We've just seen a hedgehog in the garden; the first I've seen in the twelve years we've been here. It's moving about a little, and seems to be trying to hide (rather unsuccessfully) under a bush to sleep.
I was well used to seeing hedgehogs as a kid (both my childhood homes had regular visitors, and one had hedgehogs living in the small area of wasteland at the bottom of the garden.), but it still feels quite magical.
It's the first hedgehog my son's seen in the wild. And we saw it during his birthday breakfast!
(Sadly, he does not believe i arranged it for him as a birthday treat..)
That’s so so cute. How lovely for your son.
Makes my morning happier. Thank you for sharing. There are quite a few nature lovers on here.
@BarackObama 'Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November' https://x.com/BarackObama/status/1806758633230709017
@BillClinton 'I’ll leave the debate rating to the pundits, but here’s what I know: facts and history matter. Joe Biden has given us 3 years of solid leadership, steadying us after the pandemic, creating a record number of new jobs, making real progress solving the climate crisis, and launching a successful effort in reducing inflation, all while pulling us out of the quagmire Donald Trump left us in. That’s what’s really at stake in November.' https://x.com/BillClinton/status/1806793781070729466
@HillaryClinton 'The choice in this election remains very simple.
It's a choice between someone who cares about you—your rights, your prospects, your future—versus someone who's only in it for himself.
Keep silent. Keep your peace at least over this weekend and see what the wider party thinks. FFS.
As they know Biden has proved he can beat Trump, other Democrats haven't (as Hillary knows only too well).
It will be a stage managed Dem convention I expect with Obama and Bill Clinton speaking on successive nights laying into Trump and backing Biden. It being after the GOP convention likely takes any poll bounce longer into September. Biden is also better now scripted than off the cuff, his speech at the NC rally today was fiery and passionate, far better than last night.
None of this matters. These are good and decent people. They know he's not up to four more years.
Trump is supposed to be the biggest liar to ever run for president.
But surely this is becoming a bigger lie?
Biden is not fit to be president. There is no fucking way around this.
All the rest is malarky as he would say.
Show me ONE poll showing any other Democrat doing better v Trump than Biden, who actually DID beat Trump in 2020 is?
Until then Biden not only can but must stay in the race as he remains the best the Democrats have got to beat Trump in the rustbelt
Whitmer!
Show me the poll then?
None of these polls would mean anything in relation to a hypothetical candidate. Your unshifting faith in the present or past as opposed to what could happen in future is somewhat bizarre,
Thoughts and prayers for all those Tories who want to leave the ECHR but hate Labour's attack on private schools.
FWIW - I think Lord Pannick is wrong.
Sir Keir Starmer’s planned VAT raid on private schools is likely to breach human rights law, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Labour leader risks falling foul of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) law over his party’s flagship policy, one of Britain’s top constitutional and human rights lawyers has warned.
Lord Pannick, who has taken on some of the UK’s most high-profile court cases, backed legal advice warning that making private schools subject to VAT was likely to breach ECHR law.
He told The Telegraph: “It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education.
I’m surprised Pannick has this view . The child can go to a state school . The Labour policy isn’t stopping the child’s education.
Though people do have a right to choose.
Are any other educational materials or facilities subject to VAT?
I don't believe educational books are, I believe they're exempt?
If all educational stuff is exempt except one thing, then there's a case to be argued.
All books are zero-rated aren't they?
Yes. All written materials. Newspapers, magazines, books.
Actually I thought books designed to be written in were VAT rated, except for educational materials? May be wrong on that though.
Not sure what you mean by 'designed to be written' (genuinely, I don't understand the phrase).
All books are VAT exempt. Novels, text books, basically any book you can buy that is actually printed is exempt from VAT. Same goes for newsapers and magazines. Ebooks were subject to VAT until 2020 when they were included in the exemption.
Books designed to be written in - means notebooks / diaries on which VAT has to be charged.
A long line of Democrat strategists and media are ‘encouraging’ the party to swap out Mr Biden for someone younger at their Convention, after his poor debate performance on Thursday night:
I think all 100% of media and 0% of non-bonkers Democrats would want this done *at the convention*. The media will want that for maximum drama but it's not at all in the interests of the party to give it to them.
But since there's no non-stitch-up way to do this the sensible thing would be to do any stiching up in advance and present the Biden delegates with Biden's recommendation. If the goal is to pick someone who isn't Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, make a committee of bigwigs and local representatives and give them a week or so to interview the candidates and pick the one most likely to beat Trump.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It's bizarre to me how many laws seem to overreach into other areas. How on earth could there be a human right to a private school free of VAT?
It's complete legal invention. Creating 9 from 2 + 2 out of whole cloth. "Ah but the courts only interpret what the laws are, parliament sets those" has been the cry for years here. And yes I know Pannick isn't a judge but it's just the mindset taken to the extreme here, and he's only not a judge because he doesn't fancy the paycut. This is simply Finch Vs Surrey county council taken a step further. It's one of the reasons we can't actually get anything done. Courts and lawyers are getting too big for their boots and it's one of the strongest reasons to my mind for voting for those who might actually do something about it.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
We've just seen a hedgehog in the garden; the first I've seen in the twelve years we've been here. It's moving about a little, and seems to be trying to hide (rather unsuccessfully) under a bush to sleep.
I was well used to seeing hedgehogs as a kid (both my childhood homes had regular visitors, and one had hedgehogs living in the small area of wasteland at the bottom of the garden.), but it still feels quite magical.
It's the first hedgehog my son's seen in the wild. And we saw it during his birthday breakfast!
(Sadly, he does not believe i arranged it for him as a birthday treat..)
We have seen a big uptick in hedgehogs. But that is down to the local bagder cull.
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
I am still amused that you think Dan Neidle's opinion counts more than 40 years worth of Law Lords' opinions. As I said before this is not just Pannick holding this view.
But of course the way to find out is to test it. It is 99% certain that when Labour bring in the VAT, it will be appealed all the way to the ECHR. That is the way to decide these things.
Of course there is a problem there. If it is appealed and the Labour Government loses then
1. There will have been schools which have shut down due to an illegal policy. 2. There will be a massive compensation bill paid for by the UK taxpayer.
It seems to me there should be some way that binding opinions can be sought from the ECHR without first actually having gone through the whole process and therefore potentially committing an illegal act with all the consequences for both the schools, the Government and the taxpayer.
Does such a system exist and if not, what is the reasoning behind that?
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
Paul Heaton - as good as ever especially with Fat Boy Slim making an appearance Seventeen - interesting, cameras didn’t know what to focus on though. expect to see BTS next year PJ Harvey - still PJ Harvey
And as you say Dua Lipa slick, enjoyable, but missing something
Agreed. I’ll try and catch up on Paul Heaton. Apparently Olivia Dean was really good too.
And yes PJ Harvey! I did watch some of hers.
I’m toooooo busy though at the mo’ argh.
p.s. as you probably know Fatboy Slim aka Norman Cook took violin lessons with … Keir Starmer
Olivia Dean was the best thing I saw yesterday. Great talent.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
The Mail’s editorial comment is saying what many of us thought it would. Don’t allow a “Starmageddon”, seriously don't vote reform, the Tories have actually done well under the circumstances. Labour will win but vote Tory to ensure a proper opposition to stop the worst of Starmer is a summary.
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
I'm really struggling to accept that some of the latest Survation MRP seat projections are even remotely plausible.
For example, Shropshire North. A seat currently held by LD MP Helen Morgan, with minor boundary changes only, after the 2021 by election with result LD 47, Con 32, Lab 10, Green 5, Reform 4. In those circumstances, even I have to admit that it's absolutely nailed on that the anti-Tory tactical vote will stay with the LDs. Yet Survation have the Conservatives regaining the seat with the LDs going from 1st to 4th place: Con 36, Lab 30, Reform 15, LD 10.
That's utter nonsense. Reality is reflected in the fact that you can't get better odds than 4/9 on for the LDs to win the seat.
It could be that MRP is good when voting blocs are essentially demographically binary, and based around Leave/Remain as they were in GE2017 and GE2019, but otherwise somewhat limited and unable to deal with a complex election like this.
This time, I'm taking them with a pinch of salt.
Tactical voting breaks MRPs in two separate ways.
Let's recap why MRPs previously did well - they picked up the change in support that had the Tories ahead of Labour in social class C2DE, and projected that onto relevant seats, so that we could see Sedgefield going Tory, and Canterbury going Labour.
So they work well when, say, a sandal-wearing university academic is reliably going to vote Lib Dem, a young mother in her 30s will reliably vote Labour, and a pensioner who owns their home outright will reliably vote Tory, whichever constituency they are in. See how many of each demographic are in each seat and - bingo! - you get an accurate prediction of seats won.
But, when the sandal-wearing academics are prepared to vote Labour in some seats, and Lib Dem in others, as an anti-Tory tactical vote, and the young mothers likewise, then that messes up the base data. It looks like the Lib Dems have lost support among sandal-wearers, and increased support among mothers, and so the MRP will apply those changes even to seats where the Lib Dems aren't the tactical vote option.
Now, you might try to decompose your base data on the basis of whether the seat is a Labour or Lib Dem target, but then you're assuming the voters have perfect knowledge of what the optimal tactical vote option is, and they don't.
It was widely assumed on here that there would be the customary reduction in the gap between the Big Two once the Election was called and we closed in on the actual election date. The assumption was understandable. It has tended to happen in the past, and past form is always the best guide to future performance.
Swingback is not an iron law, however. It comes with no guarantee. If things are different, the usual pattern does not necessarily apply. What's different this time?
Well, it's the first time in my experience that the answer to the Big Question is widely known, more so even than it was in 1997. The electorate is more sophisticated now. Polling has advanced, even though it will never be precise. We can be certain however that it is not 20 points out.
So no need to fear that your vote is going to let in The Blue Meanies again, or The Red Menace, nor even the somewhat unlikely and unthreatening Yellow Peril. No reason at all not to vote for who you want.
In these circumstances I see no reason for Swingback to apply. You may even see some Swingaway.
Besides, Big Swingback is about the last eighteen months, not the last eighteen days. That's driven more by governments doing nasty stuff in the first half of their term so they can do nice stuff as the election comes up.
Covid stopped the first of those, and we're seeing governments worldwide flounder as a result as they can't do the second. In the UK, we also have the uselessnesses of Johnson and Truss leaving Sunak too much poop to scoop. Not that he's much good anyway.
The curiosity is that the NI cut, which was massive and massively expensive, totally failed to cut through with the voters.
Also there's *Michigan* polling with Whitmer beating Trump 49-45 while Biden loses 39-47. Obviously that's her own state so it won't be representative of all the swing states but it's definitely a good one to have in the bag.
Because the Dems are teary-eyed and feeling loyalty and emotion and solidarity and so on and on.
But Biden keeps telling us that democrcay is on the ballot.
So what could be more important? Stand aside and let the Dems decide a new candidate from a new generation
No, I think it's genuinely fucking difficult.
Biden is about tied into the polling which isn't a terrible deficit, this may or may not look different in a week. He's good with boomers and blue-collar guys who other Dems can't reach. It's technically easy to switch to Kamala but she has no history of successful campaigns outside California and what data there is says she'd lose. Or you try to elbow her out of the way to get someone else, and that person is untested at the national level and may bollocks it up. Plus, you can't force Biden to drop out if he doesn't want to, all you can do is try to damage him enough that he gives up, and if that fails you've made things worse.
If he's definitely going to lose then you obviously want to do something high-variance, but that's not quite clear yet.
Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult, as they say in your country.
The Mail’s editorial comment is saying what many of us thought it would. Don’t allow a “Starmageddon”, seriously don't vote reform, the Tories have actually done well under the circumstances. Labour will win but vote Tory to ensure a proper opposition to stop the worst of Starmer is a summary.
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
Not that the papers are anywhere near as powerful as they were say in 1997, but it does seem Mail / Sun are going for the Labour will win, they need to be held to account, rather than backing them.
The reform candidate (not that Reform) in Iran is an interesting situation. Obviously would love him to be elected but I can’t help thinking he’s a plant by the regime* to keep the young and the opposition happy that they have some sort of voice.
My theory on the racist Reform canvasser: yes, an actor. Yes, playing a part. A middle class fantasist with racist views who has a kink for extreme Alf Garnet cosplaying and who saw in the Reform campaign a chance to indulge his fantasy. Not a plant for Ch4 (they’re not that stupid), but not a bona fide Reform activist either.
A long line of Democrat strategists and media are ‘encouraging’ the party to swap out Mr Biden for someone younger at their Convention, after his poor debate performance on Thursday night:
I think all 100% of media and 0% of non-bonkers Democrats would want this done *at the convention*. The media will want that for maximum drama but it's not at all in the interests of the party to give it to them.
But since there's no non-stitch-up way to do this the sensible thing would be to do any stiching up in advance and present the Biden delegates with Biden's recommendation. If the goal is to pick someone who isn't Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, make a committee of bigwigs and local representatives and give them a week or so to interview the candidates and pick the one most likely to beat Trump.
Yes the sensible thing is to have it set up in advance, and for Biden to announce his ‘nominee’ beforehand.
One name that keeps coming up is Gretchen Whitmer, who might represent value. Alternatively, believe in inertia and get on Biden at relatively long odds.
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
He hasn't been that bad before but his performances have always been pretty patchy, sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad. I think the sanitized style of the debate ended out working out badly for him. Last time if he lost his train of thought Trump would help him out by interrupting.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It's bizarre to me how many laws seem to overreach into other areas. How on earth could there be a human right to a private school free of VAT?
The point is you can't discriminate.
I.e if you said it's ok not to charge VAT on private tuition, after schools clubs, universities and nurseries but it's absolutely not ok for children between 5 and 18 being educated between the hours of 9am to 3pm.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
I am still amused that you think Dan Neidle's opinion counts more than 40 years worth of Law Lords' opinions. As I said before this is not just Pannick holding this view.
But of course the way to find out is to test it. It is 99% certain that when Labour bring in the VAT, it will be appealed all the way to the ECHR. That is the way to decide these things.
Of course there is a problem there. If it is appealed and the Labour Government loses then
1. There will have been schools which have shut down due to an illegal policy. 2. There will be a massive compensation bill paid for by the UK taxpayer.
It seems to me there should be some way that binding opinions can be sought from the ECHR without first actually having gone through the whole process and therefore potentially committing an illegal act with all the consequences for both the schools, the Government and the taxpayer.
Does such a system exist and if not, what is the reasoning behind that?
Are there perhaps some weird crossovers with ECHR and EU rules which ban charging VAT on educational provision where one has influenced the other. Funny that Brexit is the thing that allows Labour to potentially charge the VAT.
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
He hasn't been that bad before but his performances have always been pretty patchy, sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad. I think the sanitized style of the debate ended out working out badly for him. Last time if he lost his train of thought Trump would help him out by interrupting.
It was worse than that. He was freezing inbetween answers and answered the wrong questions. It was far worse than losing track of his thoughts or his slight stammer.
I think the mute button & no audience helped Trump as no crowd to play to with his bombastic ego boosting. He still ramblerd and lied and eventually went "lock him up" nonsense, but was more restrained, whuch made Biden look even worse.
My theory on the racist Reform canvasser: yes, an actor. Yes, playing a part. A middle class fantasist with racist views who has a kink for extreme Alf Garnet cosplaying and who saw in the Reform campaign a chance to indulge his fantasy. Not a plant for Ch4 (they’re not that stupid), but not a bona fide Reform activist either.
Not bona fide in what way? The programme also caught senior members of the Reform Party expressing racist, homophobic, and frankly fascist comments. The difference is they didn't use the crude language of the "paid actor" (but not paid by Channel 4).
It was widely assumed on here that there would be the customary reduction in the gap between the Big Two once the Election was called and we closed in on the actual election date. The assumption was understandable. It has tended to happen in the past, and past form is always the best guide to future performance.
Swingback is not an iron law, however. It comes with no guarantee. If things are different, the usual pattern does not necessarily apply. What's different this time?
Well, it's the first time in my experience that the answer to the Big Question is widely known, more so even than it was in 1997. The electorate is more sophisticated now. Polling has advanced, even though it will never be precise. We can be certain however that it is not 20 points out.
So no need to fear that your vote is going to let in The Blue Meanies again, or The Red Menace, nor even the somewhat unlikely and unthreatening Yellow Peril. No reason at all not to vote for who you want.
In these circumstances I see no reason for Swingback to apply. You may even see some Swingaway.
Besides, Big Swingback is about the last eighteen months, not the last eighteen days. That's driven more by governments doing nasty stuff in the first half of their term so they can do nice stuff as the election comes up.
Covid stopped the first of those, and we're seeing governments worldwide flounder as a result as they can't do the second. In the UK, we also have the uselessnesses of Johnson and Truss leaving Sunak too much poop to scoop. Not that he's much good anyway.
The curiosity is that the NI cut, which was massive and massively expensive, totally failed to cut through with the voters.
It wasn't expensive because everyone knew that fiscal drag and the lack of indexation on personal allowances meant that the tax burden was going up, not down. It was a reallocation of tax rather than a cut. I think that was the right thing to do, I simply do not see the logic in earned income being taxed more severely than pension or investment income.
But, although it was the right thing to do, it was a tax change against the interests of the Conservative party because it adversely affected the retired more than anyone else and that is where the bulk of their support came from. They see more tax and poorer services and they are unimpressed.
The Mail’s editorial comment is saying what many of us thought it would. Don’t allow a “Starmageddon”, seriously don't vote reform, the Tories have actually done well under the circumstances. Labour will win but vote Tory to ensure a proper opposition to stop the worst of Starmer is a summary.
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
I don’t think very many people pay any attention to the printed press now but this is such a pile of crap. There’s no such thing as a Super majority in the UK and if everyone followed it you could end up with a Conservative Gov’t again.
Trying to fiddle the voting system is a new low. They should just be honest: proprietors and editors don’t like paying tax Labour.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
The Mail’s editorial comment is saying what many of us thought it would. Don’t allow a “Starmageddon”, seriously don't vote reform, the Tories have actually done well under the circumstances. Labour will win but vote Tory to ensure a proper opposition to stop the worst of Starmer is a summary.
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
Not that the papers are anywhere near as powerful as they were say in 1997, but it does seem Mail / Sun are going for the Labour will win, they need to be held to account, rather than backing them.
In my opinion the Opposition Labour would least like to face are the LibDems. I think they could make life hard for Starmer. The Conservatives will likely be shell-shocked, low in morale, in-fighting, and quite liable to lurch even further to the Right. All of which gives Starmer an easy ride for a while.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Yep absolutely. Especially sending them out on a Friday as my Council did. I bet you most of those weren’t delivered until this Monday or Tuesday. I know mine wasn’t.
Ok, it's a lovely morning here and time to walk the dogs, but before I go, here's a tip for you to look at which has nothing to do with politics. It is based upon my experiences as a soccer referee.
Buy Bookings on the spreads in any game involving Turkey. Not only are their own players volatile, but they have a way of antagonising their opponents to the extent that even the most restrained and professional are apt to lose it. Their game against the Czech Republic produced a record number and comfortably hit the ceiling for a maximum payout from Sporting.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It's bizarre to me how many laws seem to overreach into other areas. How on earth could there be a human right to a private school free of VAT?
The point is you can't discriminate.
I.e if you said it's ok not to charge VAT on private tuition, after schools clubs, universities and nurseries but it's absolutely not ok for children between 5 and 18 being educated between the hours of 9am to 3pm.
Further, IIRC, the right to seek alternative education to that provided by the state is part of the ECHR body of rulings.
Again, IIRC, there were cases in some European countries (Germany??) that traditionally banned home schooling over that - I believe that the results there were that (a) there was a right to alternate education and (b) the right was limited by requiring proof of a effective education being imparted.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
I am still amused that you think Dan Neidle's opinion counts more than 40 years worth of Law Lords' opinions. As I said before this is not just Pannick holding this view.
But of course the way to find out is to test it. It is 99% certain that when Labour bring in the VAT, it will be appealed all the way to the ECHR. That is the way to decide these things.
Of course there is a problem there. If it is appealed and the Labour Government loses then
1. There will have been schools which have shut down due to an illegal policy. 2. There will be a massive compensation bill paid for by the UK taxpayer.
It seems to me there should be some way that binding opinions can be sought from the ECHR without first actually having gone through the whole process and therefore potentially committing an illegal act with all the consequences for both the schools, the Government and the taxpayer.
Does such a system exist and if not, what is the reasoning behind that?
It’s tax - and tax trumps everything including natural justice when courts get involved (don’t believer me ask anyone caught by the loan charge)
As for 1 - the schools are closing down due to lack of numbers - yep the tax may be the reason for it but it’s slightly indirect.
Finally the ECHR can be ignored - see the story about prisoners not being able to vote, the person who brought the case still can’t vote
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
He hasn't been that bad before but his performances have always been pretty patchy, sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad. I think the sanitized style of the debate ended out working out badly for him. Last time if he lost his train of thought Trump would help him out by interrupting.
Biden apparently has been here before in the run up to the 2020 general election but far fewer people were paying attention to a Democrat hopeful than to current president.
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
Or it's just a matter of being old, and good days vs bad days. But the occurrence of latter is only going to increase over the next few years.
The other notable thing for me is the contrast between the debate going on in the Democratic party over his future, versus the complete absence of any such thing in the GOP over running a felon as their candidate.
My theory on the racist Reform canvasser: yes, an actor. Yes, playing a part. A middle class fantasist with racist views who has a kink for extreme Alf Garnet cosplaying and who saw in the Reform campaign a chance to indulge his fantasy. Not a plant for Ch4 (they’re not that stupid), but not a bona fide Reform activist either.
Not bona fide in what way? The programme also caught senior members of the Reform Party expressing racist, homophobic, and frankly fascist comments. The difference is they didn't use the crude language of the "paid actor" (but not paid by Channel 4).
The funniest thing is that with Farage spending so much time claiming conspiracy about bigotgate, he spent the first half of his QT special last night drawing attention to the nasty streak within his own party.
It has made what was a story on C4 become a national talking point.The Streisand effect again.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
I am still amused that you think Dan Neidle's opinion counts more than 40 years worth of Law Lords' opinions. As I said before this is not just Pannick holding this view.
But of course the way to find out is to test it. It is 99% certain that when Labour bring in the VAT, it will be appealed all the way to the ECHR. That is the way to decide these things.
Of course there is a problem there. If it is appealed and the Labour Government loses then
1. There will have been schools which have shut down due to an illegal policy. 2. There will be a massive compensation bill paid for by the UK taxpayer.
It seems to me there should be some way that binding opinions can be sought from the ECHR without first actually having gone through the whole process and therefore potentially committing an illegal act with all the consequences for both the schools, the Government and the taxpayer.
Does such a system exist and if not, what is the reasoning behind that?
It’s tax - and tax trumps everything including natural justice when courts get involved (don’t believer me ask anyone caught by the loan charge)
As for 1 - the schools are closing down due to lack of numbers - yep the tax may be the reason for it but it’s slightly indirect.
Finally the ECHR can be ignored - see the story about prisoners not being able to vote, the person who brought the case still can’t vote
In the prisoner voting case, the ECHR ruling related to the way that the vote was denied. IIRC, specific verbiage was added to a law put through the Commons on this.
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
We're still going to try it.
Anything to stall, frustrate, delay or mitigate this vindictive and destructive policy.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Which was my original point, this is the election where we discovered the Royal Mail wasn’t providing tge service it used to provide
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Which was my original point, this is the election where we discovered the Royal Mail wasn’t providing tge service it used to provide
Yes but with respect I think you’re missing the point. It’s not so much Royal Mail as the Councils.
Biden was much better at his rally yesterday. Did they forget to give him the right drugs for the debate? (I am half joking, something was massively off with the debate where for the first 30-40 mins he was totally zombified).
He hasn't been that bad before but his performances have always been pretty patchy, sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad. I think the sanitized style of the debate ended out working out badly for him. Last time if he lost his train of thought Trump would help him out by interrupting.
Biden apparently has been here before in the run up to the 2020 general election but far fewer people were paying attention to a Democrat hopeful than to current president.
Biden was doddery in 2020 but covid kept it more off stage. It's more exposed now, and he is 4 years older and more frail.
I am quite happy with my POTUS bets. I win big if Whitmer or Harris gets nominated. I think Harris gets the gig as the legal successor so the path is straightforward.
It looks like this might well be the first convention in years that has real business rather than being a rally to rubber stamp a decision already made.
My theory on the racist Reform canvasser: yes, an actor. Yes, playing a part. A middle class fantasist with racist views who has a kink for extreme Alf Garnet cosplaying and who saw in the Reform campaign a chance to indulge his fantasy. Not a plant for Ch4 (they’re not that stupid), but not a bona fide Reform activist either.
Not bona fide in what way? The programme also caught senior members of the Reform Party expressing racist, homophobic, and frankly fascist comments. The difference is they didn't use the crude language of the "paid actor" (but not paid by Channel 4).
It’s typical modern news management focus on any part of the story where you can attack the other side and pray the uproar you make over that 2% of the story ensures the other 97% is missed by people
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working. It’s the typical false hope I’ve seen being offered when it comes to anything connected to tax.
I could go into more details but just search for Dan Neidle’s twitter thread from yesterday where he pulls it apart
A1P1 protects property rights from unjust interference by the state but like almost all provisions in the Convention (other than the right to life and not to be tortured) it is not an absolute right and state interference can be justified in certain circumstances. In this case Labour will no doubt argue that the public interest is to fund improved education for the majority and to improve social cohesion. With all due respect to Pannick I think it is vanishingly unlikely that these would not be found to be a legitimate form of state interference, especially when they were in a manifesto that had been endorsed by a huge majority.
It was widely assumed on here that there would be the customary reduction in the gap between the Big Two once the Election was called and we closed in on the actual election date. The assumption was understandable. It has tended to happen in the past, and past form is always the best guide to future performance.
Swingback is not an iron law, however. It comes with no guarantee. If things are different, the usual pattern does not necessarily apply. What's different this time?
Well, it's the first time in my experience that the answer to the Big Question is widely known, more so even than it was in 1997. The electorate is more sophisticated now. Polling has advanced, even though it will never be precise. We can be certain however that it is not 20 points out.
So no need to fear that your vote is going to let in The Blue Meanies again, or The Red Menace, nor even the somewhat unlikely and unthreatening Yellow Peril. No reason at all not to vote for who you want.
In these circumstances I see no reason for Swingback to apply. You may even see some Swingaway.
The other side of that is with victory so likely will Labour voters actually go out and vote.
I’d say 10% of Labour voters don’t turn out hat may drop the Labour vote from 41% to say 38% but increase the Tories from 19% to 21/22% and with that a fair number of extra seats.
It’s why I say the end result (Labour majority) is obvious but little else is
Please see my other longwinded post this morning.
Yes, I can easily see the Labour vote dropping by the amount you suggest, but why would it go to the Tories?
You've drunk the Swingback kool-aid, haven't you.
That's a maths (or logic) fail by Mr eek.
If Labour's on 41% and 10% of its voters don't turn out, it comes in at 37% and everyone vote share, including Labour's, is then increased by 100/96, putting Labour on just over 38% and the Tories (assuming starting from 19%) still under 20%. So not nearly as dramatic an effect as you'd expect.
It was widely assumed on here that there would be the customary reduction in the gap between the Big Two once the Election was called and we closed in on the actual election date. The assumption was understandable. It has tended to happen in the past, and past form is always the best guide to future performance.
Swingback is not an iron law, however. It comes with no guarantee. If things are different, the usual pattern does not necessarily apply. What's different this time?
Well, it's the first time in my experience that the answer to the Big Question is widely known, more so even than it was in 1997. The electorate is more sophisticated now. Polling has advanced, even though it will never be precise. We can be certain however that it is not 20 points out.
So no need to fear that your vote is going to let in The Blue Meanies again, or The Red Menace, nor even the somewhat unlikely and unthreatening Yellow Peril. No reason at all not to vote for who you want.
In these circumstances I see no reason for Swingback to apply. You may even see some Swingaway.
Besides, Big Swingback is about the last eighteen months, not the last eighteen days. That's driven more by governments doing nasty stuff in the first half of their term so they can do nice stuff as the election comes up.
Covid stopped the first of those, and we're seeing governments worldwide flounder as a result as they can't do the second. In the UK, we also have the uselessnesses of Johnson and Truss leaving Sunak too much poop to scoop. Not that he's much good anyway.
The curiosity is that the NI cut, which was massive and massively expensive, totally failed to cut through with the voters.
It wasn't expensive because everyone knew that fiscal drag and the lack of indexation on personal allowances meant that the tax burden was going up, not down. It was a reallocation of tax rather than a cut. I think that was the right thing to do, I simply do not see the logic in earned income being taxed more severely than pension or investment income.
But, although it was the right thing to do, it was a tax change against the interests of the Conservative party because it adversely affected the retired more than anyone else and that is where the bulk of their support came from. They see more tax and poorer services and they are unimpressed.
Agree on the shift from earned income to all income. Though that gets spoiled the the mechanism- the threshold freeze takes the same number of pounds from every taxpayer, while the NI rate cut gives more pounds to people earning more. So the net effect of the two together is pretty nasty.
As for the point about taxes and services... I wonder if it's what happens when you shrink the state? A lot of the things the government can't cut are horribly expensive but not very visible. So most of us can't "see" where the money is going.
It's starkest for local councils. A crazy high percentage of the budget now goes on social care, and a lot of that on high-intensity care for the most needy. Unless you know someone getting that care, it's invisible. Meanwhile, the stuff we can see- parks, street cleaning, libraries, bus subsidies etc, gets cut to the bone. So our council tax looks like a really bad bargain.
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Which was my original point, this is the election where we discovered the Royal Mail wasn’t providing tge service it used to provide
Yes but with respect I think you’re missing the point. It’s not so much Royal Mail as the Councils.
The law says votes don’t need to be sent until the 20th.
The only thing your council did wrong was miss the post on the 20th - after that the failure to deliver on the Saturday is the royal mails
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Which was my original point, this is the election where we discovered the Royal Mail wasn’t providing tge service it used to provide
Yes but with respect I think you’re missing the point. It’s not so much Royal Mail as the Councils.
The law says votes don’t need to be sent until the 20th.
The only thing your council did wrong was miss the post on the 20th - after that the failure to deliver on the Saturday is the royal mails
Arrgh. You are not listening!!!
I’m not arguing with the legality of it but the efficiency of it. Many councils sent them out on the 14th, 3 weeks before. Good.
Sending them out to arrive 10 days before is piss poor and causing what the Telegraph now describe as “Chaos"
Not really sure why you are disagreeing with this tbh
“A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
“The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.
“It has been suggested previous Labour proposals to impose VAT on private schools under Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot’s leadership of the party were dropped following an earlier legal warning in 1982.
“Writing in The Times in 2019, Lord Lester said: “In 1982 [Lord] David Pannick and I advised the school governing bodies that Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.”
“The policy failed to appear in Labour’s next manifesto at the June 1987 election under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. The legal opinion was given in April of that year.”
It’s complete bullshit designed to generate legal fees for cases without a hope in hell of working.
Seems to be quite fashionable at the moment. The WASPI campaign has lost and is still seeking money from people.
I'm really struggling to accept that some of the latest Survation MRP seat projections are even remotely plausible.
For example, Shropshire North. A seat currently held by LD MP Helen Morgan, with minor boundary changes only, after the 2021 by election with result LD 47, Con 32, Lab 10, Green 5, Reform 4. In those circumstances, even I have to admit that it's absolutely nailed on that the anti-Tory tactical vote will stay with the LDs. Yet Survation have the Conservatives regaining the seat with the LDs going from 1st to 4th place: Con 36, Lab 30, Reform 15, LD 10.
That's utter nonsense. Reality is reflected in the fact that you can't get better odds than 4/9 on for the LDs to win the seat.
It could be that MRP is good when voting blocs are essentially demographically binary, and based around Leave/Remain as they were in GE2017 and GE2019, but otherwise somewhat limited and unable to deal with a complex election like this.
This time, I'm taking them with a pinch of salt.
Tactical voting breaks MRPs in two separate ways.
Let's recap why MRPs previously did well - they picked up the change in support that had the Tories ahead of Labour in social class C2DE, and projected that onto relevant seats, so that we could see Sedgefield going Tory, and Canterbury going Labour.
So they work well when, say, a sandal-wearing university academic is reliably going to vote Lib Dem, a young mother in her 30s will reliably vote Labour, and a pensioner who owns their home outright will reliably vote Tory, whichever constituency they are in. See how many of each demographic are in each seat and - bingo! - you get an accurate prediction of seats won.
But, when the sandal-wearing academics are prepared to vote Labour in some seats, and Lib Dem in others, as an anti-Tory tactical vote, and the young mothers likewise, then that messes up the base data. It looks like the Lib Dems have lost support among sandal-wearers, and increased support among mothers, and so the MRP will apply those changes even to seats where the Lib Dems aren't the tactical vote option.
Now, you might try to decompose your base data on the basis of whether the seat is a Labour or Lib Dem target, but then you're assuming the voters have perfect knowledge of what the optimal tactical vote option is, and they don't.
Tactical voting breaks MRPs.
And the people doing them know this, of course, and they have various ways of trying to 'fix' it.
Yougov relies on its panel being so big, and its having so much background data on them, that it factors in the responses from the panellists who actually live in the seat. But even with a giant national panel, they will only have about a hundred people in each seat, giving an MOE of about +/- 10%. Better than nothing, and having people's past voting behaviour helps since a change of vote is an actual swing, rather than just a sampling error, but it's susceptible to both random and systemic error - one example was YouGov suggesting the East Devon Indy was running the Tories close last time.
All of them, I think, factor in actual past election results, which in a sense is 'cheating' by creating a circularity that risks normalcy bias. But clearly it helps with things like sorting Labour from LibDem targets based on campaigning history and local factors, which any demographic model would struggle with. But again there are risks - the North Shropshire issue discussed early this morning probably arises because that MRP has used the last GE results as its 'crib' and ignored the subsequent by-election.
The key is to remember that we're looking (mostly) at a national model, not a seat-by-seat poll - the trouble is that the way the data is presented, with maps and such enticing seat-by-seat data, makes it look like the latter. It would be more honest, if less fun, for them just to present the predicted national seat totals and leave out all the local data behind it. Most of us are clued up on these issues, but I know from comments about my seat in the media and social media that most ordinary folk think these predictions are some sort of local poll.
It was widely assumed on here that there would be the customary reduction in the gap between the Big Two once the Election was called and we closed in on the actual election date. The assumption was understandable. It has tended to happen in the past, and past form is always the best guide to future performance.
Swingback is not an iron law, however. It comes with no guarantee. If things are different, the usual pattern does not necessarily apply. What's different this time?
Well, it's the first time in my experience that the answer to the Big Question is widely known, more so even than it was in 1997. The electorate is more sophisticated now. Polling has advanced, even though it will never be precise. We can be certain however that it is not 20 points out.
So no need to fear that your vote is going to let in The Blue Meanies again, or The Red Menace, nor even the somewhat unlikely and unthreatening Yellow Peril. No reason at all not to vote for who you want.
In these circumstances I see no reason for Swingback to apply. You may even see some Swingaway.
The other side of that is with victory so likely will Labour voters actually go out and vote.
I’d say 10% of Labour voters don’t turn out hat may drop the Labour vote from 41% to say 38% but increase the Tories from 19% to 21/22% and with that a fair number of extra seats.
It’s why I say the end result (Labour majority) is obvious but little else is
Please see my other longwinded post this morning.
Yes, I can easily see the Labour vote dropping by the amount you suggest, but why would it go to the Tories?
You've drunk the Swingback kool-aid, haven't you.
That's a maths (or logic) fail by Mr eek.
If Labour's on 41% and 10% of its voters don't turn out, it comes in at 37% and everyone vote share, including Labour's, is then increased by 100/96, putting Labour on just over 38% and the Tories (assuming starting from 19%) still under 20%. So not nearly as dramatic an effect as you'd expect.
Yep my mistake in the maths was I reduced the Labour vote by 20% not 10% so the percentage I quoted should be halved - and you are correct
However even a rise from 19% to 20% will potentially give the Tories a significant number of extra seats - and at this sort of level it could well to be the difference between the Tories being the opposition or the Lib Dema being the opposition
So Labour’s message this week should be - do go out and vote, your vote may be the one that consigns the Tory party to ancient history
The Mail’s editorial comment is saying what many of us thought it would. Don’t allow a “Starmageddon”, seriously don't vote reform, the Tories have actually done well under the circumstances. Labour will win but vote Tory to ensure a proper opposition to stop the worst of Starmer is a summary.
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
Interesting that those Tory Papers so openly admit their current irrelevance. Be interesting to see which of them are no longer around in their current form when the next election happens
Good morning all. Managed to catch some bits of Glasto y’day but a busy day.
Kenya Grace - great The Vaccines - they still have it. Young crowd. Great fun. Dua Lipa - very slick pop performance, highly choreographed. But slightly presentational imho. Still love her though.
Will try and catch up on some more
I will send off my postal vote today. There are widespread reports of issues. Personally I think sending out postal votes less than 2 weeks before the day is quite bad because for many people the whole point is to cover the fact that you may be away. The “Chaos” (their word) has made the front page of today’s Telegraph:
They’re even suggesting some results could be challenged. Eeek.
We will be studying this election for decades. The stupid election. The election where the powers that be didn’t even manage to get postal votes sent out, which piled on top of the chaos from start to finish just made the result even more appalling for the former party of government
I suspect councils have got postal votes automated and organised - so this is the election where it was revealed the royal mail can’t deliver post anymore
I don’t think it is just that. My council (Teignbridge) for example didn’t send them out until Friday - that’s when they posted them. So let’s say most of them weren’t delivered until this week. That’s c 10 days before the vote. I think that’s really poor when you consider why many people apply to vote by post i.e. because they’re away. It’s not like anyone except a few insiders had foreknowledge of this election date.
There was no legal requirement to send them before the deadline for registering for a postal vote had past and that was the 19th.
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Any system that relies upon 1st Class delivery the following day is simply bound to fail.
The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Which was my original point, this is the election where we discovered the Royal Mail wasn’t providing tge service it used to provide
Yes but with respect I think you’re missing the point. It’s not so much Royal Mail as the Councils.
The law says votes don’t need to be sent until the 20th.
The only thing your council did wrong was miss the post on the 20th - after that the failure to deliver on the Saturday is the royal mails
Arrgh. You are not listening!!!
I’m not arguing with the legality of it but the efficiency of it. Many councils sent them out on the 14th, 3 weeks before. Good.
Sending them out to arrive 10 days before is piss poor and causing what the Telegraph now describe as “Chaos"
Not really sure why you are disagreeing with this tbh
So take it up with your councillor - it’s puss poor but none postal voters may think it’s a waste of money doing things multiple times (inefficiently).
Vat on school fees: it needs a very specific bit of legislation, to say that the loss of exemption doesn’t apply to the under 5s, over 18s, religious based education, special needs education, state boarding fees for children of military personnel, sports or music based education, educational equipment and sundries…
I think when Starmer grandfathered this one in from Corbyn, he didn’t expect to win and certainly not so handily. And because of his blank slate strategy, it has turned into almost the only thing he has ended talking about but even then, with such a lack of specifics you have to wonder how serious it is. I still wouldnt be a bit surprised to see it get deferred and quietly forgotten when the inevitable review indicates it might get tied up in the courts. Bigger fish to fry when back in power surely or what’s the fcking point of being back in govt?
I'm sure you are all dying to hear more about trans in Scotland as it's so rarely discussed 😀
In the kerfuffle of the last few days, nobody noticed that Scotland released its trans census data. Scotland, never missing a chance to be a bit awkward, decided to have its census later, release it later, and use a different trans question (England asked about gender identity, so did Wales but in Welsh also, Scotland asked "are you trans", and NI stayed *well* out of it). The E&W census came up with 0.5%, the GC group "Sex Matters" disputed it and came up with 0.4%, and the Scots number is (drum roll) 0.44% of the whole pop'n and ~0.47% of those who answered. And I'm sure that'll please everybody. 😀
The centres of trans population are Dundee 1st, then Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, the latter of which at 0.58% is presumably of interest to our ANME candidate. It's most popular in the 20-24 age bands at around 1.6%.
So, for the purposes of public debate, 1 out of every 200 of my fellow compatriots are trans*.
Now, a podcast series I listened to some time ago (I posted a link on here) - referencing anecdata from the Tavistock clinic, indicated that, while it used to be 2/3 natal males referred for gender counselling, these days it was 2/3 natal females.
Now you're good at statistics, @viewcode - so, what is the correct, current, fraction of trans* natal males vs females?
Is it;
1/300 Natal Males 1/150 Natal Females
Or am I shit at stats?
You're not shit at stats. That's my job.
The hand-on-heart, swear-to-god-im-not-kidding answer is "not sure". The amount of numbers thrown around by everybody and their range means that either the numbers are changing, or it's situational, or both, or more. The concept of a true, unstressed, constant and universal trans figure is a bit of a chimera: I think the best we can do is say "in population x at time y the trans figure is z".
So having said that, figure 1 in the census link says that of those that answered, 1/6 of the trans were natal males (MTFs in old money), 1/6 of the trans were natal females (FTMs), the remaining two-thirds were trans-something, non-binary or other.
So in Scotland on a day in 2022, of those people who filled out a census form, around 0.44% said they were trans, which broke down to approximately 0.08% natal males, 0.08% natal females, 0.28% didn't specify.
As for the Tavistock figures you mentioned, they were for people *referred*, a different concept (think inputs and outputs)
Does anyone on here still think the guy in Clacton was a genuine Reform UK campaigner?
Getting around to this, before I go and visit the sun in the garden, I see these possibilities:
1 - C4 hired the 'canvasser' deliberately to create a false story about Farage. This is the one Farage is walking up to with his 'ginormous setup' claim, but not quite naming. 2 - The canvasser is a genuine Reform canvasser who has agreed to be thrown under the bus in an attempt to delay the reckoning, who as a part time actor allowed Farage to create that narrative. 3 - The canvasser is a fake who is doing it for his own attention-seeking reasons and perhaps for future acting work, and has deceived both the production company and C4. 4 - The production company are doing the deceiving, otherwise as 3.
As I see it there is no benefit for C4 or the production company in creating a fake story. Were they to do so it would be more competent.
I can't call 3.
Farage's overwhelming need is to get into Parliament, and not beach himself again , and for that he needs potential Reform voters to believe him up until July 4th. After that he may lose the good reputation he has not got, but he won't be thrown out of Parliament.
So I call it as a genuine or not genuine canvasser, and a Farage distraction tactic.
Because the thing that will damage him is the more important story about the core staff of Reform whom he cannot afford to have coverage of in the media, as that *will* impact on Reform voters.
We will hear more after the Election, regardless of whether media get on the real story.
Comments
Makes my morning happier. Thank you for sharing. There are quite a few nature lovers on here.
Morning by the way.
But since there's no non-stitch-up way to do this the sensible thing would be to do any stiching up in advance and present the Biden delegates with Biden's recommendation. If the goal is to pick someone who isn't Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, make a committee of bigwigs and local representatives and give them a week or so to interview the candidates and pick the one most likely to beat Trump.
But of course the way to find out is to test it. It is 99% certain that when Labour bring in the VAT, it will be appealed all the way to the ECHR. That is the way to decide these things.
Of course there is a problem there. If it is appealed and the Labour Government loses then
1. There will have been schools which have shut down due to an illegal policy.
2. There will be a massive compensation bill paid for by the UK taxpayer.
It seems to me there should be some way that binding opinions can be sought from the ECHR without first actually having gone through the whole process and therefore potentially committing an illegal act with all the consequences for both the schools, the Government and the taxpayer.
Does such a system exist and if not, what is the reasoning behind that?
And that isn’t a problem if first class post was successfully delivered the following day - it’s that wait where the problems have occurred because it shouldn’t take a week
Ashfield.
Barnsley North.
Barnsley South.
Easington.
Hartlepool.
Hull East.
Normanton & Hemsworth.
Rotherham
South Shields.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13581819/Tories-say-right-angry-partys-errors-dont-let-anger-blind-perils-Starmerism.html
The Sun will likely say exactly the same and I’m guessing the Times, Telegraph and Express too. “Its lost but you need to still vote Tory to rein in Labour”.
Let's recap why MRPs previously did well - they picked up the change in support that had the Tories ahead of Labour in social class C2DE, and projected that onto relevant seats, so that we could see Sedgefield going Tory, and Canterbury going Labour.
So they work well when, say, a sandal-wearing university academic is reliably going to vote Lib Dem, a young mother in her 30s will reliably vote Labour, and a pensioner who owns their home outright will reliably vote Tory, whichever constituency they are in. See how many of each demographic are in each seat and - bingo! - you get an accurate prediction of seats won.
But, when the sandal-wearing academics are prepared to vote Labour in some seats, and Lib Dem in others, as an anti-Tory tactical vote, and the young mothers likewise, then that messes up the base data. It looks like the Lib Dems have lost support among sandal-wearers, and increased support among mothers, and so the MRP will apply those changes even to seats where the Lib Dems aren't the tactical vote option.
Now, you might try to decompose your base data on the basis of whether the seat is a Labour or Lib Dem target, but then you're assuming the voters have perfect knowledge of what the optimal tactical vote option is, and they don't.
Tactical voting breaks MRPs.
Covid stopped the first of those, and we're seeing governments worldwide flounder as a result as they can't do the second. In the UK, we also have the uselessnesses of Johnson and Truss leaving Sunak too much poop to scoop. Not that he's much good anyway.
The curiosity is that the NI cut, which was massive and massively expensive, totally failed to cut through with the voters.
* what is it with plants and reform these days.
One name that keeps coming up is Gretchen Whitmer, who might represent value. Alternatively, believe in inertia and get on Biden at relatively long odds.
Whatever your political affiliations I do hope we can all agree the The Daily Mail has become a pile of turd
I.e if you said it's ok not to charge VAT on private tuition, after schools clubs, universities and nurseries but it's absolutely not ok for children between 5 and 18 being educated between the hours of 9am to 3pm.
I think the mute button & no audience helped Trump as no crowd to play to with his bombastic ego boosting. He still ramblerd and lied and eventually went "lock him up" nonsense, but was more restrained, whuch made Biden look even worse.
But, although it was the right thing to do, it was a tax change against the interests of the Conservative party because it adversely affected the retired more than anyone else and that is where the bulk of their support came from. They see more tax and poorer services and they are unimpressed.
Trying to fiddle the voting system is a new low. They should just be honest: proprietors and editors don’t like
paying taxLabour.The 'aim' is 93% of 1st class post delivered the next day. The reality is only 75% have been delivered the next day. The 93% target has not been hit for more than 3 years and it is getting worse.
Buy Bookings on the spreads in any game involving Turkey. Not only are their own players volatile, but they have a way of antagonising their opponents to the extent that even the most restrained and professional are apt to lose it. Their game against the Czech Republic produced a record number and comfortably hit the ceiling for a maximum payout from Sporting.
Expect more of the same in their next game.
Have a good day everyone.
Again, IIRC, there were cases in some European countries (Germany??) that traditionally banned home schooling over that - I believe that the results there were that (a) there was a right to alternate education and (b) the right was limited by requiring proof of a effective education being imparted.
As for 1 - the schools are closing down due to lack of numbers - yep the tax may be the reason for it but it’s slightly indirect.
Finally the ECHR can be ignored - see the story about prisoners not being able to vote, the person who brought the case still can’t vote
But the occurrence of latter is only going to increase over the next few years.
The other notable thing for me is the contrast between the debate going on in the Democratic party over his future, versus the complete absence of any such thing in the GOP over running a felon as their candidate.
It has made what was a story on C4 become a national talking point.The Streisand effect again.
Anything to stall, frustrate, delay or mitigate this vindictive and destructive policy.
NEW THREAD
I am quite happy with my POTUS bets. I win big if Whitmer or Harris gets nominated. I think Harris gets the gig as the legal successor so the path is straightforward.
It looks like this might well be the first convention in years that has real business rather than being a rally to rubber stamp a decision already made.
If Labour's on 41% and 10% of its voters don't turn out, it comes in at 37% and everyone vote share, including Labour's, is then increased by 100/96, putting Labour on just over 38% and the Tories (assuming starting from 19%) still under 20%. So not nearly as dramatic an effect as you'd expect.
As for the point about taxes and services... I wonder if it's what happens when you shrink the state? A lot of the things the government can't cut are horribly expensive but not very visible. So most of us can't "see" where the money is going.
It's starkest for local councils. A crazy high percentage of the budget now goes on social care, and a lot of that on high-intensity care for the most needy. Unless you know someone getting that care, it's invisible. Meanwhile, the stuff we can see- parks, street cleaning, libraries, bus subsidies etc, gets cut to the bone. So our council tax looks like a really bad bargain.
And South Shields where Labour has held the seat since I was born
I don’t know the other seats well enough but I can’t see that advice changing anything
The only thing your council did wrong was miss the post on the 20th - after that the failure to deliver on the Saturday is the royal mails
I’m not arguing with the legality of it but the efficiency of it. Many councils sent them out on the 14th, 3 weeks before. Good.
Sending them out to arrive 10 days before is piss poor and causing what the Telegraph now describe as “Chaos"
Not really sure why you are disagreeing with this tbh
Yougov relies on its panel being so big, and its having so much background data on them, that it factors in the responses from the panellists who actually live in the seat. But even with a giant national panel, they will only have about a hundred people in each seat, giving an MOE of about +/- 10%. Better than nothing, and having people's past voting behaviour helps since a change of vote is an actual swing, rather than just a sampling error, but it's susceptible to both random and systemic error - one example was YouGov suggesting the East Devon Indy was running the Tories close last time.
All of them, I think, factor in actual past election results, which in a sense is 'cheating' by creating a circularity that risks normalcy bias. But clearly it helps with things like sorting Labour from LibDem targets based on campaigning history and local factors, which any demographic model would struggle with. But again there are risks - the North Shropshire issue discussed early this morning probably arises because that MRP has used the last GE results as its 'crib' and ignored the subsequent by-election.
The key is to remember that we're looking (mostly) at a national model, not a seat-by-seat poll - the trouble is that the way the data is presented, with maps and such enticing seat-by-seat data, makes it look like the latter. It would be more honest, if less fun, for them just to present the predicted national seat totals and leave out all the local data behind it. Most of us are clued up on these issues, but I know from comments about my seat in the media and social media that most ordinary folk think these predictions are some sort of local poll.
However even a rise from 19% to 20% will potentially give the Tories a significant number of extra seats - and at this sort of level it could well to be the difference between the Tories being the opposition or the Lib Dema being the opposition
So Labour’s message this week should be - do go out and vote, your vote may be the one that consigns the Tory party to ancient history
I think when Starmer grandfathered this one in from Corbyn, he didn’t expect to win and certainly not so handily. And because of his blank slate strategy, it has turned into almost the only thing he has ended talking about but even then, with such a lack of specifics you have to wonder how serious it is. I still wouldnt be a bit surprised to see it get deferred and quietly forgotten when the inevitable review indicates it might get tied up in the courts. Bigger fish to fry when back in power surely or what’s the fcking point of being back in govt?
The hand-on-heart, swear-to-god-im-not-kidding answer is "not sure". The amount of numbers thrown around by everybody and their range means that either the numbers are changing, or it's situational, or both, or more. The concept of a true, unstressed, constant and universal trans figure is a bit of a chimera: I think the best we can do is say "in population x at time y the trans figure is z".
So having said that, figure 1 in the census link says that of those that answered, 1/6 of the trans were natal males (MTFs in old money), 1/6 of the trans were natal females (FTMs), the remaining two-thirds were trans-something, non-binary or other.
So in Scotland on a day in 2022, of those people who filled out a census form, around 0.44% said they were trans, which broke down to approximately 0.08% natal males, 0.08% natal females, 0.28% didn't specify.
As for the Tavistock figures you mentioned, they were for people *referred*, a different concept (think inputs and outputs)
@Tim_in_Ruislip , ive just found the QA. It contains more details and may be a better answer to your question
https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-quality-assurance-reports/quality-assurance-report-sexual-orientation-and-trans-status-or-history/
1 - C4 hired the 'canvasser' deliberately to create a false story about Farage. This is the one Farage is walking up to with his 'ginormous setup' claim, but not quite naming.
2 - The canvasser is a genuine Reform canvasser who has agreed to be thrown under the bus in an attempt to delay the reckoning, who as a part time actor allowed Farage to create that narrative.
3 - The canvasser is a fake who is doing it for his own attention-seeking reasons and perhaps for future acting work, and has deceived both the production company and C4.
4 - The production company are doing the deceiving, otherwise as 3.
As I see it there is no benefit for C4 or the production company in creating a fake story. Were they to do so it would be more competent.
I can't call 3.
Farage's overwhelming need is to get into Parliament, and not beach himself again , and for that he needs potential Reform voters to believe him up until July 4th. After that he may lose the good reputation he has not got, but he won't be thrown out of Parliament.
So I call it as a genuine or not genuine canvasser, and a Farage distraction tactic.
Because the thing that will damage him is the more important story about the core staff of Reform whom he cannot afford to have coverage of in the media, as that *will* impact on Reform voters.
We will hear more after the Election, regardless of whether media get on the real story.