Omg this poll is in line with pp Lab: 38% Ref: 21% Con: 18% LD: 11%
No idea if the Daily Express pollster is any good.
But Baxtered it gives something like
LABOUR 453 LD 74 CON 50 REF 29 (!) GREEN 3 SNP 18
The Tories have voters everywhere. Reform have voters everywhere. Reform are relatively unpopular in Scotland (8%), London, and fairly unpopular in the leafy shires. All those places probably have more Tories living in them as a percentage of their voter tallies than Reform do. So where does the inefficiency of the Reform vote lie? Where are they stacking up all these voters in unwinnable seats to beat the Tories soundly but still lose so heavily on seat count? Yes the Tories have ground game and incumbency, but that would surely be accounted for in the topline figures? Surely the RefUK vote actually has the potential to be quite efficient?
It's a genuinely excellent question.
First question: are the UKIP and the Reform votes similar? UKIP got 13% of the vote in 2015, with very low shares in Scotland and London. (That said, pollsters are predicting that Reform get 8% in Scotland, so there's not *that* big a gap between their performance there and the rest of the country.)
Second question: is Reform likely to perform better in the old Red Wall, than in the Tory Shires?
Because what I suspect is happening right now is that the Conservative vote in the Red Wall has been absolutely hammered, with one in five of their voters going to Labour, and three in five going to Reform.
By contrast, in the Blue Wall, it's one in five off to LibDem/Labour and one in five off to Reform.
What this means is that Reform is clear second to Labour in the Red Wall, but doesn't win many seats. And Reform doesn't win that much in the Shires either.
The Conservative vote decline, by contrast, by being concentrated in the Red Wall, is quite efficient. They lose those seats, but they keep a fair number of the Blue Wall / shire seats.
My evidence for this is the Economist poll for Blackpool, which showed the Conservative vote decimated, with Reform soaring, but it not being enough to pass Labour (who also gained from the Conservative decline).
If Reform do get 20%+, expect they’ll sweep the board in South Essex, coastal Norfolk and Suffolk, and Lincolnshire.
I agree, Sean.
Do you attach any significance to the fact that these places are highly vulnerable to tidal erosion?
Short-term housing and tenures, bringing in low-wealth pensioners and low-skill immigrants?
Someone was writing about the scenario where if the LD’s were close to the Tories in seats and then a few Lab MPs defected so the LD’s had more seats that the Tories and so became the Official Opposition. Has this ever happened before, as in the opposition changing control outside of an election? Sorry if I missed it being mentioned before.
In that scenario the Tories would merge with Reform within a year unless we got PR
And a few Tory MPs would also shift to the Lib Dems...
Remember that for many people Reform are toxic....
I don't deny that but most would go Reform and amongst Tory voters and members overall currently it would be about 3/4 going Reform to 1/4 going LD. Farage as he has shown can also win over working class Leave ex Labour voters no Tory leader except Boris could
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Reminds me of that story George Best used to tell about someone who walked in on him in a hotel as he cavorted with with two naked girls and drank Champagne. Shaking his head, the intruder said: "Where did it all go wrong, George? Where did it all go wrong?"
Best had incredible skill. Us mortals have to rely on luck. There is a hell of a lot to be said for knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. The trick then is to make the most of it.
But remember Gary Player’s dictum: the harder I train the luckier I get
I’ve examined my life quite hard for a memoir I’m writing to be serialised in the gazette. My conclusion is that 1. Yes I am very lucky but 2. I have been lucky SO MANY TIMES there is something else at play
I conclude it is extreme emotional and verbal intelligence allied with notable general intelligence. The first is basically: charm. I’m superb at persuading people to pay for me to have a good time - because I amuse them and make them feel better about life. If you can do that it can take you far. Part of this is soothing upset people or cheering sad people or knowing how to work a crowd - do all that and people want you around and will actually pay you to simply be around - the “personality hire”
The second - G - is necessary for intellectual work. You can charm your way into great situations but then need to exploit them. I also have the basic IQ to do that - and the words
I was also born quite good looking - nothing spectacular but enough. Hence all the women
However I was also born with several handicaps. Addiction. A fucked up family. Alcoholism. Intense depression and manias tho thankfully sporadic
But then again - isn’t that all luck? I was dealt a very good genetic hand, some people are born blind deaf and stupid. I am no better than them. Just luckier
Omg this poll is in line with pp Lab: 38% Ref: 21% Con: 18% LD: 11%
No idea if the Daily Express pollster is any good.
But Baxtered it gives something like
LABOUR 453 LD 74 CON 50 REF 29 (!) GREEN 3 SNP 18
The Tories have voters everywhere. Reform have voters everywhere. Reform are relatively unpopular in Scotland (8%), London, and fairly unpopular in the leafy shires. All those places probably have more Tories living in them as a percentage of their voter tallies than Reform do. So where does the inefficiency of the Reform vote lie? Where are they stacking up all these voters in unwinnable seats to beat the Tories soundly but still lose so heavily on seat count? Yes the Tories have ground game and incumbency, but that would surely be accounted for in the topline figures? Surely the RefUK vote actually has the potential to be quite efficient?
Yes I don't understand how the Reform vote is more inefficient than the tory one? Perhaps REFORM are building up votes in very safe Labour seats in the north especially in the North East.
We will know at about 11pm on Thursday when Sunderland South result is up.
I think Bridget Philipsson will help them be okay there. However Washington and Gateshead South might have more of a chance. If that goes to Reform early on, I could very well see people panicking on the Exchange etc.
Not expecting Reform to win Sunderland South, but if a large storm is inccoming, Reform second place and how much they squeeze Labours majority is going to be the distant flashes of lightning on the horizon as the breeze starts to pick up.
Labour on Course to Win 470 Seats and Become the Largest Party in Scotland.
Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 470 CON 85 LD 56 SNP 12 RFM 4 PC 3 GRN 2
23,364 interviews conducted online and on the telephone Fwk 15th - 27th June
One third of seats are currently decided by fewer than 10 points, and 132 are decided by fewer than 5 points. In these seats, Labour leads in 65, the Conservatives in 47, and the Liberal Democrats in 10. Very small swings between now and the 4th July could have a dramatic influence on each party’s seat count.
Can we infer that, if tactical voting is higher than ever before, that makes all the difference as to who is LOTO?
Yep - that puts the Conservatives on 28 seats if things don't improve drastically..
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
But you supported Boris Johnson, the most stupid PM in my vast political memory, had Liz Truss not come long to make him look moderately clever. And I know, he went to Oxford. What did he do at Oxford? Classics. Sounds rather clever doesn't it, and even if you don't want to imagine that he might have been accepted in the way described in Porterhouse Blue, it should be remembered that only a tiny percentage of A-level students, even in those days, studied Latin and Greek. It was, and still is, I believe, the easiest subject area to gain access to Oxbridge colleges other than Land Economy.
It was Boris who beat Corbyn, Boris who got Brexit done and had Boris still been leader the Tories would not be heading for near annihilation but would be on 200 seats+ with Reform well under 10% still. We therefore would have a pro Ukraine leader of the right still, not a surging Farage and his Putin apologies. The markets would not have reacted so badly to Truss' budget either as there would have been no Truss budget and no PM Kwarteng.
So no I make NO apologies for backing Boris with his Classics degree rather than Truss and Sunak's PPE degrees. Fat lot of good they did them!
Any muppet could have beaten Corbyn at that point, and just to remind you, you voted Remain. Boris Johnson was a liar and a law breaker; a Trump-lite who has been a disaster for the Tories and the country. It would have been so much better for everyone if Stanley had worn a condom.
No they couldn't, May failed to do so in 2017 and Hunt wouldn't have done either. Yes I voted Remain but I also respected the referendum result.
On current trends all removing Boris has done is increased tenfold the chances of PM Farage within a decade instead
God, you are so deluded. You said in a previous post that you are not applying to be PM. Let us just rejoice at that news.
You will probably get PM Farage within a decade instead as I said and thoroughly deserve it!
This country is never going to elect that fascist, racist and quite right so!
In a world where Trump is heading back to the White House potentially and where Le Pen's party is heading for most seats in the legislative elections on Sunday I would not be sure of that at all.
Farage is more charismatic than Starmer, if he takes over the rump Tories and the economy is poor under a Labour government he could become PM on just 30% of the vote if Reform overtook Labour
If Farage took over the Tories I'd expect Labour to top 50% in the following election, not let Farage win on 30% (not that he'd get it).
Farage is more vile and hated and Putinist than even Jeremy Corbyn and he will never win an election.
There's a reason Cummings didn't let Farage anywhere near the front line during the Brexit campaign.
The Vote Leave campaign was utter shambolic shit. Farage's Leave.eu campaign was far better, and Cummings' "5D chess" reputation for winning Brexit is entirely unwarranted. Vote leave probably cost the Leave campaign a far more convincing victory.
It's a view.
Farage nearly derailed Brexit with his rogue posters.
Brexit was only delivered because it was fronted by Boris. Farage was toxic to those who could accept Brexit under Boris.
It is quite entertaining to observe how Nigel Farage has the ability to drive people in to a total incoherant frenzy. He manages to make his opponents mad without actually doing anything significant. It isn't like he is calling his opponents 'scum', or saying that all debate should be stopped as it is 'hatred', as left wing politicians have done in the past few years. Regarding Reform supporters, it isn't like they are pulling down statues, vandalising ancient monuments, blocking ambulances etc. This all feels like the usual thing of a free pass for the far left but impossibly high standards applied to anyone on the 'far right'.
I loath the far left, but it may need pointing out to you that the far right,even just in this country, has set rather a lot more dangerous historical precedents than just pulling down statues. Fascism needs calling out. Yes there are lots of idiots who want to pretend that label doesn't apply to Farage, but the cap fits him very well.
Farage sees himself as doing a public service for democracy by representing a swathe of public opinion that the elite find repulsive. He brings it in to the political mainstream. That is what he did with Brexit and that is what he is doing now. Ultimately you have to choose between this and an actual far right/fascist situation. I would say though in addition that 'fascism' has really lost its meaning, it seems more like a rhetorical tool for debating purposes, if you can be branded a fascist then it is a red card, you are out of the game in disgrace. It all gets a bit tiring.
Not really, it has a meaning.
And Farage is one.
There is nothing wrong with honesty and it is free speech to call him what he is.
Free speech but hyperbolic and makes the word meaningless if done often enough.
Not hyperbolic at all, unless you believe that the insurrectionist election denying Trump should not be described as such. Farage is a Trump supporting Putin apologist with a penchant for far right leaders including Marine La Penn. He is called out as a racist by the original founder of UKIP and was described as a fascist by his independent school house master.
Anyone that doesn't recognise Farage as a fascist is politically naïve, blind or a fellow traveller.
I honestly don't think Farage is fascist. He would not wear brown shirts and turn his nose up at some of the things fascists would have to do - he would see such things are distinctly unEnglish (leaving aside Moseley, Canning et al). IMO he also does not fit the fascist definition,
If anything, he's worse. He's no fool, and he appeals to the fascist instincts in people to further his own ends. He will appeal to the worst in people to get votes, and look for simplistic answer to problems that are always, invariably, "it's someone else's fault!"
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
But you supported Boris Johnson, the most stupid PM in my vast political memory, had Liz Truss not come long to make him look moderately clever. And I know, he went to Oxford. What did he do at Oxford? Classics. Sounds rather clever doesn't it, and even if you don't want to imagine that he might have been accepted in the way described in Porterhouse Blue, it should be remembered that only a tiny percentage of A-level students, even in those days, studied Latin and Greek. It was, and still is, I believe, the easiest subject area to gain access to Oxbridge colleges other than Land Economy.
It was Boris who beat Corbyn, Boris who got Brexit done and had Boris still been leader the Tories would not be heading for near annihilation but would be on 200 seats+ with Reform well under 10% still. We therefore would have a pro Ukraine leader of the right still, not a surging Farage and his Putin apologies. The markets would not have reacted so badly to Truss' budget either as there would have been no Truss budget and no PM Kwarteng.
So no I make NO apologies for backing Boris with his Classics degree rather than Truss and Sunak's PPE degrees. Fat lot of good they did them!
Any muppet could have beaten Corbyn at that point, and just to remind you, you voted Remain. Boris Johnson was a liar and a law breaker; a Trump-lite who has been a disaster for the Tories and the country. It would have been so much better for everyone if Stanley had worn a condom.
No they couldn't, May failed to do so in 2017 and Hunt wouldn't have done either. Yes I voted Remain but I also respected the referendum result.
On current trends all removing Boris has done is increased tenfold the chances of PM Farage within a decade instead
God, you are so deluded. You said in a previous post that you are not applying to be PM. Let us just rejoice at that news.
You will probably get PM Farage within a decade instead as I said and thoroughly deserve it!
This country is never going to elect that fascist, racist and quite right so!
In a world where Trump is heading back to the White House potentially and where Le Pen's party is heading for most seats in the legislative elections on Sunday I would not be sure of that at all.
Farage is more charismatic than Starmer, if he takes over the rump Tories and the economy is poor under a Labour government he could become PM on just 30% of the vote if Reform overtook Labour
If Farage took over the Tories I'd expect Labour to top 50% in the following election, not let Farage win on 30% (not that he'd get it).
Farage is more vile and hated and Putinist than even Jeremy Corbyn and he will never win an election.
There's a reason Cummings didn't let Farage anywhere near the front line during the Brexit campaign.
The Vote Leave campaign was utter shambolic shit. Farage's Leave.eu campaign was far better, and Cummings' "5D chess" reputation for winning Brexit is entirely unwarranted. Vote leave probably cost the Leave campaign a far more convincing victory.
Labour on Course to Win 470 Seats and Become the Largest Party in Scotland.
Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 470 CON 85 LD 56 SNP 12 RFM 4 PC 3 GRN 2
23,364 interviews conducted online and on the telephone Fwk 15th - 27th June
One third of seats are currently decided by fewer than 10 points, and 132 are decided by fewer than 5 points. In these seats, Labour leads in 65, the Conservatives in 47, and the Liberal Democrats in 10. Very small swings between now and the 4th July could have a dramatic influence on each party’s seat count.
Can we infer that, if tactical voting is higher than ever before, that makes all the difference as to who is LOTO?
Yep - that puts the Conservatives on 28 seats if things don't improve drastically..
If in reality it’s Reform 21 con 18, it’s probably 60 seats to 28.
Farage claims Andrew Parker is an actor. Source = BBC radio 4 news at 6.
Old news. Either he or someone who looks very like him with the same name is a well spoken Equity Card Carrying actor who according to the Actor of the same names website which has a video has a speciality for "rough voice" Alf Garnettesque ranting and appears to have been in "rough voice" character when caught in Channel 4s sting.
Fargle helpfully linked to said website in a tweet this morning and is harvesting hay over it
I suspect this guy just hams it up playing an Alf Garnett character for his own entertainment rather than it being a set up.
I think this is a possibility. However even if that is the case, the damage is done and Channel 4 really should have done a bit of due diligence on him before releasing their scoop.
Omg this poll is in line with pp Lab: 38% Ref: 21% Con: 18% LD: 11%
No idea if the Daily Express pollster is any good.
But Baxtered it gives something like
LABOUR 453 LD 74 CON 50 REF 29 (!) GREEN 3 SNP 18
The Tories have voters everywhere. Reform have voters everywhere. Reform are relatively unpopular in Scotland (8%), London, and fairly unpopular in the leafy shires. All those places probably have more Tories living in them as a percentage of their voter tallies than Reform do. So where does the inefficiency of the Reform vote lie? Where are they stacking up all these voters in unwinnable seats to beat the Tories soundly but still lose so heavily on seat count? Yes the Tories have ground game and incumbency, but that would surely be accounted for in the topline figures? Surely the RefUK vote actually has the potential to be quite efficient?
Yes I don't understand how the Reform vote is more inefficient than the tory one? Perhaps REFORM are building up votes in very safe Labour seats in the north especially in the North East.
We will know at about 11pm on Thursday when Sunderland South result is up.
I think Bridget Philipsson will help them be okay there. However Washington and Gateshead South might have more of a chance. If that goes to Reform early on, I could very well see people panicking on the Exchange etc.
Not expecting Reform to win Sunderland South, but if a large storm is inccoming, Reform second place and how much they squeeze Labours majority is going to be the distant flashes of lightning on the horizon as the breeze starts to pick up.
It was is very interesting to hear how much leg Sir Kier 'Send the Bangladeshis home' Starmer is flashing in the direction of perceived Reform voters at the moment - perhaps their private polling is telling them that their position in the red wall isn't as safe as they'd like to think. There's definitely more Tory vote for Reform to squeeze, and Labour voters aren't that convinced either.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Reminds me of that story George Best used to tell about someone who walked in on him in a hotel as he cavorted with with two naked girls and drank Champagne. Shaking his head, the intruder said: "Where did it all go wrong, George? Where did it all go wrong?"
Best had incredible skill. Us mortals have to rely on luck. There is a hell of a lot to be said for knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. The trick then is to make the most of it.
But remember Gary Player’s dictum: the harder I train the luckier I get
I’ve examined my life quite hard for a memoir I’m writing to be serialised in the gazette. My conclusion is that 1. Yes I am very lucky but 2. I have been lucky SO MANY TIMES there is something else at play
I conclude it is extreme emotional and verbal intelligence allied with notable general intelligence. The first is basically: charm. I’m superb at persuading people to pay for me to have a good time - because I amuse them and make them feel better about life. If you can do that it can take you far. Part of this is soothing upset people or cheering sad people or knowing how to work a crowd - do all that and people want you around and will actually pay you to simply be around - the “personality hire”
The second - G - is necessary for intellectual work. You can charm your way into great situations but then need to exploit them. I also have the basic IQ to do that - and the words
I was also born quite good looking - nothing spectacular but enough. Hence all the women
However I was also born with several handicaps. Addiction. A fucked up family. Alcoholism. Intense depression and manias tho thankfully sporadic
But then again - isn’t that all luck? I was dealt a very good genetic hand, some people are born blind deaf and stupid. I am no better than them. Just luckier
So in the end you are quite right! It is all luck
You are very perceptive , to the point of knowing what is funny but original. Also I dont think you could have written the books you have with being "lazy" (rather like Boris) . But that is probably your artistic exaggeration .
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
If you take the view that the Leave vote was motivated, at least in part, due to a portion of the electorate thinking immigration was too high, then, to borrow from T. May, nothing has changed.
This also explains why Reform are getting close to 20% in the polls.
Something tells me that whatever the Labour government will or won't be, it won't be tough on immigration. The question is whether or not the percentage of the population who are hopping mad about immigration tops out at 20% or so max, or continue to rise as problems like the housing crisis grows more acute.
I linked to a FT article that suggested an eightfold rise in middle aged renters by 2030. Figures are slightly suss, but there's already been a 20% rise in the last 11 years.
Build more houses and the housing crisis will dissipate.
Our population is growing at a pretty staid percentage not a massive one, demographic changes mean we need more housing with or without migration and migration obviously mean we need even more, but we need more either way.
The people who are absurd are those who want mass migration but no construction and no reform to our planning system as they support NIMBYism - that is a recipe for disaster.
But fix planning, let people build houses, and I couldn't care less how many migrants come to this country.
Every millionaire going off abroad is an opportunity for a developer to buy their large house in its grounds, flatten it and build lots of blocks of social housing flats as happened wholesale in Clapham Park (London SW12) after world war 2.
Indeed it induces their horrified wealthy neighbours to do the same starting a beneficial chain reaction.
A million pounds won't buy you a three bedroom terrace in zone 2.
That's the problem.
A million pounds sounds like a lot of money, but in fact it won't buy you a family home in most of London and parts of the south east. Which is, of course, where most of the jobs are.
Yet up until the mid 1990s you could have bought those houses for 3x your annual salary in your 20s with a decent grad job.
Fast forward to 2024 and you have a ton of boomers sitting on £1m+ paper gains taxable at 0%, while anyone unfortunate enough to be born later than that can't afford a house, can't afford a family, can't save for a deposit, gets shafted by landlords and taxed out the wazoo by successive governments.
Generational inequality caused by a distorted housing market is the UK's #1 problem that won't be fixed, because to tackle it would be the dementia tax on steroids.
So the young must suffer.
The one thing I picked up on my last project was that house prices in London need to stay where they are to make future building projects such as Barratt's new Park Royal project viable.
Yes I know that doesn't solve the problems of how do you buy a house when you earn a normal wage in London but it shows another part of the issue.
Labour on Course to Win 470 Seats and Become the Largest Party in Scotland.
Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 470 CON 85 LD 56 SNP 12 RFM 4 PC 3 GRN 2
23,364 interviews conducted online and on the telephone Fwk 15th - 27th June
I’m actually starting to feel the pang of disappointment when MRPs don’t have the Lib Dems as official opposition.
Another reason we shouldn’t have opinion polls. If we didn’t, non-Tories would be praying for a reduced Conservative majority or, in their dreams, even a hung parliament.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Been happy?
Overrated, happiness. You get nothing done
Tho actually I am seriously happy right now sitting here in the sun drinking free wine on Ushant
Na, if you were happy, you wouldn't feel the need to boast to complete strangers. I have to say you do provide a most interesting psychological study.
I think that's wrong, in my experience. Happiness leads to wanting to tell everyone all about it, even your imaginary friends on the internet. Misery, you tend to retreat more into silence.
Well quite. Also I enjoy the “local pub” aspect of PB when I am abroad. We have often discussed this
I am very open about my emotions on this site. During lockdown 3 I was probably at the lowest point of my life - totally alone, my beautiful young wife had left me, stuck in a 1 bed flat during that terrible terrible winter - I was very close to suicide indeed I essentially attempted it a couple of times - driving at 140mph on UK A roads etc
I think PB was one reason I am still here and happy on a Breton island. And I am grateful for that
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Been happy?
Overrated, happiness. You get nothing done
Tho actually I am seriously happy right now sitting here in the sun drinking free wine on Ushant
Na, if you were happy, you wouldn't feel the need to boast to complete strangers. I have to say you do provide a most interesting psychological study.
I think that's wrong, in my experience. Happiness leads to wanting to tell everyone all about it, even your imaginary friends on the internet. Misery, you tend to retreat more into silence.
Not sure I agree. People who are happy and of a boastful nature tend to boast to friends on FB. People are not happy feel the need to boast to people who don't really know them. It is safer as they can't be fact checked.
Anyway at risk of you thinking I am retreating into silence, it is time to go for a walk with dog and then go to pub!
Omg this poll is in line with pp Lab: 38% Ref: 21% Con: 18% LD: 11%
No idea if the Daily Express pollster is any good.
But Baxtered it gives something like
LABOUR 453 LD 74 CON 50 REF 29 (!) GREEN 3 SNP 18
The Tories have voters everywhere. Reform have voters everywhere. Reform are relatively unpopular in Scotland (8%), London, and fairly unpopular in the leafy shires. All those places probably have more Tories living in them as a percentage of their voter tallies than Reform do. So where does the inefficiency of the Reform vote lie? Where are they stacking up all these voters in unwinnable seats to beat the Tories soundly but still lose so heavily on seat count? Yes the Tories have ground game and incumbency, but that would surely be accounted for in the topline figures? Surely the RefUK vote actually has the potential to be quite efficient?
Yes I don't understand how the Reform vote is more inefficient than the tory one? Perhaps REFORM are building up votes in very safe Labour seats in the north especially in the North East.
We will know at about 11pm on Thursday when Sunderland South result is up.
I think Bridget Philipsson will help them be okay there. However Washington and Gateshead South might have more of a chance. If that goes to Reform early on, I could very well see people panicking on the Exchange etc.
Not expecting Reform to win Sunderland South, but if a large storm is inccoming, Reform second place and how much they squeeze Labours majority is going to be the distant flashes of lightning on the horizon as the breeze starts to pick up.
It was is very interesting to hear how much leg Sir Kier 'Send the Bangladeshis home' Starmer is flashing in the direction of perceived Reform voters at the moment - perhaps their private polling is telling them that their position in the red wall isn't as safe as they'd like to think. There's definitely more Tory vote for Reform to squeeze, and Labour voters aren't that convinced either.
The problem with Bangladeshgate, is that if 3/5th of 2019 voters have broken for reform and 1/5 for Labour as @rcs1000 suggests, Labour will win, providing a trance of their core voters don't vote for Gorgeous George which Bangladeshgate might ensure.
The Reform UK vote inefficiency will arise because first, 30% doesn't yield a much better probability of winning a seat than 10%. Second, the seats you win on 30% tend to have multiple rivals close to your vote, so your seats are vulnerable to two-party swings between your close rivals that have nothing to do with you. Finally, if the vote distribution is similar to Ukip in 2015, then even on 20% in England and Wales, they would only exceed 30% in a few dozen seats.
The Lib Dem standard deviation for their vote is extraordinarily high. If you're a minor party (Everyone but Labour at the moment lol) then a humongous variation on your vote from seat to seat is what you want.
"On Wednesday Green was mainly canvassing previous Conservative and swing voters in Blackrod, a small commuter town with sweeping countryside views. Most of those who answered the door stated that they were undecided or would not be voting at all. “You haven’t got mine,” replied painter and decorator James Mullen, 73, when Green asked if he could count on his vote. “It’s all this betting.”
He recounted in disgust the scandal that has hit the Conservatives over the past fortnight, in which 12 individuals — including Tory candidates, party officials and police officers — have been placed under investigation over bets they placed on an early election date. "
Possibly the worst decision this court has made, and heaven knows it's been a utter shitshow since Trump's appointments. It's an enormous power grab by the Court at the expense of Congress, and demonstrates a contempt for the stare decisis doctrine that is deeper than the Dodds decision.
Kagan's dissent is well argued, and appropriately scathing. She made a point of reading it from the bench.
I must say that the idea of deference to a regulator by the court as to what a law means does seem an odd concept. Our courts will show deference to expert Tribunals regulating particular areas but not to the regulator itself.
The problem with the American system is that their courts seem a long way from impartial arbiter of our courts and they also, of course, have the power to strike down so much regulation and indeed legislation. This gives the courts more power than the politicians in many respects. When you have a partisan court, such as now, that is a real problem.
It strikes me the UK election is the final hurrah, the last supper, the stag or hen do, for the social democratic and liberal ascendency in the West. The exception that proves the rule.
A populist right wing party is about to be kicked out of office in potentially spectacular style (don’t @ me, they are populist right wing: heavy on the divisive rhetoric, light on policy, economically centrist, elements of statism, classic populist - see Orban, Erdogan, Putin etc).
The rest of the West is going into its populist phase. America is getting Trump back. He may well fix the system so his people are in forever. Le Pen’s people are going to be running France. India is already captured, Germany is rediscovering its fashy heritage. But here in Britain we have a few years of Keir before PM Farage in 2029. Meanwhile the world’s burning up and China’s deciding when to press the Taiwan button.
So we should embrace it, right and left. Celebrate the fin de siècle before the decent into hell and the possible nuclear holocaust.
I am considering an ultra woke fancy dress party for election night, celebrating our short lived supremacy before the republic of Gilead descends.
Labour on Course to Win 470 Seats and Become the Largest Party in Scotland.
Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 470 CON 85 LD 56 SNP 12 RFM 4 PC 3 GRN 2
23,364 interviews conducted online and on the telephone Fwk 15th - 27th June
I’m actually starting to feel the pang of disappointment when MRPs don’t have the Lib Dems as official opposition.
Another reason we shouldn’t have opinion polls. If we didn’t, non-Tories would be praying for a reduced Conservative majority or, in their dreams, even a hung parliament.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
I agree with your basic premise, it’s just that I don’t think they want right wing polices so much as a Government that does what it is told to.
Brexit was a cry of frustration because nobody ever listened to the public saying they wanted to go no further. And then they got disenchanted that it still didn’t happen, and we got 2019.
But I think it has led to volatility meaning Starmer isn’t guaranteed his second term, and the Tories aren’t guaranteed to replace him.
Boris Johnson fucked up in setting the post-Brexit income thresholds too low, which resulted in far more people coming than was anticipated.
His successors were then slow - very slow - to recognize this.
I find it astonishing that it wasn't recognized by either Johnson or Sunak (and his Home Secretaries) that numbers coming were way above forecast, and were resulting in much higher net migration than was the case when the UK was part of the EU.
And here Starmer is a very lucky General.
Firstly, higher income thresholds were put in place for visas. Now, you can argue that £38,700 is still too low (or alternatively that it is far too simplistic, given that a 21 year old earning £39k is very different to a 45 year old), but it is still almost 40% above the old threshold. That means that a very substantial number of people who were eligible for visas before, are no longer eligible. And it is Starmer who who will see the benefit.
Secondly, a large chunk of the increase in net immigration in the last three years has been student numbers. We've gone from 180k student (and dependent) visas issued a year to something like 600k. Based on experience most of those people will go home at the end of their courses. But there is an approximately three year period during which the number of students (and dependents) resident in the UK is rising fast. Once you get to the 3 or 4 year anniversary - and particularly if it is matched by smaller numbers of students coming - then the net impact falls dramatically.
Starmer, if he does absolutely nothing, will be Prime Minister, when net immigration numbers fall quite significantly. Because maths.
That’s fair, but immigration isn’t the whole ballgame here, and anyway to the aggrieved (I am not one of them) the numbers won’t “feel” lower because Xm arrived in the last couple of years.
The general “nothing works” frustration will remain because there’s no cash.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Reminds me of that story George Best used to tell about someone who walked in on him in a hotel as he cavorted with with two naked girls and drank Champagne. Shaking his head, the intruder said: "Where did it all go wrong, George? Where did it all go wrong?"
Best had incredible skill. Us mortals have to rely on luck. There is a hell of a lot to be said for knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. The trick then is to make the most of it.
But remember Gary Player’s dictum: the harder I train the luckier I get
I’ve examined my life quite hard for a memoir I’m writing to be serialised in the gazette. My conclusion is that 1. Yes I am very lucky but 2. I have been lucky SO MANY TIMES there is something else at play
I conclude it is extreme emotional and verbal intelligence allied with notable general intelligence. The first is basically: charm. I’m superb at persuading people to pay for me to have a good time - because I amuse them and make them feel better about life. If you can do that it can take you far. Part of this is soothing upset people or cheering sad people or knowing how to work a crowd - do all that and people want you around and will actually pay you to simply be around - the “personality hire”
The second - G - is necessary for intellectual work. You can charm your way into great situations but then need to exploit them. I also have the basic IQ to do that - and the words
I was also born quite good looking - nothing spectacular but enough. Hence all the women
However I was also born with several handicaps. Addiction. A fucked up family. Alcoholism. Intense depression and manias tho thankfully sporadic
But then again - isn’t that all luck? I was dealt a very good genetic hand, some people are born blind deaf and stupid. I am no better than them. Just luckier
So in the end you are quite right! It is all luck
If your memoirs are to be serialized it is a good reason to cancel my subscription and I will be sure to tell them why
Comments
I’ve examined my life quite hard for a memoir I’m writing to be serialised in the gazette. My conclusion is that 1. Yes I am very lucky but 2. I have been lucky SO MANY TIMES there is something else at play
I conclude it is extreme emotional and verbal intelligence allied with notable general intelligence. The first is basically: charm. I’m superb at persuading people to pay for me to have a good
time - because I amuse them and make them feel better about life. If you can do that it can take you far. Part of this is soothing upset people or cheering sad people or knowing how to work a crowd - do all that and people want you around and will actually pay you to simply be around - the “personality hire”
The second - G - is necessary for intellectual work. You can charm your way into great situations but then need to exploit them. I also have the basic IQ to do that - and the words
I was also born quite good looking - nothing spectacular but enough. Hence all the women
However I was also born with several handicaps. Addiction. A fucked up family. Alcoholism. Intense
depression and manias tho thankfully sporadic
But then again - isn’t that all luck? I was dealt a very good genetic hand, some people are born blind deaf and stupid. I am no better than them. Just luckier
So in the end you are quite right! It is all luck
Farage nearly derailed Brexit with his rogue posters.
Brexit was only delivered because it was fronted by Boris. Farage was toxic to those who could accept Brexit under Boris.
If anything, he's worse. He's no fool, and he appeals to the fascist instincts in people to further his own ends. He will appeal to the worst in people to get votes, and look for simplistic answer to problems that are always, invariably, "it's someone else's fault!"
Yes I know that doesn't solve the problems of how do you buy a house when you earn a normal wage in London but it shows another part of the issue.
Another reason we shouldn’t have opinion polls. If we didn’t, non-Tories would be praying for a reduced Conservative majority or, in their dreams, even a hung parliament.
NEW THREAD
I am very open about my emotions on this site. During lockdown 3 I was probably at the lowest point of my life - totally alone, my beautiful young wife had left me, stuck in a 1 bed flat during that terrible terrible winter - I was very close to suicide indeed I essentially attempted it a couple of times - driving at 140mph on UK A roads etc
I think PB was one reason I am still here and happy on a Breton island. And I am grateful for that
Anyway at risk of you thinking I am retreating into silence, it is time to go for a walk with dog and then go to pub!
The problem with the American system is that their courts seem a long way from impartial arbiter of our courts and they also, of course, have the power to strike down so much regulation and indeed legislation. This gives the courts more power than the politicians in many respects. When you have a partisan court, such as now, that is a real problem.
A populist right wing party is about to be kicked out of office in potentially spectacular style (don’t @ me, they are populist right wing: heavy on the divisive rhetoric, light on policy, economically centrist, elements of statism, classic populist - see Orban, Erdogan, Putin etc).
The rest of the West is going into its populist phase. America is getting Trump back. He may well fix the system so his people are in forever. Le Pen’s people are going to be running France. India is already captured, Germany is rediscovering its fashy heritage. But here in Britain we have a few years of Keir before PM Farage in 2029. Meanwhile the world’s burning up and China’s deciding when to press the Taiwan button.
So we should embrace it, right and left. Celebrate the fin de siècle before the decent into hell and the possible nuclear holocaust.
I am considering an ultra woke fancy dress party for election night, celebrating our short lived supremacy before the republic of Gilead descends.
The general “nothing works” frustration will remain because there’s no cash.
Libdems. Runnymede and weybridge 9/1.