Tip for Farage next time: release your candidates' names as early as possible, let your opponents do the vetting for you, because they'll do a better job. And be ready to replace them.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
It’s the line about Ukraine that’s disgusting, and there’s a lot of that about in Reform.
Had they just suggested Thatcher’s Government created the Falklands then I might suggest that they had some sort of point. That Gvt failed to deter Argentina, and they could have. They gave the impression they didn’t care, until it happened when of course Thatcher instilled backbone into our response and was very clear eyed about fascists.
She was also clear about appeasement which is why she would have detested Nigel Farage.
Did she think Appeasment a good thing (like the pro-Hitler Reform Candidate) or against?
They are going to have MP's as barking mad as MTG if they manage to get any elected.
I don’t see anything strange from the data tables . My only question is what order they were asked . I’d be surprised if they didn’t go with the normal sequencing as that would lead to bias .
We’ll know soon enough whether this is an outlier . Certainly it might wake up both Labour and the Tories in particular to start going after Reform .
Isn't the standard, that if it looks like an outlier, then it is one? The only way that changes, is if further polls support it.
With you on the question order - if the people who answered weren't all whipped up to vote Reform, they certainly would be after all that red meat. No way they'd get away with asking them first.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
It’s the line about Ukraine that’s disgusting, and there’s a lot of that about in Reform.
Had they just suggested Thatcher’s Government created the Falklands then I might suggest that they had some sort of point. That Gvt failed to deter Argentina, and they could have. They gave the impression they didn’t care, until it happened when of course Thatcher instilled backbone into our response and was very clear eyed about fascists.
It is hardly a surprise that a populist party has people in it who like Putin and Galtieri more than they like Blair and Thatcher.
It appears like Cameron's prophecy over social media users, his prophecy of UKIP / Reform candidates is also true.
Francis, forgive me, I spend less and less time on this site these days, but unless I'm wrong, I've picked up on you headed more in a centrist direction of late.
Am I wrong?
I am not sure I have headed anywhere.
I used to have you down as being broadly on the right of the Conservative Party, I assumed you would be very sympathetic to Reform etc. Instead, you appear to be going in the opposite direction.
Are you gonna vote Labour?
You can be a centre-right voting Leave supporter and be hostile to Farage/Reform if you agree with some of:
1) Farage is a self-obsessed, Trump pandering charlatan 2) Have a yearning for some level of competent government 3) Are happy with your current financial situation 4) Don't believe that Britain is broken even if it does need some change
It appears like Cameron's prophecy over social media users, his prophecy of UKIP / Reform candidates is also true.
Francis, forgive me, I spend less and less time on this site these days, but unless I'm wrong, I've picked up on you headed more in a centrist direction of late.
Am I wrong?
I am not sure I have headed anywhere.
I used to have you down as being broadly on the right of the Conservative Party, I assumed you would be very sympathetic to Reform etc. Instead, you appear to be going in the opposite direction.
Are you gonna vote Labour?
No you definitely had me pegged totally wrong. You will struggle to find me having posted anything positive about Boris or Truss or Farage (beyond thinking something might be a clever tactic, which doesn't mean I agree with it).
Fair Enough.
But you do/did post a great deal about crime and immigration IIRC. Why aren't you swayed by reform, like Leon?
Tip for Farage next time: release your candidates' names as early as possible, let your opponents do the vetting for you, because they'll do a better job. And be ready to replace them.
Only the stupid opponents. The more intelligent or at least teachable ones will catch on and save the goods for the morning after nominations close.
Just thinking, if the late plato was still around, she'd probably be a ReFuk candidate.
I'm not sure she would. Plato fell for any old rubbish she'd seen on the American alt-right interwebs so she'd be in roughly the same place as Leon on Trump and Covid and have little to say on Farage, and possibly be in the process of losing her savings in some crypto scam. May she rest in peace.
Out of interest, what became of two other regular (I think) femaie contributors, Carlotta Vance and Cyclefree?
An impressive historical knowledge for your fifth day. Next we'll be hearing about the ins and outs of Angus Reid polling.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
It appears like Cameron's prophecy over social media users, his prophecy of UKIP / Reform candidates is also true.
Francis, forgive me, I spend less and less time on this site these days, but unless I'm wrong, I've picked up on you headed more in a centrist direction of late.
Am I wrong?
I am not sure I have headed anywhere.
I used to have you down as being broadly on the right of the Conservative Party, I assumed you would be very sympathetic to Reform etc. Instead, you appear to be going in the opposite direction.
Are you gonna vote Labour?
No you definitely had me pegged totally wrong. You will struggle to find me having posted anything positive about Boris or Truss or Farage (beyond thinking something might be a clever tactic, which doesn't mean I agree with it).
Fair Enough.
But you do/did post a great deal about crime and immigration IIRC. Why aren't you swayed like Leon?
What could Farage do to get your vote?
I post a lot about immigration? Do I. I don't think I do. I think you are confusing me with somebody else.
As for crime, I guess, maybe. But the media are talking a lot about low level crime a fair bit too.
You definitely have me pegged wrongly if you think Farage is in the mix for my vote. Tory is as far to the right as I have ever voted and most recently that was anti-Corbyn more than excitement over the MayBot.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
It’s the line about Ukraine that’s disgusting, and there’s a lot of that about in Reform.
Had they just suggested Thatcher’s Government created the Falklands then I might suggest that they had some sort of point. That Gvt failed to deter Argentina, and they could have. They gave the impression they didn’t care, until it happened when of course Thatcher instilled backbone into our response and was very clear eyed about fascists.
You know, that most recent of all polls Norstat wasn’t that far from the People Polling one …
17–19 Jun Norstat GB 2,059
Lab 40% Con 20% Reform 19% LibDem12% SNP 3% Green 5%
It is quite far - PP has Lab and Con down by 5 on that, and Reform up by 5
Something is wrong. I don't believe that many people have read the Reform manifesto and thought Wow!
What is going on??? Maybe the PP poll is simply an outlier. Goodwin himself seems a little skeptical in that clip I posted earlier
I don’t think anyone has read it. Well, I had to read part of it as I had to give a briefing on the employment law bits (summary - back to 1969, don’t expect to come back to work after having a baby, and don’t get used to your paid holiday), but I might have been the first. If they had a proof reader they might have picked up that it’s the Equality Act, not the “Equalities Act”.
Tonight might just be this elections version of that ICM poll in 1997 which had Labour just 5% ahead mid-campaign and was a complete outlier.
I mean this is by Matt Goodwin's rogue outfit that basically exists to tell him he was right and UKIP/BXP/Reform were an unstoppable force of the people.
If it were by any other company you'd give it a degree of credence. But it's honestly a bit like Owen Jones running a pollster that says everyone hates Starmer and thinks Jeremy Corbyn is fab.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
It’s the line about Ukraine that’s disgusting, and there’s a lot of that about in Reform.
Had they just suggested Thatcher’s Government created the Falklands then I might suggest that they had some sort of point. That Gvt failed to deter Argentina, and they could have. They gave the impression they didn’t care, until it happened when of course Thatcher instilled backbone into our response and was very clear eyed about fascists.
She was also clear about appeasement which is why she would have detested Nigel Farage.
You didn’t respond to my quote from your hero talking about how Putin can protect his interests in Ukraine by holding referendums on dismembering it.
That people polling result for GB News seem waaaaaay off.... I don't trust that at all. It is just so out of kilter with all the other abundant data that there is something totally off there.
Well, anyway, it’s a very exciting election. The most exciting of my life. 1997 didn’t have this much added drama and the possible ELE in the same way. 2019 was amazing but still not quite so dramatic as this etc. etc.
Just thinking, if the late plato was still around, she'd probably be a ReFuk candidate.
I'm not sure she would. Plato fell for any old rubbish she'd seen on the American alt-right interwebs so she'd be in roughly the same place as Leon on Trump and Covid and have little to say on Farage, and possibly be in the process of losing her savings in some crypto scam. May she rest in peace.
Out of interest, what became of two other regular (I think) femaie contributors, Carlotta Vance and Cyclefree?
An impressive historical knowledge for your fifth day. Next we'll be hearing about the ins and outs of Angus Reid polling.
It’s almost as if Mr Ed was back on the site!
I assume that MisterBedfordshire is the former PaulMidBeds (or a similar name).
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Exactly
And one poll Lab on 40%, the other on 35%, and both could be right on 37.5%
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
No one told the Greek Coastguard.
Hate to break this to you, but people do things knowing they’re illegal.
If the BBC are to be believed, it was going on for three years and also involved throwing people overboard to their deaths.
Which has a whiff of it not just being the actions of a few nasty individuals but of the sort of intermngling of state and criminality that was alleged to occur between security services and loyalists in NI.
A Brexiteer is still campaigning to get rid of our unelected rulers.
George Galloway has called for a referendum on the future of the monarchy and said Princess Anne should be president if it is abolished.
The leader of the Workers Party of Britain made the tongue-in-cheek remark as he launched his party’s manifesto on Wednesday, which includes a call for voters to say whether they think monarchy should be abolished.
When asked by The Telegraph how Mr Galloway felt about raising the issue while the King and Princess of Wales undergo cancer treatment, Mr Galloway said: “Our issue is with unelected power... it’s why we oppose monarchy - nothing personal.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Yes, if I was forced at gunpoint to pluck absurd numbers out of my Cornish butt I'd say the situation is now
You know, that most recent of all polls Norstat wasn’t that far from the People Polling one …
17–19 Jun Norstat GB 2,059
Lab 40% Con 20% Reform 19% LibDem12% SNP 3% Green 5%
It is quite far - PP has Lab and Con down by 5 on that, and Reform up by 5
Something is wrong. I don't believe that many people have read the Reform manifesto and thought Wow!
What is going on??? Maybe the PP poll is simply an outlier. Goodwin himself seems a little skeptical in that clip I posted earlier
PP is run by Matt Goodwin and no one (AFAICT) knows their methodology - while their results always suspiciously favour his long stated views cheerleading for politics that look like Reform's. They're not really credible.
If it's anything like this result by a pollster with a reasonable track record who are transparent about their methodology - then you'd talk about changes.
But chances are it's someone who has become quite a sad figure who everyone stopped taking seriously long ago, messing about again.
I know a lot of people like to dump on Matt Goodwin. He isn't half a broken record when he gets in front of the camera.
However, it is worth remember, every election we get some crazy outlier poll even from well respected pollsters. Remember the "day the polls turned" headlines which was based on what turned out to be some wildly inaccurate couple of polls.
Well, anyway, it’s a very exciting election. The most exciting of my life. 1997 didn’t have this much added drama and the possible ELE in the same way. 2019 was amazing but still not quite so dramatic as this etc. etc.
On this, we agree
It is the political equivalent of Turkey v Georgia last night. Endlessly entertaining and dramatic
And I thought it was going to be boring!
Incidentally I had Labour canvassers round today. I cannot think of a more pointless constituency to canvass. Starmer is leader and PM in waiting with a large majority, he is going to win by light years. Surely there are better places in London to use that Labour energy?
A Brexiteer is still campaigning to get rid of our unelected rulers.
George Galloway has called for a referendum on the future of the monarchy and said Princess Anne should be president if it is abolished.
The leader of the Workers Party of Britain made the tongue-in-cheek remark as he launched his party’s manifesto on Wednesday, which includes a call for voters to say whether they think monarchy should be abolished.
When asked by The Telegraph how Mr Galloway felt about raising the issue while the King and Princess of Wales undergo cancer treatment, Mr Galloway said: “Our issue is with unelected power... it’s why we oppose monarchy - nothing personal.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
A problem being that many Conservatives don't seem to think they've done anything wrong.
I'd be curious to know how many Conservatives think that giving and receiving millions of taxpayer's money for vague or non-existent services is genuine 'business' or 'trade'.
Hmm, RP's Labour - or rather temporarily non-Labour - opponent claims he was nobbled. And that his party did the dirty on him as well in terms of unfair treatment.
'A candidate suspended by Labour after reports he shared "pro-Russian" material online has denied doing so - and claimed he has been "hung out to dry".
[...]
Mr Brown, who is standing in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, insisted he would never endorse such views, and suggested his Facebook account may have been hacked.'
Well, anyway, it’s a very exciting election. The most exciting of my life. 1997 didn’t have this much added drama and the possible ELE in the same way. 2019 was amazing but still not quite so dramatic as this etc. etc.
On this, we agree
It is the political equivalent of Turkey v Georgia last night. Endlessly entertaining and dramatic
And I thought it was going to be boring!
Incidentally I had Labour canvassers round today. I cannot think of a more pointless constituency to canvass. Starmer is leader and PM in waiting with a large majority, he is going to win by light years. Surely there are better places in London to use that Labour energy?
It probably feels nice to canvass somewhere where most people are going to vote for your candidate. Nice but pointless.
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
No one told the Greek Coastguard
Are you trying to justify a rogue coastguard ignoring Mariime law and anyway the coastguard will have the law to deal with
It is a shocking development that anyone could even think of sinking boats with migrants, and who has to deal with the consequences of rescuing those in peril but the crews of the RNLI and border force boats risking their own lives
Shocking to those of us leading comfortable lives in agreeable houses.
Not so much to those who havent seen a decent pay rise in years due to immigrant competition for low/unskilled Labour, whos rent is going up for a poor quality s***hole due to competition from migrants chasing the same housing stock, and pull their rotten teeth out with pliers as they cannot get a dentist. Then see on the news that illegal enterers are collected and put up in hotels with free food.
And there are rather a lot of the latter.
As I have said, unless decent leaders on occasion do indecent things on occasion for the greater good (like Churchill sinking the French fleet in Mers-El-Kebir killing thousands of French Sailors), they are replaced by indecent leaders who will do very indecent things.
The decent leader doing indecent thing in this occasion would be deporting all males of military age entering the country Illegally on such boats to Kigali in short order without appeal.
The indecent leader doing a very indecent thing would use the Navy to sink a boat pour les encouragement les autres.
I never thought I would read on here such a shocking and unacceptable statement
It truely saddens me and maybe if you had witnessed a woman or a child drown in such circumstances as the rescuers have then you would discover your humanity
That this kind of thinking is considered acceptable in some quarters is the consequence of the government demonising migrants for their own political advantage. They richly deserve to be wiped out.
No it's not. It's the consequence of thousands of people from the third world turning up here every week without us apparently being able to do anything at all about it.
Without the people you persist in voting for being able to doing anything about it. Because they are muppets and grifters.
Are you suggesting it will stop happening when Labour get in? Because? It seems unlikely.
I have to say that I - and, I suggest, plenty of others on here - looked a bit askance at HYUFD when he said that Reform could become a significant factor in British politics. But on this he's been proved right, right and right again!
You know, that most recent of all polls Norstat wasn’t that far from the People Polling one …
17–19 Jun Norstat GB 2,059
Lab 40% Con 20% Reform 19% LibDem12% SNP 3% Green 5%
It is quite far - PP has Lab and Con down by 5 on that, and Reform up by 5
Something is wrong. I don't believe that many people have read the Reform manifesto and thought Wow!
What is going on??? Maybe the PP poll is simply an outlier. Goodwin himself seems a little skeptical in that clip I posted earlier
PP is run by Matt Goodwin and no one (AFAICT) knows their methodology - while their results always suspiciously favour his long stated views cheerleading for politics that look like Reform's. They're not really credible.
If it's anything like this result by a pollster with a reasonable track record who are transparent about their methodology - then you'd talk about changes.
But chances are it's someone who has become quite a sad figure who everyone stopped taking seriously long ago, messing about again.
What Matt Goodwin says in front of the camera doesn’t really matter in this context. It’s his opaque methodology that concerns me. Im not dismissing it out of hand but, I mean, looking under the hood doesn’t glean much…
Well, anyway, it’s a very exciting election. The most exciting of my life. 1997 didn’t have this much added drama and the possible ELE in the same way. 2019 was amazing but still not quite so dramatic as this etc. etc.
On this, we agree
It is the political equivalent of Turkey v Georgia last night. Endlessly entertaining and dramatic
And I thought it was going to be boring!
Incidentally I had Labour canvassers round today. I cannot think of a more pointless constituency to canvass. Starmer is leader and PM in waiting with a large majority, he is going to win by light years. Surely there are better places in London to use that Labour energy?
It probably feels nice to canvass somewhere where most people are going to vote for your candidate. Nice but pointless.
MInd, that is probaby what Jo Swinson thought, even when she was going on about the joys of fracking when, or about to be, a candidate for a Midland Valley coalfield constituency.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Yes, if I was forced at gunpoint to pluck absurd numbers out of my Cornish butt I'd say the situation is now
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
I have to say that I - and, I suggest, plenty of others on here - looked a bit askance at HYUFD when he said that Reform could become a significant factor in British politics. But on this he's been proved right, right and right again!
Well, right wing.... but condolences to HYFUD, its always hard when the punters just walk away.
Is Farage going to suspend the Surrey Heath candidate? Bad news for the LDs if he does.
The Reform candidate will still be on the ballot. Its too late,now the postals are out
And I don’t think it’s far off what the leadership believe. Look at MAGA: they are from an isolationist tradition that says others peoples wars are other peoples wars, we (USA in their case, Britain here) should not get involved, we should look after our own, and respect strong men around the world who deserve their own spheres of influence. It’s quite multi-polar.
That leads to appeasement and sometimes tacit support for dictators. It gives parts of the right common cause with the far left.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
I thought Sunak U-Turned on the much higher income threshold and kicked into the long grass? Because like all these things there are edge cases e.g. it was too high for post-doc salary and we don't really want to stop those people coming to the UK.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
The second of those is a clear unforced error, but the first I think is a genuinely difficult problem to solve. Otherwise they'd have done it at some point in the last decade and a half.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Which is, itself, incredible. I will repeat myself and say that I suspect that the seat modellers won’t quite work with a party like Reform (or even the LibDems) that high. It’s a step change just like the Tories or Labour at 15% would be.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
Yes, I'm increasingly convinced this is an outlier. And this is a poll which would being me delight if it is true, but too much of it is weirdly out of whack
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
Two polls, with Ref on 24% and 19%. They could both be right, with Ref actually on about 21.5%.
Yes. It is possible that the PP poll is both on the edge, and a bit beyond, WRT MoE and also indicative of a real shift though not as great as the headline.
Reality being something like: Lab 38/39 Tory 18/19 Ref 20/21
Which is still epoch making, putting this election up there with the GRA of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws, 1906, 1945 - and nothing at all since.
If that were the reality, then what we are noting is (probably temporary) crossover Ref/Tory - which has happened once before on 12/13 June, and a genuine significant rise in Reform, which is not unexpected but may not last.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, Watson, however improbable, must be the truth".
Speaking of impossibles, I rather need Scotland to win or draw this evening.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
A problem being that many Conservatives don't seem to think they've done anything wrong.
I'd be curious to know how many Conservatives think that giving and receiving millions of taxpayer's money for vague or non-existent services is genuine 'business' or 'trade'.
Too few have read their Adam Smith. A proper Tory Party would, as you imply, hate that crap.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
I thought Sunak U-Turned on the much higher income threshold and kicked into the long grass? Because like all these things there are edge cases e.g. it was too high for post-doc salary and we don't really want to stop those people coming to the UK.
I could be wrong, but I thought they put it in place. Happy to be corrected.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
And there will be no (we assume) new Hong Kong or Ukraine influx.
But as others have pointed out, in annoyance at my email about the relative numbers, what will really matter is the optics of small boats.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
I thought Sunak U-Turned on the much higher income threshold and kicked into the long grass? Because like all these things there are edge cases e.g. it was too high for post-doc salary and we don't really want to stop those people coming to the UK.
I could be wrong, but I thought they put it in place. Happy to be corrected.
The prime minister’s comments come just a day after an initially unnoticed parliamentary answer said the much-criticised plan to more than double the threshold from £18,600 a year to £38,700 was being shelved. Instead, the Home Office said, the minimum salary would be changed initially to £29,000 in spring 2024, with no timeline given for an increase to £38,700.
FWIW PP gave Labour a 28 point lead in March. The widest of any pollster in 2024. They are always a bit out of step. Don’t dismiss it but scepticism is justified.
I know a lot of people like to dump on Matt Goodwin. He isn't half a broken record when he gets in front of the camera.
However, it is worth remember, every election we get some crazy outlier poll even from well respected pollsters. Remember the "day the polls turned" headlines which was based on what turned out to be some wildly inaccurate couple of polls.
I mean yes, but they weren't *that* far off then - it was just a close election in terms of outcome so they pointed at the wrong result.
And credible pollsters don't tend to always be wrong in one direction, when that happens to be the direction the person running the polls repeatedly makes clear that they would love to be true. They overestimated Lab in 2015 and so arguably overcorrected in 2017.
2019 got broadly right. This time we've seen plenty of statistical noise from different methodology - and plenty giving Reform strongish polling. Some making different assumptions about how voters may behave or not at all - and we've broadly seen what effect it has on the results.
But absolutely none even close to the polling company founded by someone who funnily enough has staked what's left of their reputation on Reform doing much better than expected.
I've often tried to hide in a bush but I think this is a different context.
BREAKING NEWS from Islington North: One of the last Corbynistas in the CLP, chair Alison McGarry, has resigned tonight. Hear she was caught red-handed campaigning for Corbyn by several party activists. Realising she'd been rumbled, she attempted to hide behind a bush.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
Given that Boris thought that an MP's salary and benefits was nowhere near enough to live on its not surprising he didn't think immigrants would come for £20k jobs.
Although one running pattern since the start of Eastern European immigration (and likely before) is to underestimate economic migration among the lower paid.
The issue of dependents has almost certainly been abused as well.
I've often tried to hide in a bush but I think this is a different context.
BREAKING NEWS from Islington North: One of the last Corbynistas in the CLP, chair Alison McGarry, has resigned tonight. Hear she was caught red-handed campaigning for Corbyn by several party activists. Realising she'd been rumbled, she attempted to hide behind a bush.
I have to say that I - and, I suggest, plenty of others on here - looked a bit askance at HYUFD when he said that Reform could become a significant factor in British politics. But on this he's been proved right, right and right again!
I will have to try and find the post where I told @HYUFD some time ago (I think pre Truss) that there was zero chance of Farage returning to politics and he was a busted flush. He deserves crowing rights on that.
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
No one told the Greek Coastguard
Are you trying to justify a rogue coastguard ignoring Mariime law and anyway the coastguard will have the law to deal with
It is a shocking development that anyone could even think of sinking boats with migrants, and who has to deal with the consequences of rescuing those in peril but the crews of the RNLI and border force boats risking their own lives
Shocking to those of us leading comfortable lives in agreeable houses.
Not so much to those who havent seen a decent pay rise in years due to immigrant competition for low/unskilled Labour, whos rent is going up for a poor quality s***hole due to competition from migrants chasing the same housing stock, and pull their rotten teeth out with pliers as they cannot get a dentist. Then see on the news that illegal enterers are collected and put up in hotels with free food.
And there are rather a lot of the latter.
As I have said, unless decent leaders on occasion do indecent things on occasion for the greater good (like Churchill sinking the French fleet in Mers-El-Kebir killing thousands of French Sailors), they are replaced by indecent leaders who will do very indecent things.
The decent leader doing indecent thing in this occasion would be deporting all males of military age entering the country Illegally on such boats to Kigali in short order without appeal.
The indecent leader doing a very indecent thing would use the Navy to sink a boat pour les encouragement les autres.
I never thought I would read on here such a shocking and unacceptable statement
It truely saddens me and maybe if you had witnessed a woman or a child drown in such circumstances as the rescuers have then you would discover your humanity
That this kind of thinking is considered acceptable in some quarters is the consequence of the government demonising migrants for their own political advantage. They richly deserve to be wiped out.
No it's not. It's the consequence of thousands of people from the third world turning up here every week without us apparently being able to do anything at all about it.
Without the people you persist in voting for being able to doing anything about it. Because they are muppets and grifters.
Are you suggesting it will stop happening when Labour get in? Because? It seems unlikely.
I think things will improve a bit, yes.
If there was a sensible government who had this as a priority it absolutely could be fixed and with far less drama, costs and energy than the muppets have spent on it. Details and planning matter to outcome, not bluster.
Everyone agrees the Tories are fucked. But no one can decide how terminally they are.
And I don't think we're going to have a clearer picture until this time in 15 days, 10 minutes.
It may clarify. If polling continues along the lines of Tories around 20, then whatever else happens it is terminal - an extinction level event for the 2024-2029 parliament (though not IMHO terminal for the future - but that is a different debate.)
Of the last 11 only one has put them above 23. Of the last 20 only 3 have. That's called a trend.
All the Tories had to do was deliver on immigration and behave properly and they'd now be sitting at 30%+
I actually have a big header on it, and all the increase in immigration is two things:
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
Except health and social care visas were added after the other rules
They knew EXACTLY what they were doing
I remember it well because my employer at the time lobbied the govt for it !!
Remember, Russia said they would treat any ship heading towards, or leaving from, a Ukrainian port as part of the war effort, but their attempt to enforce a blockade has completely collapsed, and they are defeated in the Black Sea.
That people polling result for GB News seem waaaaaay off.... I don't trust that at all. It is just so out of kilter with all the other abundant data that there is something totally off there.
In 2017, wasn't Savanta way off? And turned out to be right?
"Farage is running away with this election because of the sheer emptiness of the leaders and programs of the Tory and Labour uniparty. In one ward we canvassed tonight @reformparty_uk had fully 50% of the vote."
Fell asleep and woke to that poll. An inaccurate poll is one you don't like. A weird poll remains an outlier till it becomes a trend. 1 in 20 will be. Trends can be MOE individually, but significant if repeated several times in the same direction. Most important. Canada 93 happened kind of like this.
Thought Labour played an extremely canny campaign right up to the manifesto launch. But seems to have gone into their ultra defensive shell. They need to hit Reform now.
"Farage is running away with this election because of the sheer emptiness of the leaders and programs of the Tory and Labour uniparty. In one ward we canvassed tonight @reformparty_uk had fully 50% of the vote."
It appears like Cameron's prophecy over social media users, his prophecy of UKIP / Reform candidates is also true.
Francis, forgive me, I spend less and less time on this site these days, but unless I'm wrong, I've picked up on you headed more in a centrist direction of late.
Am I wrong?
I am not sure I have headed anywhere.
I used to have you down as being broadly on the right of the Conservative Party, I assumed you would be very sympathetic to Reform etc. Instead, you appear to be going in the opposite direction.
Are you gonna vote Labour?
There are a fair few of us on here who are regarded as being right of centre but also anti-Tory but who would not vote Reform. Bart and myself are two straight away.
Everyone agrees the Tories are fucked. But no one can decide how terminally they are.
And I don't think we're going to have a clearer picture until this time in 15 days, 10 minutes.
It may clarify. If polling continues along the lines of Tories around 20, then whatever else happens it is terminal - an extinction level event for the 2024-2029 parliament (though not IMHO terminal for the future - but that is a different debate.)
Of the last 11 only one has put them above 23. Of the last 20 only 3 have. That's called a trend.
Isn’t it a pattern? A trend is when things are changing.
"Farage is running away with this election because of the sheer emptiness of the leaders and programs of the Tory and Labour uniparty. In one ward we canvassed tonight @reformparty_uk had fully 50% of the vote."
I've often tried to hide in a bush but I think this is a different context.
BREAKING NEWS from Islington North: One of the last Corbynistas in the CLP, chair Alison McGarry, has resigned tonight. Hear she was caught red-handed campaigning for Corbyn by several party activists. Realising she'd been rumbled, she attempted to hide behind a bush.
I've often tried to hide in a bush but I think this is a different context.
BREAKING NEWS from Islington North: One of the last Corbynistas in the CLP, chair Alison McGarry, has resigned tonight. Hear she was caught red-handed campaigning for Corbyn by several party activists. Realising she'd been rumbled, she attempted to hide behind a bush.
Remember, Russia said they would treat any ship heading towards, or leaving from, a Ukrainian port as part of the war effort, but their attempt to enforce a blockade has completely collapsed, and they are defeated in the Black Sea.
Something Sunak DOES deserve credit for. Sending the Storm Shadows really mattered.
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
No one told the Greek Coastguard
Are you trying to justify a rogue coastguard ignoring Mariime law and anyway the coastguard will have the law to deal with
It is a shocking development that anyone could even think of sinking boats with migrants, and who has to deal with the consequences of rescuing those in peril but the crews of the RNLI and border force boats risking their own lives
Shocking to those of us leading comfortable lives in agreeable houses.
Not so much to those who havent seen a decent pay rise in years due to immigrant competition for low/unskilled Labour, whos rent is going up for a poor quality s***hole due to competition from migrants chasing the same housing stock, and pull their rotten teeth out with pliers as they cannot get a dentist. Then see on the news that illegal enterers are collected and put up in hotels with free food.
And there are rather a lot of the latter.
As I have said, unless decent leaders on occasion do indecent things on occasion for the greater good (like Churchill sinking the French fleet in Mers-El-Kebir killing thousands of French Sailors), they are replaced by indecent leaders who will do very indecent things.
The decent leader doing indecent thing in this occasion would be deporting all males of military age entering the country Illegally on such boats to Kigali in short order without appeal.
The indecent leader doing a very indecent thing would use the Navy to sink a boat pour les encouragement les autres.
It's called blackmail to threaten killings if you don't get your way.
When you want the Government to do it, it’s called fascism.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War"
Serious question: have People Polling ever produced another poll which was, it turns out, a massive outlier?
Because if they have a history of this then that changes things. Yes I know it is Matt Goodwin etc etc but they are members of the BPC and I need a bit more evidence before dismissing this. But maybe such evidence exists?
@Leon, They are distinctly different from other pollsters. Generally speaking, they showed lower numbers for the Cons earlier, and are now showing Ref higher earlier. They are not well liked because Matthew Goodwin openly has OPINIONS and his background is slightly less mathematical (he doesn't conduct the poll, he commissions them from one of his inferiors in the University). I have a lot of time for him - he predicted the hole in the political space that the Brexit Party fitted into, and that the space Change UK were trying to occupy was far too crowded and would fail - but I don't know if his *polls* are right.
Polling depends on a lot of assumptions (weighting, turnout estimates) and problems (getting a balanced panel/representative panel), and Goodwin's choices, being different from the others, yield different polling results. I don't know if he has chosen correctly, and I won't know until after the election.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
The Greens have been polling noticeably higher than usual. What isn't happening is translating those polls into seats, and they may have anything between 0 and 4 seats in the election
Remember, Russia said they would treat any ship heading towards, or leaving from, a Ukrainian port as part of the war effort, but their attempt to enforce a blockade has completely collapsed, and they are defeated in the Black Sea.
Brilliant news! That the entire Black Sea Fleet is either on the bottom of the sea, damaged, or stuck in port in Novorossiysk, is a major victory for Ukraine.
Next challenge is to properly take out the Kerch Bridge, leave it so the repairs will take years.
Exc: At last night’s Surrey Heath hustings, Samantha Goggins, the Reform candidate suggested that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government - not General Galtieri - was to blame for the Falklands War
"We don't what's happening out there. We've already been put through the Afghan War by the Labour Party, the Falklands War by the Conservative Party, and we're possibly not too far away now from another war because obviously we are supporting the Ukraines as well."
This IS going to be a real problem for them. They have a lot of bat-shit useless candidates
The ideal result for Reform is a large vote - bigger than the Tories - but only a few seats - 20 max
This poll shows Reform winning places where they have no councillors, no party organisation of any kind. Its just got to be balls. Its not just that FPTP will stop them winning, its lack of votes full stop that will stop them winning.
Remember the OGH golden rule, a rogue poll is a poll with numbers you dislike
@nico679 is right. We cannot simpky dismiss this poll simply because you loathe what it tells you. As it is quite an outlier, we can be healthily skeptical is all. As ever, we need more polls to confirm if this is a trend, or just a random bit of overloud noise
If this is a trend this will be the most sensational election in the history of the universe
What may have been overlooked is the 8% Green which is the highest Green share since, erm, the last People Polling. The Greens have never previously polled higher than 3.8%.
That, at least, looks suspect.
The Greens have been polling noticeably higher than usual. What isn't happening is translating those polls into seats, and they may have anything between 0 and 4 seats in the election
It’s possible we see a large Green vote in quite a few safe Lab seats, and the usual swing back to the reds that we might expect doesn’t materialise if the seat isn’t thought to be in doubt. This might also lead to a few unexpected Tory holds on relatively small vote %age, with Lab/LD/Grn taking votes from each other behind.
Comments
That, at least, looks suspect.
There’s always one
They are going to have MP's as barking mad as MTG if they manage to get any elected.
With you on the question order - if the people who answered weren't all whipped up to vote Reform, they certainly would be after all that red meat. No way they'd get away with asking them first.
1) Farage is a self-obsessed, Trump pandering charlatan
2) Have a yearning for some level of competent government
3) Are happy with your current financial situation
4) Don't believe that Britain is broken even if it does need some change
But you do/did post a great deal about crime and immigration IIRC. Why aren't you swayed by reform, like Leon?
What could Farage do to get your vote?
However you make a good argument about the Nortstat poll
I can well believe that since the manifesto, and the last debate, Reform have now overtaken the Tories and maybe by a few points
As for crime, I guess, maybe. But the media are talking a lot about low level crime a fair bit too.
You definitely have me pegged wrongly if you think Farage is in the mix for my vote. Tory is as far to the right as I have ever voted and most recently that was anti-Corbyn more than excitement over the MayBot.
If it were by any other company you'd give it a degree of credence. But it's honestly a bit like Owen Jones running a pollster that says everyone hates Starmer and thinks Jeremy Corbyn is fab.
Both for different reasons have done bugger all to go after Reform .
And one poll Lab on 40%, the other on 35%, and both could be right on 37.5%
Which has a whiff of it not just being the actions of a few nasty individuals but of the sort of intermngling of state and criminality that was alleged to occur between security services and loyalists in NI.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo
George Galloway has called for a referendum on the future of the monarchy and said Princess Anne should be president if it is abolished.
The leader of the Workers Party of Britain made the tongue-in-cheek remark as he launched his party’s manifesto on Wednesday, which includes a call for voters to say whether they think monarchy should be abolished.
When asked by The Telegraph how Mr Galloway felt about raising the issue while the King and Princess of Wales undergo cancer treatment, Mr Galloway said: “Our issue is with unelected power... it’s why we oppose monarchy - nothing personal.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/19/eradicate-monarchy-but-make-princess-anne-president/
Lab: 38
Reform: 21
Con: 18
LDs: 13
Greens: 6
Which is still pretty amazing
BAXTERED tnat gives:
Lab: 465
Con: 65
LDs: 64
Reform: 9
Green: 2
SNP: 21
A ridiculous result! If that ever happened, I reckon Farage would be Tory leader within a month
If it's anything like this result by a pollster with a reasonable track record who are transparent about their methodology - then you'd talk about changes.
But chances are it's someone who has become quite a sad figure who everyone stopped taking seriously long ago, messing about again.
However, it is worth remember, every election we get some crazy outlier poll even from well respected pollsters. Remember the "day the polls turned" headlines which was based on what turned out to be some wildly inaccurate couple of polls.
It is the political equivalent of Turkey v Georgia last night. Endlessly entertaining and dramatic
And I thought it was going to be boring!
Incidentally I had Labour canvassers round today. I cannot think of a more pointless constituency to canvass. Starmer is leader and PM in waiting with a large majority, he is going to win by light years. Surely there are better places in London to use that Labour energy?
I'd be curious to know how many Conservatives think that giving and receiving millions of taxpayer's money for vague or non-existent services is genuine 'business' or 'trade'.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0vvjzw5ejno
'A candidate suspended by Labour after reports he shared "pro-Russian" material online has denied doing so - and claimed he has been "hung out to dry".
[...]
Mr Brown, who is standing in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, insisted he would never endorse such views, and suggested his Facebook account may have been hacked.'
The cost of living - excluding housing - isn't too bad, it is housing costs that crucify millions.
SKS is being sensible ...
Labour says that 'Britain is broken' but aren't offering anything different.
(1) Student numbers have gone from just over 200k in 2019 to 600k now. Now while most of those will return home eventually, the impact on last year's net migration number was still something like +400k (i.e. 200k students leaving, and 600k students arriving).
(2) Boris Johnson's government got the income thresholds wrong, and ended up with far more people applying for (and meeting the critera) for visas than expected.
Starmer is a lucky general, because students will come to the end of the courses, and while some (it's typically 20-22%) will find a way to remain, most will return home. Mathematically, if you keep student visas at 600k a year, then it means that net migration from students drops from 400k/year to 125k.
He's also a lucky general because Sunak already changed the income thresholds. This means that come 2025 there's a whole bunch fewer people who will qualify for work visas.
Without doing anything other than enjoy the consequences of decisions already taken, net migration to the UK is likely to drop significantly in the next three years.
That leads to appeasement and sometimes tacit support for dictators. It gives parts of the right common cause with the far left.
Reality being something like:
Lab 38/39
Tory 18/19
Ref 20/21
Which is still epoch making, putting this election up there with the GRA of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws, 1906, 1945 - and nothing at all since.
If that were the reality, then what we are noting is (probably temporary) crossover Ref/Tory - which has happened once before on 12/13 June, and a genuine significant rise in Reform, which is not unexpected but may not last.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, Watson, however improbable, must be the truth".
Speaking of impossibles, I rather need Scotland to win or draw this evening.
But as others have pointed out, in annoyance at my email about the relative numbers, what will really matter is the optics of small boats.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/22/revised-salary-threshold-uk-visas-families
And credible pollsters don't tend to always be wrong in one direction, when that happens to be the direction the person running the polls repeatedly makes clear that they would love to be true. They overestimated Lab in 2015 and so arguably overcorrected in 2017.
2019 got broadly right. This time we've seen plenty of statistical noise from different methodology - and plenty giving Reform strongish polling. Some making different assumptions about how voters may behave or not at all - and we've broadly seen what effect it has on the results.
But absolutely none even close to the polling company founded by someone who funnily enough has staked what's left of their reputation on Reform doing much better than expected.
BREAKING NEWS from Islington North: One of the last Corbynistas in the CLP, chair Alison McGarry, has resigned tonight. Hear she was caught red-handed campaigning for Corbyn by several party activists. Realising she'd been rumbled, she attempted to hide behind a bush.
https://x.com/lmharpin/status/1803521214536884437
Although one running pattern since the start of Eastern European immigration (and likely before) is to underestimate economic migration among the lower paid.
The issue of dependents has almost certainly been abused as well.
This election has everything, including comic relief.
Everyone agrees the Tories are fucked. But no one can decide how terminally they are.
And I don't think we're going to have a clearer picture until this time in 15 days, 10 minutes.
Just brilliant. There is so a Labour mole in CCHQ.
If there was a sensible government who had this as a priority it absolutely could be fixed and with far less drama, costs and energy than the muppets have spent on it. Details and planning matter to outcome, not bluster.
Of the last 11 only one has put them above 23. Of the last 20 only 3 have. That's called a trend.
https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1803532716303933544
They knew EXACTLY what they were doing
I remember it well because my employer at the time lobbied the govt for it !!
NEW THREAD
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-restores-ferry-service-with-georgia/
Remember, Russia said they would treat any ship heading towards, or leaving from, a Ukrainian port as part of the war effort, but their attempt to enforce a blockade has completely collapsed, and they are defeated in the Black Sea.
"Farage is running away with this election because of the sheer emptiness of the leaders and programs of the Tory and Labour uniparty. In one ward we canvassed tonight @reformparty_uk had fully 50% of the vote."
https://x.com/georgegalloway/status/1803197817214706022
I also just spoke to a professional political friend who said: "there is definitely something happening, Reform are getting votes everywhere"
Also entirely anecdotal so ANECDOTE KLAXON
But still, interesting
An inaccurate poll is one you don't like.
A weird poll remains an outlier till it becomes a trend. 1 in 20 will be.
Trends can be MOE individually, but significant if repeated several times in the same direction.
Most important. Canada 93 happened kind of like this.
Thought Labour played an extremely canny campaign right up to the manifesto launch. But seems to have gone into their ultra defensive shell.
They need to hit Reform now.
As you say, it feels very much like something is happening.
I love that.
An absolute shower of risible loons.
@Leon, They are distinctly different from other pollsters. Generally speaking, they showed lower numbers for the Cons earlier, and are now showing Ref higher earlier. They are not well liked because Matthew Goodwin openly has OPINIONS and his background is slightly less mathematical (he doesn't conduct the poll, he commissions them from one of his inferiors in the University). I have a lot of time for him - he predicted the hole in the political space that the Brexit Party fitted into, and that the space Change UK were trying to occupy was far too crowded and would fail - but I don't know if his *polls* are right.
Polling depends on a lot of assumptions (weighting, turnout estimates) and problems (getting a balanced panel/representative panel), and Goodwin's choices, being different from the others, yield different polling results. I don't know if he has chosen correctly, and I won't know until after the election.
Did I mention I'm not enjoying this election?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election
Next challenge is to properly take out the Kerch Bridge, leave it so the repairs will take years.