats.
I don't know if anyone has set up an MRP-like predictor, where you can vary party support for each demographic group, and create a prediction that way. It would give you a chance to explore the probability space in a bit more detail.
Quite how the Greens manage to be going UP at this stage of a campaign defeats me. They must be due a slide soon.
Interesting that the Tories just keep plunging though.
I really wonder if we might get a Faragasm (I shuddered typing that) and further Tory collapse next week. It feels like the circumstances are right for it - if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon.
Those figures give Reform just 3 seats when Baxtered, but must be close to that hypothetical point where they start to net gains in large numbers.
Yes, agreed. The key thing is where those votes are distributed, and I’m not sure models like Baxter are going to really pick up on that.
High teens-low 20s, I’d say they must be on for about 20-50 seats.
I don't know if anyone has set up an MRP-like predictor, where you can vary party support for each demographic group, and create a prediction that way. It would give you a chance to explore the probability space in a bit more detail.
You can’t allow for the fact that Reform has no councillors and few experienced activists. New parties are hard to get going until, as noted above, one day they are so popular it’s easy.
I wonder what it first was about the Putinist racist Nigel Farage that first attracted Putinguy into supporting him?
I reckon it might be to do with Nige dabbling with the Jew hatred.
Nigel Farage has been condemned by the UK’s main Jewish groups and MPs for repeatedly using language and themes associated with far-right antisemitic conspiracy theories, something for which he has been previously criticised.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Farage’s airing of claims about plots to undermine national governments, and his references to Goldman Sachs and the financier George Soros, showed he was seeking to “trade in dog whistles”.
The Brexit party leader, who has been criticised for agreeing to interviews with openly antisemitic US media personalities, was also condemned by the MPs who co-chair the all-party group against antisemitism.
Nigel Farage has been criticised for referring to “a powerful Jewish lobby” operating in America.
Mr Farage, who was presenting his phone-in show on the LBC network yesterday, took a call from someone identifying himself as “Ahmed” during a debate on Russian influence in last year’s US presidential election.
“How come there’s such an issue with Russia, and no one really highlighting AIPAC and the Israeli lobby and their involvement in American politics and elections”, the caller asked.
It is possible to reject anti-Semitism while also noting that the Jewish lobby has an unhealthy influence over Washington politics, making a free debate about Israel almost impossible for ambitious politicians, especially those on the right
This is not a critique of American Jews as some devious cabal. They are just very good at organising and influencing and have been doing it for decades. Many others could learn from them
It’s definitely not anti-Semetic to point out that George Soros is, through the Open Society Foundations, funding a lot of the woke nonsense in the US in recent years, including the District Attourneys who refuse to prosecute shoplifting and phone theft, and who think that rioting is fine if it’s for a ‘noble cause’ like BLM.
That link, nor https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/what-we-do/themes/justice , doesn't support your claim that Soros is funding "District Attourneys [sic] who refuse to prosecute shoplifting and phone theft, and who think that rioting is fine if it’s for a ‘noble cause’ like BLM."
Except that he did indeed fund the campaigns of a whole load of DAs who act like I said in practice.
Feel free to provide some details using reliable sources.
Soros has donated some money. To say he funded the campaigns exaggerates his input. To describe the DAs in the terms you did is often propaganda, not a fair summary of their actions. But without details, it is difficult to comment.
That last article: “ PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A local district attorney’s race in Maine wasn’t generating much attention until a political action committee linked to a deep-pocketed liberal donor with international name recognition suddenly took an interest.
A super PAC funded by George Soros, the billionaire investor, philanthropist and conspiracy-theory target, dropped $300,000 on behalf of the challenger, dwarfing the $70,000 combined that had been raised by both candidates until then.
The cash infusion — a stunning sum for a local race in Maine — shows how national groups are seeking to influence district attorney’s contests across the country. The spending highlights a mostly under-the-radar jostling for control of an office that some see as being on the front lines of the movement for criminal justice reforms.
Left-leaning groups have stepped in to fund candidates who support those reforms, while conservatives are pushing back amid concerns that crime in America’s cities is out of control.”
So, the issue I have with this is that some of Soros's foundations spend money very widely, and give a *lot* of very small (i.e. $2,000 or less) sums.
That means that there are a lot of PACs who get their primary funding from - say - Illinois Teachers, and who get a small sum from one of Soros's various bodies. And then suddenly the PAC is characterized as "a political action committee linked to a deep-pocketed liberal donor."
So, for example, Soros has given very liberally to Jewish charities. They've also (indirectly) given money to people who gave money to Hamas. Do we really believe Soros is backing Hamas?
When one gives out thousands - or perhaps tens of thousands - of these small donations, ones hand can be seen in anything.
This is the right wing equivalent of the left wing Facebook posts I get about how a Conservative donor gave money to a political party, and then a company owned by their fund got a contract. And I'm thinking... are you crazy? This is a man with an investment fund and hundreds of holdings... statistically, one of his companies is going to get a government contract at some point.
That AP article talks about a $300k donation from Soros to a single DA campaign.
Of all the US news outlets, I’d expect the AP (like the BBC) to avoid over-editorialising and stick to the facts.
No, it doesn't.
It talks about a PAC that received funding from Soros.
The Justice & Public Safety PAC is a big money raiser in progressive judicial circuits. They do $5,000 a plate dinners where wealthy attorneys donate money.
Now, I don't know exactly what proportion of money comes from one of Soros's Foundations, but I can certainly find out, because the Soros Foundations all publish their donation amounts (which makes them unusually open). PACs themselves almost never publish full donor lists.
Quote: “ In Arkansas, some $321,000 from Soros flowed through a PAC in a failed attempt to help Alicia Walton beat Will Jones in a race last month for prosecutor in a judicial district that includes Little Rock, the state capital. Special interest money cut both ways in the race to fill an open seat, with a pair of Republican billionaires spending $316,000 to support Jones.”
$321,000 from Soros.
Annoyingly, the article doesn't mention the name of the PAC in Arkansas, so we can't pull the details ourselves. But there is a general habit of journalists of assuming that a PAC that recieved money from Soros recieved all, or even most, of its money from Soros.
If you go to OpenSecrets, they catalog all the Soros donations by amount and by year (because Soros publishes all that information), and you can see that the sums are often trivially small.
Okay:
Newsweek FactCheck 2022.
“Campaign finance data from the most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), compiled by OpenSecrets, shows that George Soros is indeed the single largest individual donor in the 2022 elections.
Soros contributed $128,485,971, all of it going to Democrats. Most of that funding went to the the super PAC Democracy II, which supports Democrats and liberal causes, according to CNBC's report.”
He’s unquestionably the single biggest political donor in the US. He’s not giving a few thousand here and there by turning up to dinners, he’s giving more than a hundred million dollars to a mid-season campaign.
That fact makes it deeply dubious to try to shut down any mention of Soros' activities by smearing those discussing them publicly as indulging in anti-semitical dog-whistling. Far better to discuss their merits and demerits openly and not give oxygen to the dog-whistlers.
I would also reiterate that those of us who supported the principles behind Liz Truss's reforms were widely mocked for suggesting that the market reaction to UK bonds after the mini-budget was anything more than investors acting as impartial drones, and that if these investors had opinions, they would be Trussite opinions. 'Woke markets' was the hilarious phrase. Yet it would appear that one of the world's biggest investors is also one of the world's biggest donators to woke political activity.
He made his money by being right in the markets. That's the point. The markets' view of Truss was not about woke politics. It was about predicting what would happen to prices correctly.
But politics matters to a lot of people who are heavily invested in the UK economy. For example, Black Rock, who care enough about UK politics to retain George Osborne. Huge investors like that make the market weather, rather than merely respond to it.
Stand your ground. It’s absolutely valid to question soros’ integrity, probity and purpose. I find him quite sinister - and I actually had no idea he gave THAT much money to some quite cranky causes.
He got rich - or richer - tanking the British economy for a start. Nice. Not. And he just ahhhhh
[brilliant joke deleted here; you’ll just have to trust me]
Soros == Musk
I’ve seen anti semitic theories about musk. Who isn’t even Jewish and is about 1/16th Jewish by ancestry
Mmmm, I don't really care whether he's Jewish or not. It was in response to It’s absolutely valid to question [his] integrity, probity and purpose. I find him quite sinister - and I actually had no idea he gave THAT much money to some quite cranky causes. and the fact that you are a reflexive Musk stan.
I’d forgotten until I read Michael Grant in The Times today that Scotland fans went to the match against Russia in Spain in 1982 with a banner that said: “Alcoholism v Communism”.
Has any of the Farage vehicles ever captured a council? They must have done one year when the euros coincided with locals. They will have had no experience, so I bet it went badly like Indies often do. I’d be attacking him on that.
Quite how the Greens manage to be going UP at this stage of a campaign defeats me. They must be due a slide soon.
Interesting that the Tories just keep plunging though.
I really wonder if we might get a Faragasm (I shuddered typing that) and further Tory collapse next week. It feels like the circumstances are right for it - if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon.
Those figures give Reform just 3 seats when Baxtered, but must be close to that hypothetical point where they start to net gains in large numbers.
Yes, agreed. The key thing is where those votes are distributed, and I’m not sure models like Baxter are going to really pick up on that.
High teens-low 20s, I’d say they must be on for about 20-50 seats.
It's hard to say, but here's a thought....
We've discussed tactical voting plenty, usually in a Lab/LD context. But what if Labour supporters who are strongly anti-immigration start to feel Starmer has the contest safely won anyway? Why wouldn't they vote tactically for Reform?
That would complicate things a bit, I believe.
It’s possible, but not sure I’d call it tactical voting. If anything the opposite. Tactical voting in Britain seems generally to be about choosing party with the best chance of beating the MP you don’t like.
There seem to be 5 true tactical vote possibilities in GB:
- Voting Lab/Lib Dem to get the Tory MP out - Voting Green to keep Labour out in Brighton - Voting for a unionist party to get the SNP out - Voting SNP, Lab or LD in Scotland to get a Tory out - Voting Tory instead of Reform to keep Labour out
The Hallam TV, Lib Dem to keep Labour out, died in 2017.
Leeds band Pest Control wrote: “We cannot sacrifice the principles held by this band and by the scene we come from and represent, just for personal gain.”
As a result of their boycott, punk bands Speed, Scowl and Zulu also pulled out of the festival over the Barclays sponsorship, criticising the bank for the financial services it provides.
British metalcore band Ithaca joined the boycott on Tuesday evening.
I am into metalcore and even I don't know who they are.
So why would you give up what’s likely to be six figures in sponsorship, for a bunch of bands no-one has heard of, and when the tickets are sold already?
From a business sense, its crazy.
My understanding is that festivals are hugely high risk operations and profitability is very much tied to things out of the operators control e.g. weather. The reason they take sponsorships is to level out the variance and give a level of stability.
Unless its a Live Nation owned festival (who are just so massive they can ride out the variance and they also sell the tickets through Ticketmaster), giving into this stuff, you are just making life so hard in the future. Companies are going to be really wary of wanting to do business with you in case you fold like deckchair because a handful of bands nobody has heard of throw a hissy fit.
Yes, I’ve been involved with music gigs on a smaller scale in the past, and the numbers are sketchy as hell. Unless you’re Glastonbury or Taylor Swift, there’s a limit to what you can charge for tickets and no limit to how high your costs can get. Something like adverse weather can totally screw you up.
Yes, Live Nation/Ticketmaster can do what they do, because they’re a bunch of total scumbags who have got themselves a vertically-integrated monopoly on the US venues and tickets market.
Evening all. With Whitestone piling on the agony I'm thinking we are seeing DDay in the polling now, nobody has shown a Tory vote share increase all week, most have shown a decline. They need to fervently hope the decline is not symmetrical and they are holding up somewhere or we really could be looking at annihilation. They need to start picking up to mid 20s very soon or they risk complete disintegration. What a catastrophic election call.
It feels like they went into it without any strategy. Which I find absolutely bizarre.
The only thing I can assume is that they are so insulated from the mood of the country that they really thought that when Sunak got out on the campaign trail he’d immediately bowl everyone over with his genius and the vote would firm up and there’d be some swingback.
Then it didn’t happen, because Sunak is, as we all know, not a genius, but rather crap, and there was no Plan B.
The attack lines were also crap. Labour have been very good to avoid vulnerabilities, but every party has them, and they were and are vulnerable on the unintended consequences of the private schools policy and the rather wooly way they have approached policy formation. Shouting “£2000!” and “No Plan!” doesn’t cut it.
John Cleese has backed his local Labour candidate because the Conservative government “is the worst of my lifetime”. The Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star backed Daniel Aldridge in his hometown of Weston-super-Mare.
I thought he lived in the Caribbean?
I thought he was backing Reform?
I was told on here the other day that he backed the rump SDP.
Cleese was a big Liberal Party supporter back in the day, even appearing in an 'Alliance' PPB. Wonder what caused him to spurn the current Lib Dems.
Brexit.
At some point John Cleese and Basil Faulty became the same person.
Maybe they were always the one and the same?
I suspect to a significant extent, yes. The same perhaps with Coogan and Partridge. Perhaps as young men they created a parody of the thing they feared they would turn into.
Not sure that is true about Coogan. At the height of his fame was an arrogant man who thought he could do what he wanted, when he wanted and demanded the media to cover up all his bad behaviour. He used to phone up Andy Coulson and shout at him to write a particular version of a story. His whole vendetta came out of when Rebecca Brookes came in and said why do we keep spiking these stories of drink, drugs, hookers, bloody tell him to piss off and go big with the scandal.
Hugh Grant and the characters he now plays, I can believe that. He is a lot more cunning than the floppy haired plonker he always played in early days of his career.
Grant has always been a sublime actor. He's got better parts to get his teeth into now but he played the dashing leading man characters incredibly well, too. He made it look so easy one can miss how good he is in Three Weddings, Notting Hill etc.
Our Cary Grant really.
Cary Grant was our Cary Grant; he was from Birmingham afaik.
Edit - someone above beat me to it, and was more accurate.
Quite how the Greens manage to be going UP at this stage of a campaign defeats me. They must be due a slide soon.
Interesting that the Tories just keep plunging though.
I really wonder if we might get a Faragasm (I shuddered typing that) and further Tory collapse next week. It feels like the circumstances are right for it - if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon.
Those figures give Reform just 3 seats when Baxtered, but must be close to that hypothetical point where they start to net gains in large numbers.
Yes, agreed. The key thing is where those votes are distributed, and I’m not sure models like Baxter are going to really pick up on that.
High teens-low 20s, I’d say they must be on for about 20-50 seats.
How I think about it is that UNS works - in so far as it does - by hoping the errors are similar each way across a pretty smooth distribution of seat majorities in the critical area for seats' changing hands. E.g. in 2019 I might predict Harrow Labour but Kensington Conservative. As long as I get it wrong each way, fine.
It breaks down once marginal seats all start acting the same but differently to both kinds of safe seats. And when you have a party on 0 seats, trivially speaking, it also breaks down. What's worse, we don't know the critical area. But "last time" (2015), when UKIP went up 10.5 percentage points, they ended up within 15% of a win in 11 seats. They won one and were runner-up in another six. Only three of those seven were in their top 200 seats in 2010. In some places they went from 3% to 32%, and in others they went from a relatively strong 8% to just 15%.
Evening all. With Whitestone piling on the agony I'm thinking we are seeing DDay in the polling now, nobody has shown a Tory vote share increase all week, most have shown a decline. They need to fervently hope the decline is not symmetrical and they are holding up somewhere or we really could be looking at annihilation. They need to start picking up to mid 20s very soon or they risk complete disintegration. What a catastrophic election call.
The worst idea since Marshal Cadorna said “Let’s start the 11th Battle of Isonzo. We’ll atrack them where they’re strongest. They won’t expect it.”
Leeds band Pest Control wrote: “We cannot sacrifice the principles held by this band and by the scene we come from and represent, just for personal gain.”
As a result of their boycott, punk bands Speed, Scowl and Zulu also pulled out of the festival over the Barclays sponsorship, criticising the bank for the financial services it provides.
British metalcore band Ithaca joined the boycott on Tuesday evening.
I am into metalcore and even I don't know who they are.
So why would you give up what’s likely to be six figures in sponsorship, for a bunch of bands no-one has heard of, and when the tickets are sold already?
From a business sense, its crazy.
My understanding is that festivals are hugely high risk operations and profitability is very much tied to things out of the operators control e.g. weather. The reason they take sponsorships is to level out the variance and give a level of stability.
Unless its a Live Nation owned festival (who are just so massive they can ride out the variance and they also sell the tickets through Ticketmaster), giving into this stuff, you are just making life so hard in the future. Companies are going to be really wary of wanting to do business with you in case you fold like deckchair because a handful of bands nobody has heard of throw a hissy fit.
I can't say I've heard of them, but something's made them cave in. Perhaps you (and I) aren't down with the kids and these bands a big deal among those going to that festival. I mean, they've bought tickets so presumably there's something they want to see.
I would think that people are much more interested in seeing the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Corey Taylor, and While She Sleeps.
These big festivals though are becoming increasing member-berry. Download the hardcore rock / metalcore festival has Offspring, Fallout Boy, Sum41, Bowling For Soup, Wheatus, Hoobastank, Atreyu...its like Warped Tour 2000s.
And the cheesiest crappiest "alternative" act from then, Limp Bizkit, have now all of a sudden become really popular again.
Leeds band Pest Control wrote: “We cannot sacrifice the principles held by this band and by the scene we come from and represent, just for personal gain.”
As a result of their boycott, punk bands Speed, Scowl and Zulu also pulled out of the festival over the Barclays sponsorship, criticising the bank for the financial services it provides.
British metalcore band Ithaca joined the boycott on Tuesday evening.
I am into metalcore and even I don't know who they are.
So why would you give up what’s likely to be six figures in sponsorship, for a bunch of bands no-one has heard of, and when the tickets are sold already?
From a business sense, its crazy.
My understanding is that festivals are hugely high risk operations and profitability is very much tied to things out of the operators control e.g. weather. The reason they take sponsorships is to level out the variance and give a level of stability.
Unless its a Live Nation owned festival (who are just so massive they can ride out the variance and they also sell the tickets through Ticketmaster), giving into this stuff, you are just making life so hard in the future. Companies are going to be really wary of wanting to do business with you in case you fold like deckchair because a handful of bands nobody has heard of throw a hissy fit.
I can't say I've heard of them, but something's made them cave in. Perhaps you (and I) aren't down with the kids and these bands a big deal among those going to that festival. I mean, they've bought tickets so presumably there's something they want to see.
I would think that people are much more interested in seeing the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Corey Taylor, and While She Sleeps.
These big festivals though are becoming increasing member-berry. Download the hardcore rock / metalcore festival has Offspring, Fallout Boy, Sum41, Bowling For Soup, Wheatus, Hoobastank, Atreyu...its like Warped Tour 2000s.
And the cheesiest crappiest "alternative" act from then, Limp Bizkit, have now all of a sudden become really popular again.
I was wondering if Linkin Park were coming back, then I remembered wot I had forgot 🥺
Comments
Leasehold is a scam that lets "managing agents" pick your pocket and line theirs with backhanders from dubious contractors.
It's also a huge barrier to getting people in the UK to actually want to live in high density housing, which we need more of.
I've said previously, as a leaseholder in London the Conservatives lost me completely over the last 5 years, siding with developers picking my pocket time and time again.
My understanding is that festivals are hugely high risk operations and profitability is very much tied to things out of the operators control e.g. weather. The reason they take sponsorships is to level out the variance and give a level of stability.
Unless its a Live Nation owned festival (who are just so massive they can ride out the variance and they also sell the tickets through Ticketmaster), giving into this stuff, you are just making life so hard in the future. Companies are going to be really wary of wanting to do business with you in case you fold like deckchair because a handful of bands nobody has heard of throw a hissy fit.
We've discussed tactical voting plenty, usually in a Lab/LD context. But what if Labour supporters who are strongly anti-immigration start to feel Starmer has the contest safely won anyway? Why wouldn't they vote tactically for Reform?
That would complicate things a bit, I believe.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/reform-has-become-the-home-of-the-right-wing-protest-vote/
Probably a good thing for Reform that this didn’t happen - this seems like steady growth at the moment. Don't want flash and bang; there's plenty of time.
It would be very worth keepng an eye on that, because that may give an important clue, on whether genuine crossover will happen, or not, I would say.
NEW THREAD
I've always understood alcoholism and communism to be closely related.
There seem to be 5 true tactical vote possibilities in GB:
- Voting Lab/Lib Dem to get the Tory MP out
- Voting Green to keep Labour out in Brighton
- Voting for a unionist party to get the SNP out
- Voting SNP, Lab or LD in Scotland to get a Tory out
- Voting Tory instead of Reform to keep Labour out
The Hallam TV, Lib Dem to keep Labour out, died in 2017.
Yes, Live Nation/Ticketmaster can do what they do, because they’re a bunch of total scumbags who have got themselves a vertically-integrated monopoly on the US venues and tickets market.
The only thing I can assume is that they are so insulated from the mood of the country that they really thought that when Sunak got out on the campaign trail he’d immediately bowl everyone over with his genius and the vote would firm up and there’d be some swingback.
Then it didn’t happen, because Sunak is, as we all know, not a genius, but rather crap, and there was no Plan B.
The attack lines were also crap. Labour have been very good to avoid vulnerabilities, but every party has them, and they were and are vulnerable on the unintended consequences of the private schools policy and the rather wooly way they have approached policy formation. Shouting “£2000!” and “No Plan!” doesn’t cut it.
It breaks down once marginal seats all start acting the same but differently to both kinds of safe seats. And when you have a party on 0 seats, trivially speaking, it also breaks down. What's worse, we don't know the critical area. But "last time" (2015), when UKIP went up 10.5 percentage points, they ended up within 15% of a win in 11 seats. They won one and were runner-up in another six. Only three of those seven were in their top 200 seats in 2010. In some places they went from 3% to 32%, and in others they went from a relatively strong 8% to just 15%.
These big festivals though are becoming increasing member-berry. Download the hardcore rock / metalcore festival has Offspring, Fallout Boy, Sum41, Bowling For Soup, Wheatus, Hoobastank, Atreyu...its like Warped Tour 2000s.
And the cheesiest crappiest "alternative" act from then, Limp Bizkit, have now all of a sudden become really popular again.