So Starmer wins a big majority. And a couple of months later finds himself facing LOTO Farage? I know we have remarked before that he's a lucky General, but that would have to be classed as witchcraft.
That sounds horribly like what people said about Trump going for the Republican nomination.
In the works of MR James, witchcraft always led to a very bad end.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
I think socially liberal and fiscally conservative is overrepresented on here.
But I think that is at least partly because it's also overrepresented among educated people who work knowledge based jobs and bet on politics! And that is the demographics of PB.
Personally, I think the polls have largely got Reform right. I think they'll get 14-15%, and they'll be 7-10 percent behind the Conservative Party. They will probably win two seats (Ashfield and Clacton), but it's also entirely possible that you see tactical voting by LibDems and Labour supporters for the Conservative candidates (particularly in Clacton) which could upset that.
The fieldwork for your ‘latest’ MRP poll began 28 days ago on the 22nd May.
Perhaps you’ve been living under a rock, but a lot has changed since then.
Your poll is misleading and amounts to election interference
Blimey hahaha
He's going full Trump.
I expect the stop the steal bullshit on July 5th.
Yes and I know @RobD in no way intended his comment to be taken this way but that 'Just a warning of the consequences’ is the kind of language we need to be mindful about.
We have a democratic system in this country. Back it for now. If you want it changed, the time is not 2 weeks before a possible landslide when one of the minor parties might try and re-enact the Capitol Hill riots. Can you imagine Tommy Robinson whipping up the English Nats in Parliament Square?
Just be careful.
By all means, return to PR a year or two before the next GE.
Huh? I was simply saying that the “super-majority” guff was not complaining about the rules, but rather the consequence of this pattern of voting.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
Not sure that’s true though. William Glenn seems to be heading that way, Leon is toying with it, and I’m pretty sure LuckyGuy is already there. There may be others. Shy reformers.
PB is very unrepresentative of the population. Always has been.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
It's a very right-wing party, at least if you take it seriously, and not many of the contributors are very right-wing (or indeed very left-wing).
it's not a very right wing party. Have you read much European history? Twenty years ago its policies (leaving aside unique British issues) would make it mainstream conservative/Christian Democracy in many European countries, and moderate Republican in the USA
Right-left is not static in definition, it would be quite possible for something centrist then to be left/right wing today.
I don't think left/right is very useful in descriptive terms anyway, I don't think many parties are ideologically coherent in that sense, and Reform certainly is not.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
Social anxiety. Not something I really suffer from, not these days anyway
Really? You always come across as so shy and self effacing.
That's because I make such an effort to be modest, reticent and ego-free, on here
In real life you'd be surprised. I'm actually quite bumptious!
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
It's a very right-wing party, at least if you take it seriously, and not many of the contributors are very right-wing (or indeed very left-wing).
it's not a very right wing party. Have you read much European history? Twenty years ago its policies (leaving aside unique British issues) would make it mainstream conservative/Christian Democracy in many European countries, and moderate Republican in the USA
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
Imagine getting 5/6ths of the seats on possibly not even 40% of the vote.
Is there nothing the Tories can do to somehow call off Farage and mitigate the threat? Its surely in both their interests not to completely eviscerate any meaningful representation and voice for non Left wing MPs? It's one thing for the Left to win, another to have 40% of the electorate completely unrepresented in Parliament.
For the record i have always been receptive to some form of more proportional representation in the Commons, not just now.
As someone on the other side who has always been in favour of PR, I hope that a Labour supermajority changes Tory minds on FPTP. It plainly cannot be democratic for 40% of the vote to deliver 75% of the seats. Not that Labour will care (or that the Tories would if the boot were on the other foot).
Sorry but why is it undemocratic?
To say we must have PR because proportionality is democratic is just making your argument a truism fallacy, there's no argument there.
FPTP is perfectly democratic. Its not proportional, but democracy doesn't need to be proportional.
If 75% of constituencies vote for a Labour representative, so 75% of constituencies get a Labour representative, that is perfectly democratic.
I'm not sure even if Labour win a 200 seat majority, that they are definitely nailed on to win the next, voters seem a lot less tribal, and willing to switch from one side to the next.The general population and this is true for probably a lot of countries, want quick remedies for what are in the main difficult and complex problems, and as this parliament shows, can change sides quickly, remember in 2020 the Torys were polling at 50%, although it must be said this has been the most incompetent and sleaze ridden govt, I can remember
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
What is it with crypto that seems directly to link it to antivax, pro-Russia and all the other conspiracy shit? Is the idea that crypto circumvents the establishment and the WEF?
Yes.
Crypto scams strongly appeal to a certain type of young male who spend too much time sitting in their parents basement watching YouTube and thinking there are 'secret' ways to make money and get the lifestyle they feel they deserve (served up by other young male influencers who are strangely fixated on Lamborghinis and anorexic models).
But at heart they know they are scams and just hope they can pass the parcel to some other chump before the music stops.
I recommend watching scam exposer Coffeezilla on YouTube. He interviews many scam victims and the serial scammers that run the schemes.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
The Tory leadership contest might as well start now.
Most of the leading candidates are either ineligible or soon will be.
I'm still looking for that complete unknown who might emerge in the disastrous aftermath. There's still a handful of complete unknowns in a seat that even now is safe.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
It's a very right-wing party, at least if you take it seriously, and not many of the contributors are very right-wing (or indeed very left-wing).
it's not a very right wing party. Have you read much European history? Twenty years ago its policies (leaving aside unique British issues) would make it mainstream conservative/Christian Democracy in many European countries, and moderate Republican in the USA
Right-left is not static in definition, it would be quite possible for something centrist then to be left/right wing today.
I don't think left/right is very useful in descriptive terms anyway, I don't think many parties are ideologically coherent in that sense, and Reform certainly is not.
True enough
Also, the terms "far right" and "extreme right wing" and "Fascist" are now used so liberally and stupidly they are going the way of "racist" - overuse makes them meaningless, and devoid of impact
The fieldwork for your ‘latest’ MRP poll began 28 days ago on the 22nd May.
Perhaps you’ve been living under a rock, but a lot has changed since then.
Your poll is misleading and amounts to election interference
Blimey hahaha
He's going full Trump.
I expect the stop the steal bullshit on July 5th.
Yes and I know @RobD in no way intended his comment to be taken this way but that 'Just a warning of the consequences’ is the kind of language we need to be mindful about.
We have a democratic system in this country. Back it for now. If you want it changed, the time is not 2 weeks before a possible landslide when one of the minor parties might try and re-enact the Capitol Hill riots. Can you imagine Tommy Robinson whipping up the English Nats in Parliament Square?
Just be careful.
By all means, return to PR a year or two before the next GE.
Huh? I was simply saying that the “super-majority” guff was not complaining about the rules, but rather the consequence of this pattern of voting.
I don’t think she cares much what people actually say or write.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
It's a very right-wing party, at least if you take it seriously, and not many of the contributors are very right-wing (or indeed very left-wing).
it's not a very right wing party. Have you read much European history? Twenty years ago its policies (leaving aside unique British issues) would make it mainstream conservative/Christian Democracy in many European countries, and moderate Republican in the USA
Abolishing the state broadcaster, an 8% real terms cut in government spending, and criminalising pro-Palestine protest? Nope, it wouldn't.
And can I just remind you that the 2011 Referendum question was this:
At present, the UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the "alternative vote" system be used instead?
By two to one the British people voted to keep the existing First Past the Post System, which was named in the question, against the alternative PR that was offered.
AV is not PR. Indeed, there are many circumstances where it is less proportional than FPTP.
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
What is it with crypto that seems directly to link it to antivax, pro-Russia and all the other conspiracy shit? Is the idea that crypto circumvents the establishment and the WEF?
The idea is that people into strange crypto coins are more gullible/suggestible than your typical punter.
Only had 1 leaflet so far, when people on another side of the town have had 5 (4 from the same party). Someone needs to tell activists they are allowed to go more than one mile from their house when leafletting.
Sounds like your ward is NOT being targeted, most likely because of recent electoral performance?
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
I KNOW two likely Reform voters, both under 30
For them it is housing and rent, and they have finally made the link with mass migration
The Tory leadership contest might as well start now.
Most of the leading candidates are either ineligible or soon will be.
I'm still looking for that complete unknown who might emerge in the disastrous aftermath. There's still a handful of complete unknowns in a seat that even now is safe.
Rehman Chishti, your moment has arrived.
Not if the MRPs or the constituency polling are to be believed.
Which is a shame, because Rehman being the MP for Rainham has an elegance about it.
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
What is it with crypto that seems directly to link it to antivax, pro-Russia and all the other conspiracy shit? Is the idea that crypto circumvents the establishment and the WEF?
Which is funny, because last time I was at the WEF, I went to a (rather bullish) talk on the future of crypto. This was about 12 years ago mind.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
I KNOW two likely Reform voters, both under 30
For them it is housing and rent, and they have finally made the link with mass migration
But mass migration hasn't caused our housing shortage, we'd still need more houses even without any net migration whatsoever.
Nothing wrong with having more migration so long as we construct more houses, the problem is a distinct lack of sufficient construction.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
The typical Reform voter will be too disengaged from politics to ever post on a site like this.
I agree.
Reform voters are going to draw disproportionately from Brexit voters who didn't vote at General Elections.
Whether they turn out or not will make the difference between Reform on 10% and Reform on 17%.
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
What is it with crypto that seems directly to link it to antivax, pro-Russia and all the other conspiracy shit? Is the idea that crypto circumvents the establishment and the WEF?
Which is funny, because last time I was at the WEF, I went to a (rather bullish) talk on the future of crypto. This was about 12 years ago mind.
I thought you had to be a lizard person to attend. Wait, are you….?
I’m surprised more hasn’t been made of the Farage interview with Sam Coates of Sky News.
Farage refusing to rule out switching to the Tories if he wins in Clacton .
It's the obvious move, I don't think it's a surprise
I agree but the media should be all over this . It’s quite insulting to Reform voters .
I don't think it is. I imagine most Reform voters would quite like to vote Tory, they just think he Tories have drifted way way way to the left - tax, migration, wokeness - and they are correct
It's not often I agree with you and I don't on this.
Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite - we know he liked aspects of the Truss mini budget and is very keen on tax cuts and spending cuts.
That's not, I think, where the Reform voter base is - the immigration stuff they can agree with him but on tax and spending they want more public spending in WWC areas and were keen on the Johnsonian levelling up agenda, HS2 and other projects to bring wealth and jobs to parts of the North and Midlands.
Sunak's reversal of HS2 and the Levelling Up agenda has done for the Conservatives in the North and Midlands - Labour simply neglected the North, the Conservatives betrayed the North by reneging on the promises of the 2016 Referendum and 2019 election. This is one of the reasons Reform is doing so well in these areas.
This is spot on: the Conservative reneging on their promises to the North and to the left behind feels very much like betrayal. And you know what they say about "a woman scorned".
The issue is - though - that without this group, the Conservatives have no chance of government. And without the traditional shire Tories, nor does Reform. They need to find common ground, and that's something that I just don't see at the moment.
HS2 is an obsession of affluent nerdy types who post on fringe websites.
The 'left behinds' really do not worry about travelling around the country by expensive trains in a few decades time - even assuming they live anywhere near where HS2 was supposed to go.
Energy prices, pub prices and hospital waiting times are likely to be more their concerns.
Together with a general resentment that while they are struggling other groups are doing very well.
Your 50 year old left behind renter will know 50 year old mortgage free home owners who are getting nice interest on their savings and even nicer pay rises.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
I think socially liberal and fiscally conservative is overrepresented on here.
But I think that is at least partly because it's also overrepresented among educated people who work knowledge based jobs and bet on politics! And that is the demographics of PB.
Personally, I think the polls have largely got Reform right. I think they'll get 14-15%, and they'll be 7-10 percent behind the Conservative Party. They will probably win two seats (Ashfield and Clacton), but it's also entirely possible that you see tactical voting by LibDems and Labour supporters for the Conservative candidates (particularly in Clacton) which could upset that.
While I broadly agree with you, from a sheer psychological perspective I wonder if there's a small but significant number (of the general population, rather than PBers) who are deluding themselves along the lines of 'I will continue to vote Conservative, I can't vote for that nasty man Farage' and that is also how they are responding to pollsters. Because they themselves genuinely believe it. And they will kid themselves that they are Con voters right up until July 4th.
But on polling day, they may actually get into the voting booth and go 'go on then, the Tories have lost anyway and Farage is the only one talking sense on immigration' and give Reform a cheeky X. Feeling a bit naughty for having done so. Like popping into Asda for your essentials and hoping you don't get caught by one of your Waitrose-shopping friends.
No scientific basis for this - just a weird gut feeling I have.
Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK · 36m Utterly utterly pathetic from the Conservatives. (I’ve not seen anything this bad since Labour’s attack ads suggesting Rishi Sunak was in favour of releasing sex offenders). Social media is accelerating the coarsening and trivialisation of all of our politics.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
We could always actually fund the courts and streamline processeses so that claims are handled quickly and those that should be deported are. I know its dangerous and radical heresy to suggest such things these days, much easier to howl at the wind.
I have quite a few contacts in Wantage and Didcot (Nick you will be aware because of the help you gave me on one of my campaigns which involved a lot of people from that area).
So here is some feedback from someone who lives there who is not political but who is interested in who gets elected because of the campaign (does not care who as long as they do a good job for our cause).
Leaflet count:
LD - lost count of how many Tory - 0 Labour - 0 Reform - 0 SDP (yep there is one) - 1 Green - 0
By contrast, here's the tally in Banbury which is a Labour Oxfordshire target:
Labour - 6 Tory - 1 LD - 0 Reform - 0 Green - 0 Climate Party - 1
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
Yes. I think the explanation lies not in right, centre, left etc but elsewhere. While PBers are mostly guilty (including of course me) of one line and aphoristic sloganising, I don't think it is possible to be on PB and believe that there are politically simple solutions to socially complex problems. Nor do PBers take to any sorts of unmoderated strong man theory, in which solutions are based on the will of the Ubermensch.
PB has no clear Trump or Farage supporters who can give a reasoned account of why what they are up to is good because it can't be done.
Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK · 36m Utterly utterly pathetic from the Conservatives. (I’ve not seen anything this bad since Labour’s attack ads suggesting Rishi Sunak was in favour of releasing sex offenders). Social media is accelerating the coarsening and trivialisation of all of our politics.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
It's a very right-wing party, at least if you take it seriously, and not many of the contributors are very right-wing (or indeed very left-wing).
it's not a very right wing party. Have you read much European history? Twenty years ago its policies (leaving aside unique British issues) would make it mainstream conservative/Christian Democracy in many European countries, and moderate Republican in the USA
Every extremist tells you they’re not.
At the moment it seems as though most of the threats to politicians are coming from the left not the right. I may be wrong on that so feel free to disprove IF you have the evidence.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
I don't disagree that there's nothing "inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people".
But people don't just vote for a single thing. Indeed, they often vote for people where they disagree with the politics, but where they believe the person they are voting for has the same value structure as them.
And that's where Reform falls short with people below the age of 30: the majority of youngsters don't believe that Farage, with his tailpipe emissions and his Tweets about people breastfeeding in public shares many of their values at all.
Mme Le Pen - by contrast - is seen as "one of us" by many young French people. She is capable of building a coalition of 50% of the French, in a way I think Farage is incapable of doing.
---
As a side note, were I a US citizen I would vote against my short term economic interests. I would undoubtedly benefit financially from Trump being President. But I would be much more concerned about US democracy and the continuation of the rule of law.
I think the Savanta MRP for Sunak's seat is completely wrong, every other pollster has Sunak holding it including Yougov and MoreinCommon.
All the MRPs at least have the Tories still as main opposition, ahead of the LDs and well ahead of Reform on seats even if Labour are heading for a 1997 style landslide or even bigger with Survation and Yougov.
On voteshare though there is no real love for Starmer, Yougov for instance has Labour on just 39%, 4% below the 43% Blair got in 1997 and the LDs on 12%, just 1% more than they got in 2019. It is the divide on the right under FPTP which is proving so costly to the Tories. Yougov has 37% voting for Tory and Reform but the Tories and Reform combined winning just 17% of the seats
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
For them it is housing and rent, and they have finally made the link with mass migration
That's what rabble rousers and unintelligent people always do. They make spurious connections. You know, like ordering everyone to believe a market virus was a deliberate lab leak etc. etc. etc.
'I don't have a house because a Vietnamese crossed over by boat on 12 June 2022.' 'The reason I can't pay my rent is them f-ing migrants' 'The reason I'm living abroad is Britain's full of coloured people.'
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Your average man in the pub doesn’t understand why they aren’t being taken from the beach to Manston airfield, and put straight on a flight to Kigali.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
I think socially liberal and fiscally conservative is overrepresented on here.
But I think that is at least partly because it's also overrepresented among educated people who work knowledge based jobs and bet on politics! And that is the demographics of PB.
Personally, I think the polls have largely got Reform right. I think they'll get 14-15%, and they'll be 7-10 percent behind the Conservative Party. They will probably win two seats (Ashfield and Clacton), but it's also entirely possible that you see tactical voting by LibDems and Labour supporters for the Conservative candidates (particularly in Clacton) which could upset that.
While I broadly agree with you, from a sheer psychological perspective I wonder if there's a small but significant number (of the general population, rather than PBers) who are deluding themselves along the lines of 'I will continue to vote Conservative, I can't vote for that nasty man Farage' and that is also how they are responding to pollsters. Because they themselves genuinely believe it. And they will kid themselves that they are Con voters right up until July 4th.
But on polling day, they may actually get into the voting booth and go 'go on then, the Tories have lost anyway and Farage is the only one talking sense on immigration' and give Reform a cheeky X. Feeling a bit naughty for having done so. Like popping into Asda for your essentials and hoping you don't get caught by one of your Waitrose-shopping friends.
No scientific basis for this - just a weird gut feeling I have.
That's entirely possible. It's not the most likely scenario, but it's definitely possible
And that's why I was recommending Reform as the Most Seats Without Labour bet on Betfair, because the 12s on offer (at the time) were very generous for that.
Fieldwork for this model began after we had received and were able to programme in the actual candidates standing in each constituency into our survey. This means every respondent saw the specific names and parties of everyone standing in their specific constituency.
By mimicking the ballot in this way, we are able to pick up extra information such as incumbency effects, patterns of party contests, what happens when high profile independent candidates intervene in local races, and what voters tend to do when their first-choice party is unavailable.
We’ve also made some changes to align with those made to our headline voting intention where we now ask the public to choose who they will vote for based on the candidates who will be on the ballot paper in their constituency come polling day, and in this MRP model we use the same voter turnout methodology as we do in our updated headline voting intention.
Other updates to the model itself include the work we’ve done to examine additional factors that are predictive of voting intention to help improve the accuracy of our estimates.
Our first model included data collected before and after the announcement of the General Election date. This new model includes only data from after the short campaign began, in which we ask respondents a series of tactical voting questions to better understand who might vote tactically and where. As such, we now include data about tactical voting in our model.
MRPs have performed well in recent elections, but current polling suggests record levels of proportionality in swing patterns for some seats, taking these models beyond historic election cycles where MRPs have accurately predicted results. To account for this and to avoid extreme values that go beyond proportional swing, we have developed a proportionality check to adjust our posterior predictions and bring them closer to historical swing patterns.
MRP estimates individual seat outcomes based on respondents’ current voting intention, during the fieldwork period outlined. The estimates therefore remain a ‘nowcast’ and not a ‘forecast’, and as such, with still time to go in the election campaign, voter intentions may still change. The MRP results are in some respects a result of the ‘classic polling’ figures that make-up the model and can be susceptible to small national vote share changes having a notable impact on the seat counts.
The fieldwork for this MRP was conducted before Savanta moved to a ballot-prompt method and is therefore a product of our ‘standard’ prompting principles.
TLDR: We’d love it if our super-complex demographic modelling were able to explain all voting behaviour, but since it doesn’t, we’ve had to factor in historical voting patterns in order to avoid our models coming up with obviously nonsensical projections. Whether we’ve done this in a sensible or stupid way, who knows! Please don’t look at our individual seat projections (even though we know you will) but stand back, and hope for the best.
Reform UK’s candidate in Barnsley South has denied co-founding a crypto firm branded a ‘ponzi scheme’ - despite video showing he described himself as the firm’s UK head.
Reform spokesman insists David White was just a “third party supplier” to Buddy Ex.
Asked why, then, he described himself onstage at a Thai conference for the firm’s top salespeople as “Head of Business UK and EU”, Reform implied he’d been asked to and did so out of politeness.
In his speech, Mr White says people had been asking him whether the firm was a “scam.”
Gesturing around to the glittering backdrop at the “Achievers Conclave 2023” in September, Mr White said: “Does this look like a scam?”
What is it with crypto that seems directly to link it to antivax, pro-Russia and all the other conspiracy shit? Is the idea that crypto circumvents the establishment and the WEF?
Which is funny, because last time I was at the WEF, I went to a (rather bullish) talk on the future of crypto. This was about 12 years ago mind.
I thought you had to be a lizard person to attend. Wait, are you….?
At the time, anyone could pay to attend the WEF, and I assume that remains the case.
I used to organize a few meetings for our investors around it. But it was fundamentally both expensive and boring. The second time I went, I spent the days skiing and enjoyed it a lot more.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
A group that is also completely unrepresented on PB.
Leon is the only poster of note who's said they may vote for Reform. And of course, for him, immigration is the #1 issue.
I think it is for a lot of other voters, and maybe other posters, too, but there is a cordon sanitaire around admitting you're voting for them, especially among the status seeking middle classes, which are over-represented on PB. The only person I know voting for them IRL is a red trouser wearing posho who just openly came out and said the Tories have f***ed the country and Reform are our last hope. "And when do you move from your mews house in SW1 into a caravan in Jaywick?" was my reply - which probably says more about me than it does about him.
I do wonder if there is a "shy reform" vote in effect, though. A lot of people secretly agreeing with Farage but being too polite to say it out loud.
It does kinda make you wonder doesn't it? Reform supposedly on 15%, we have several hundred contributors who are far more interested in politics than about 95% of the population and...we don't have anyone. We have lots of deeply disillusioned Tories, including myself but none for Reform.
Its curious.
Yes. I think the explanation lies not in right, centre, left etc but elsewhere. While PBers are mostly guilty (including of course me) of one line and aphoristic sloganising, I don't think it is possible to be on PB and believe that there are politically simple solutions to socially complex problems. Nor do PBers take to any sorts of unmoderated strong man theory, in which solutions are based on the will of the Ubermensch.
PB has no clear Trump or Farage supporters who can give a reasoned account of why what they are up to is good because it can't be done.
Speak for yourself. After my voting reforms, we will achieve the perfect electoral system, electing the ideal government. All problems* will be solved.
*Actually all problems will be declared solved. Anyone suggesting otherwise will helping enlarge Rockall into a full Navy base. With a very small teaspoon.
Fieldwork for this model began after we had received and were able to programme in the actual candidates standing in each constituency into our survey. This means every respondent saw the specific names and parties of everyone standing in their specific constituency.
By mimicking the ballot in this way, we are able to pick up extra information such as incumbency effects, patterns of party contests, what happens when high profile independent candidates intervene in local races, and what voters tend to do when their first-choice party is unavailable.
We’ve also made some changes to align with those made to our headline voting intention where we now ask the public to choose who they will vote for based on the candidates who will be on the ballot paper in their constituency come polling day, and in this MRP model we use the same voter turnout methodology as we do in our updated headline voting intention.
Other updates to the model itself include the work we’ve done to examine additional factors that are predictive of voting intention to help improve the accuracy of our estimates.
Our first model included data collected before and after the announcement of the General Election date. This new model includes only data from after the short campaign began, in which we ask respondents a series of tactical voting questions to better understand who might vote tactically and where. As such, we now include data about tactical voting in our model.
MRPs have performed well in recent elections, but current polling suggests record levels of proportionality in swing patterns for some seats, taking these models beyond historic election cycles where MRPs have accurately predicted results. To account for this and to avoid extreme values that go beyond proportional swing, we have developed a proportionality check to adjust our posterior predictions and bring them closer to historical swing patterns.
MRP estimates individual seat outcomes based on respondents’ current voting intention, during the fieldwork period outlined. The estimates therefore remain a ‘nowcast’ and not a ‘forecast’, and as such, with still time to go in the election campaign, voter intentions may still change. The MRP results are in some respects a result of the ‘classic polling’ figures that make-up the model and can be susceptible to small national vote share changes having a notable impact on the seat counts.
The fieldwork for this MRP was conducted before Savanta moved to a ballot-prompt method and is therefore a product of our ‘standard’ prompting principles.
TLDR: We’d love it if our super-complex demographic modelling were able to explain all voting behaviour, but since it doesn’t, we’ve had to factor in historical voting patterns in order to avoid our models coming up with obviously nonsensical projections. Whether we’ve done this in a sensible or stupid way, who knows! Please don’t look at our individual seat projections (even though we know you will) but stand back, and hope for the best.
Yougov MRP looks reasonably accurate and includes constituency level polling.
Savanta looks much more guesswork locally based on their national polling
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
Imagine if 10 years ago you’d told someone “in a decade a 1000 people a day will land illegally on our beaches and we will do nothing about it, and they will all stay. And anyone who tries to do something about it will be labelled “a fascist””
Farage is a fascist, nothing more, nothing less. Thankfully his motley crew of xenophobes will flatter to deceive. Can’t see them winning more than 2-3 seats.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
We could always actually fund the courts and streamline processeses so that claims are handled quickly and those that should be deported are. I know its dangerous and radical heresy to suggest such things these days, much easier to howl at the wind.
That won't be enough since so many qualify.
The rules need to be changed or, I fear, eventually force will be used.
Farage is a fascist, nothing more, nothing less. Thankfully his motley crew of xenophobes will flatter to deceive. Can’t see them winning more than 2-3 seats.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Your average man in the pub doesn’t understand why they aren’t being taken from the beach to Manston airfield, and put straight on a flight to Kigali.
Your average man in the street doesn't understand why the French, or the Royal Navy, simply don't force the boat to turn round at the point of a gun, beach it, puncture it and then burn it.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
Imagine if 10 years ago you’d told someone “in a decade a 1000 people a day will land illegally on our beaches and we will do nothing about it, and they will all stay. And anyone who tries to do something about it will be labelled “a fascist””
They don't land on our beaches.
They sail in to our waters, and then our coast guards pick them up and taxi them to a British port.
Re Reform voting. There are plenty of reasons as a generally centre-right voter I could not vote for them. These include:
1. The Trumpian-style approach to politics 2. Farage. 3. Their position on climate change 4. Their position on Brexit 5. The general dislike of the “other.” 6. The whiff of conspiracy, anti-vax etc that hangs around them
However, it would not be true for me to say that there are certain conversations they are willing to have that I believe should be had in our society. There is, for instance, a real and important debate to have about immigration, its impact, and whether it is too high. Similarly, there are a lot of national institutions and mainstream politicians that people rightly or wrongly, feel no longer listen to them, or bury their head in the sand, or do not care. And a lot of people who feel alienated and left behind. And that is not good for our society, and our politics needs to be better at speaking to and for them.
These parties do not grow up just “because.”
So would I vote for Reform? No. Do I think we need to start at least having some of the conversations they are willing to? Yes. Because if we don’t, we’ll get a leader like Farage someday.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
Farage is a fascist, nothing more, nothing less. Thankfully his motley crew of xenophobes will flatter to deceive. Can’t see them winning more than 2-3 seats.
2-3 seats too many if they do.
Thank goodness we have FPTP so they're not flattered with many more.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
Nigel Farage is basically Oswald Mosley. Disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism, became an MP.
...
No, Mosley was (in his early version) serious committed to *some kind* of real reform (ha) of the system.
He crossed the floor to Labour over Ireland, and proposed a wholesale rebuild of the economy, based on socialist principles.
That’s far more commitment and thinking than Farage has ever done.
Farage is an effective motormouth - with some stale, pub boor ideas.
No Farage = No Brexit
He’s already transformed our politics far more than “Oswald Mosley” - who really WAS far right and really WAS a Fascist
Brexit could and did happen without Farage.
That seven times loser never voted in Parliament for a referendum. The Tories did due to Tory divisions and arguments that had been ongoing since Maastricht long before any of us had heard of Farage.
This might be random sample error, but several door-knockers today were saying they felt the tide had finally turned towards the Conservatives. "Its coming home..."
(I was delivering several hundred leaflets so could neither confirm nor deny these political perturbations...)
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Meanwhile legal immigration is several orders of magnitude greater than the rounding error that is small boats. Even as a proportion of asylum claims small boats is a small minority.
Good evening
It is simply against Maritime law to arbitrarily sink boats and the outcry would be deafening
Taking the migrants from the boats to a third country is the only way to deal with this, and it seems the EU have come to a similar position but the loss of life in crossing the Mediterranean to Italy is actually sadly causing far more drownings
Starmer wanting to arrest more people smugglers is not going to stop the demand, when one such smugglers said today he earns £800,000 pa, accepts he may get murdered by competing smuggler groups, but it is the only thing he knows how to do
And on the election, the Labour candidate just knocked on our door, virtually unknown in previous elections, but we politely declined her invitation to vote labour
Got my first from the candidate himself this afternoon. Quite a reasonable, progressive programme, even if Palestine first on the list. Motherwell FC colours maybe not to everyone’s taste.
Not a single poster or party affiliation seen in any window so far, whether that transfers to turn out who knows.
Badenoch does seem to enjoy support from a few of the higher minded types on the right like Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. I imagine Leon would like Giles Coren's verdict on Braverman/Patel as a bit mediocre.
I spoke to a (Green) friend on Monday and we ended up discussing politics. He was really looking forward to seeing the Tories botted out and was totally unconcerned by right wing populism and saw no reason not to be contemptuous of them because:
a) The clear majority of people support progressive parties b) Tory/Right wing voters are old and dying c) You can't control migration anyway so it's all a waste of time
I tried to dissuade him from this optimistic view and urged more scepticism but he wasn't having it.
Living in a bubble would be a good description for this person. Younger working-class people outside big cities are probably more concerned about immigration than older people living in urban areas, for example.
Actually, I would say the group that is more negatively impacted by immigration is 40-55 year old non-homeowner, who works in a non-skilled role.
This group didn't go to University, has seen a lot of competition - leading to lower wages - from immigration, didn't benefit from the house price surge, and has now been sucker punched by the inflation that has followed Covid and the Ukraine invasion. They have few, if any, savings and work in a town or small city that has largely been left behind by globalisation. They are (relatively) socially conservative.
And they feel - not without reason - that they've been fucked by globalisation and by the fact that the Conservatives/LibDems/Labour all offer some shade of the same post-1979 consensus.
This is a sizeable bunch of voters, and Boris captured them in 2019, by promising to Get Brexit done and to Level Up their towns.
What they feel has happened instead is that Brexit hasn't reduced immigration of low skilled workers and Levelling Up was cancelled.
Hence: Reform.
The age group that had been disadvantaged by those trends doesn't begin at 40, but younger people perhaps find it harder to overcome their cognitive biases.
Interestingly some polls show Reform support by age looking like a Nike swoosh with 18-24 year olds more likely to back the party than 25-29 year olds.
People below the age of 30 are dramatically more likely to have friends who are gay or trans or non-British than people over the age 40.
That means that they find Reform's social conservatism and - how to put it - anti-immigration rhetoric very off-putting. They are also much more likely to believe in global warming, vaccines, and the like.
It's not hard to see why they don't find the Reform platform particularly enticing. And while I don't mean to be rude, I think your use of the words "cognitive biases" comes over as the kind of sneering.
It's not sneering to point out that some people are more likely to vote against their own interests than others.
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
I don't disagree that there's nothing "inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people".
But people don't just vote for a single thing. Indeed, they often vote for people where they disagree with the politics, but where they believe the person they are voting for has the same value structure as them.
And that's where Reform falls short with people below the age of 30: the majority of youngsters don't believe that Farage, with his tailpipe emissions and his Tweets about people breastfeeding in public shares many of their values at all.
Mme Le Pen - by contrast - is seen as "one of us" by many young French people. She is capable of building a coalition of 50% of the French, in a way I think Farage is incapable of doing.
---
As a side note, were I a US citizen I would vote against my short term economic interests. I would undoubtedly benefit financially from Trump being President. But I would be much more concerned about US democracy and the continuation of the rule of law.
WRT young people, they are not intrinsically left or right or anything else, except that on the whole they retain some sort of ideals and want to have fun. Good for them.
Where they are, bless them, different from the middle aged and elderly middle class, which most of them will become by effluxion of time, is that have not yet learned the two things that we all come to know, especially the class that ever exercises power.
The young do not, on the whole, realise that no solutions to anything at all are simple.
And they do not realise that the good things people all want are not all compatible with each other.
Whether they should all do a course, at age 15, in school on: Why it is complicated to run a welfare state system for 68,000,000 people while building an extra 3 million houses
and
Why legitimate desires in a liberal society are like a jigsaw in which none of the pieces fit and there isn't even a picture on the front
I do not know. But I would call it 'The cost of incommensurability'.
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Your average man in the pub doesn’t understand why they aren’t being taken from the beach to Manston airfield, and put straight on a flight to Kigali.
The answer to that question is that laws with vague lofty sounding phrases like the human rights act and equality act enable the courts to interpret them freely and block such actions and the current set of politicians is not willing to repeal them.
Eventually in a democracy such politicians get replaced with those with less angst about such things.
I've said before that v the size of B the Conservative defeat is not my concern. Maybe I'd feel different if I was in a constituency which would deliver the ELE, an Ashford or a Richmond or some such, but probably not.
For one thing, I'm not convinced the civil war be any the less intense if 120 Tories remain than if 40 remain. Parties to the right will continue to threaten the Tories in some form, and retain a somewhat broader appeal than those to the left of Labour. And many of the Tories will retain that attraction rightwards, whatever the size of the Tory trump. The headbanger element is too large in the Tory party and membership to be quickly lanced as Starmer did with the Labour left.
I think if we look at the various bits of FPTP elsewhere in different systems, there are clues to the sort of thing to expect, even if v those systems are non identical.
The US retains the duopoly only as the right party veers ever rightwards, the presidential contest seems to kick in the duopoly even at legislative level.
In France the duopoly looked shaky for a while with the Le Pens splitting the vote and getting into run offs, but it was Macron splitting from the unpopular left towards the centre that blew the system open and now v the 3 way split has a fairly left party, a centre which has done most of all to kill the c traditional centre-right and a hard right party who've built credibility. Having the presidential system over the top is the catalyst here, but a 3 way FPTP set up seems to have resulted.
In Italy, where FPTP sits over the top of stone proportionality, the right coalition, was ed by a clown show centre right whilst some of the harder right elements spent years building credibility and now lead the coalition. The left and centre have struggled to formulate significant enough big tent/field groupings to oppose. This iteration of Italian politics doesn't yet feel settled, but two blocs seems to be the ultimate direction.
In all the hard right feature having built a broad base and sometimes worked hard c on credibility where the system required it. Which combination the UK will get us not obvious to me, not is it really obvious how different defeats will play out to change the picture.
Nigel Farage is basically Oswald Mosley. Disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism, became an MP.
...
No, Mosley was (in his early version) serious committed to *some kind* of real reform (ha) of the system.
He crossed the floor to Labour over Ireland, and proposed a wholesale rebuild of the economy, based on socialist principles.
That’s far more commitment and thinking than Farage has ever done.
Farage is an effective motormouth - with some stale, pub boor ideas.
No Farage = No Brexit
He’s already transformed our politics far more than “Oswald Mosley” - who really WAS far right and really WAS a Fascist
That’s true . Farage drove Cameron into holding the EU ref and the rest is history. He’s had a huge impact on UK politics and Labour will need to address the question of immigration otherwise I fear the UK starts going down the Trumpian road.
I’d hate to see the UK become as polarized as the USA .
I've had a couple of private messages in the last 24 hours from right-wing friends, driven by the close to 1,000 crossings yesterday, half-seriously asking if we now need to "sink a few boats" to stop it.
Your average man in the pub doesn’t understand why they aren’t being taken from the beach to Manston airfield, and put straight on a flight to Kigali.
The answer to that question is that laws with vague lofty sounding phrases like the human rights act and equality act enable the courts to interpret them freely and block such actions and the current set of politicians is not willing to repeal them.
Eventually in a democracy such politicians get replaced with those with less angst about such things.
A society that can without process take a person and fly them to Kigali can, and in time will, do something similar to our friend in the pub or one of his friends.
Comments
In the works of MR James, witchcraft always led to a very bad end.
But I think that is at least partly because it's also overrepresented among educated people who work knowledge based jobs and bet on politics! And that is the demographics of PB.
Personally, I think the polls have largely got Reform right. I think they'll get 14-15%, and they'll be 7-10 percent behind the Conservative Party. They will probably win two seats (Ashfield and Clacton), but it's also entirely possible that you see tactical voting by LibDems and Labour supporters for the Conservative candidates (particularly in Clacton) which could upset that.
I don't think left/right is very useful in descriptive terms anyway, I don't think many parties are ideologically coherent in that sense, and Reform certainly is not.
In real life you'd be surprised. I'm actually quite bumptious!
Can’t say I had ‘running a scam crypto product’ on the list, rather than horrifically racist Facebook posts.
To say we must have PR because proportionality is democratic is just making your argument a truism fallacy, there's no argument there.
FPTP is perfectly democratic. Its not proportional, but democracy doesn't need to be proportional.
If 75% of constituencies vote for a Labour representative, so 75% of constituencies get a Labour representative, that is perfectly democratic.
Crypto scams strongly appeal to a certain type of young male who spend too much time sitting in their parents basement watching YouTube and thinking there are 'secret' ways to make money and get the lifestyle they feel they deserve (served up by other young male influencers who are strangely fixated on Lamborghinis and anorexic models).
But at heart they know they are scams and just hope they can pass the parcel to some other chump before the music stops.
I recommend watching scam exposer Coffeezilla on YouTube. He interviews many scam victims and the serial scammers that run the schemes.
LD 32% (win)
Con 32%
Ref 19%
Lab 11%
Grn 5%
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49809-second-yougov-2024-election-mrp-shows-conservatives-on-lowest-seat-total-in-history
It's from reform.
Switzerland 1.91
Draw 3.6
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/uefa-euro-2024/scotland-v-switzerland-betting-33318175
I agree with you about Reform have an uphill struggle with younger voters because of their socially-conservative image but there's nothing inherently off-putting about what might be called nativist politics to young people. Just look at the continent for evidence.
Also, the terms "far right" and "extreme right wing" and "Fascist" are now used so liberally and stupidly they are going the way of "racist" - overuse makes them meaningless, and devoid of impact
For them it is housing and rent, and they have finally made the link with mass migration
Which is a shame, because Rehman being the MP for Rainham has an elegance about it.
Nothing wrong with having more migration so long as we construct more houses, the problem is a distinct lack of sufficient construction.
Reform voters are going to draw disproportionately from Brexit voters who didn't vote at General Elections.
Whether they turn out or not will make the difference between Reform on 10% and Reform on 17%.
Disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism, became an MP.
...
The 'left behinds' really do not worry about travelling around the country by expensive trains in a few decades time - even assuming they live anywhere near where HS2 was supposed to go.
Energy prices, pub prices and hospital waiting times are likely to be more their concerns.
Together with a general resentment that while they are struggling other groups are doing very well.
Your 50 year old left behind renter will know 50 year old mortgage free home owners who are getting nice interest on their savings and even nicer pay rises.
But on polling day, they may actually get into the voting booth and go 'go on then, the Tories have lost anyway and Farage is the only one talking sense on immigration' and give Reform a cheeky X. Feeling a bit naughty for having done so. Like popping into Asda for your essentials and hoping you don't get caught by one of your Waitrose-shopping friends.
No scientific basis for this - just a weird gut feeling I have.
@RoryStewartUK
·
36m
Utterly utterly pathetic from the Conservatives. (I’ve not seen anything this bad since Labour’s attack ads suggesting Rishi Sunak was in favour of releasing sex offenders). Social media is accelerating the coarsening and trivialisation of all of our politics.
https://x.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1803481353792417911
Labour - 6
Tory - 1
LD - 0
Reform - 0
Green - 0
Climate Party - 1
Winston Churchill would have detested Farage and warned the British people against him.
PB has no clear Trump or Farage supporters who can give a reasoned account of why what they are up to is good because it can't be done.
@NorstatUKPolls GB-wide Poll June 17-19
Westminster Voting Intention
Con 20% (-1%)
Lab 40% (-1%)
Lib Dem 12% (+1%)
Reform UK 19% (+2%)
Green 5% (-1%)
Sample size 2,059
Changes since June 10-12
https://x.com/NorstatUKPolls/status/1803462647989334447?s=19
But people don't just vote for a single thing. Indeed, they often vote for people where they disagree with the politics, but where they believe the person they are voting for has the same value structure as them.
And that's where Reform falls short with people below the age of 30: the majority of youngsters don't believe that Farage, with his tailpipe emissions and his Tweets about people breastfeeding in public shares many of their values at all.
Mme Le Pen - by contrast - is seen as "one of us" by many young French people. She is capable of building a coalition of 50% of the French, in a way I think Farage is incapable of doing.
---
As a side note, were I a US citizen I would vote against my short term economic interests. I would undoubtedly benefit financially from Trump being President. But I would be much more concerned about US democracy and the continuation of the rule of law.
All the MRPs at least have the Tories still as main opposition, ahead of the LDs and well ahead of Reform on seats even if Labour are heading for a 1997 style landslide or even bigger with Survation and Yougov.
On voteshare though there is no real love for Starmer, Yougov for instance has Labour on just 39%, 4% below the 43% Blair got in 1997 and the LDs on 12%, just 1% more than they got in 2019. It is the divide on the right under FPTP which is proving so costly to the Tories. Yougov has 37% voting for Tory and Reform but the Tories and Reform combined winning just 17% of the seats
'I don't have a house because a Vietnamese crossed over by boat on 12 June 2022.'
'The reason I can't pay my rent is them f-ing migrants'
'The reason I'm living abroad is Britain's full of coloured people.'
etc. etc. etc.
He crossed the floor to Labour over Ireland, and proposed a wholesale rebuild of the economy, based on socialist principles.
That’s far more commitment and thinking than Farage has ever done.
Farage is an effective motormouth - with some stale, pub boor ideas.
And that's why I was recommending Reform as the Most Seats Without Labour bet on Betfair, because the 12s on offer (at the time) were very generous for that.
I used to organize a few meetings for our investors around it. But it was fundamentally both expensive and boring. The second time I went, I spent the days skiing and enjoyed it a lot more.
*Actually all problems will be declared solved. Anyone suggesting otherwise will helping enlarge Rockall into a full Navy base. With a very small teaspoon.
He's just a lazy wannabe.
Savanta looks much more guesswork locally based on their national polling
The rules need to be changed or, I fear, eventually force will be used.
He’s already transformed our politics far more than “Oswald Mosley” - who really WAS far right and really WAS a Fascist
They sail in to our waters, and then our coast guards pick them up and taxi them to a British port.
1. The Trumpian-style approach to politics
2. Farage.
3. Their position on climate change
4. Their position on Brexit
5. The general dislike of the “other.”
6. The whiff of conspiracy, anti-vax etc that hangs around them
However, it would not be true for me to say that there are certain conversations they are willing to have that I believe should be had in our society. There is, for instance, a real and important debate to have about immigration, its impact, and whether it is too high. Similarly, there are a lot of national institutions and mainstream politicians that people rightly or wrongly, feel no longer listen to them, or bury their head in the sand, or do not care. And a lot of people who feel alienated and left behind. And that is not good for our society, and our politics needs to be better at speaking to and for them.
These parties do not grow up just “because.”
So would I vote for Reform? No. Do I think we need to start at least having some of the conversations they are willing to? Yes. Because if we don’t, we’ll get a leader like Farage someday.
Thank goodness we have FPTP so they're not flattered with many more.
💥NEW💥BOMBSHELL poll
Labour 35%
Reform 24%
Conservatives 15%
Liberal Democrats 12%
Greens 8%
SNP 3%
PeoplePolling/GBN Jun 18th
Sample: 1,228 British adults
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1803492522116915232
@GoodwinMJ
💥NEW💥BOMBSHELL poll
Labour 35%
Reform 24%
Conservatives 15%
Liberal Democrats 12%
Greens 8%
SNP 3%
PeoplePolling/GBN Jun 18th
Sample: 1,228 British adults
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1803492522116915232
That seven times loser never voted in Parliament for a referendum. The Tories did due to Tory divisions and arguments that had been ongoing since Maastricht long before any of us had heard of Farage.
(I was delivering several hundred leaflets so could neither confirm nor deny these political perturbations...)
It is simply against Maritime law to arbitrarily sink boats and the outcry would be deafening
Taking the migrants from the boats to a third country is the only way to deal with this, and it seems the EU have come to a similar position but the loss of life in crossing the Mediterranean to Italy is actually sadly causing far more drownings
Starmer wanting to arrest more people smugglers is not going to stop the demand, when one such smugglers said today he earns £800,000 pa, accepts he may get murdered by competing smuggler groups, but it is the only thing he knows how to do
And on the election, the Labour candidate just knocked on our door, virtually unknown in previous elections, but we politely declined her invitation to vote labour
Not a single poster or party affiliation seen in any window so far, whether that transfers to turn out who knows.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgeekd4nzvkt
Use of insider information isn't cheating.
Where they are, bless them, different from the middle aged and elderly middle class, which most of them will become by effluxion of time, is that have not yet learned the two things that we all come to know, especially the class that ever exercises power.
The young do not, on the whole, realise that no solutions to anything at all are simple.
And they do not realise that the good things people all want are not all compatible with each other.
Whether they should all do a course, at age 15, in school on: Why it is complicated to run a welfare state system for 68,000,000 people while building an extra 3 million houses
and
Why legitimate desires in a liberal society are like a jigsaw in which none of the pieces fit and there isn't even a picture on the front
I do not know. But I would call it 'The cost of incommensurability'.
Eventually in a democracy such politicians get replaced with those with less angst about such things.
For one thing, I'm not convinced the civil war be any the less intense if 120 Tories remain than if 40 remain. Parties to the right will continue to threaten the Tories in some form, and retain a somewhat broader appeal than those to the left of Labour. And many of the Tories will retain that attraction rightwards, whatever the size of the Tory trump. The headbanger element is too large in the Tory party and membership to be quickly lanced as Starmer did with the Labour left.
I think if we look at the various bits of FPTP elsewhere in different systems, there are clues to the sort of thing to expect, even if v those systems are non identical.
The US retains the duopoly only as the right party veers ever rightwards, the presidential contest seems to kick in the duopoly even at legislative level.
In France the duopoly looked shaky for a while with the Le Pens splitting the vote and
getting into run offs, but it was Macron splitting from the unpopular left towards the centre that blew the system open and now v the 3 way split has a fairly left party, a centre which has done most of all to kill the c traditional centre-right and a hard right party who've built credibility. Having the presidential system over the top is the catalyst here, but a 3 way FPTP set up seems to have resulted.
In Italy, where FPTP sits over the top of stone proportionality, the right coalition, was ed by a clown show centre right whilst some of the
harder right elements spent years building credibility and now lead the coalition. The left and centre have struggled to formulate significant enough big tent/field groupings to oppose. This iteration of Italian politics doesn't yet feel settled, but two blocs seems to be the ultimate direction.
In all the hard right feature having built a broad base and sometimes worked hard c on credibility where the system required it. Which combination the UK will get us not obvious to me, not is it really obvious how different defeats will play out to change the picture.
This is just Goodwin wanting to drive the narrative in the direction he wants ie Reform second at this election on votes and seats
I’d hate to see the UK become as polarized as the USA .
Actually I would have said more of a canine in corduroy.... or maybe a twat in tweed.
Which single was released in 1963 by the Surfaris
It ain't happening.