Any info about how Galloways lot are faring in the 150 or so seats they are standing in?
This is the great mystery. A 1% others vote share could, at the extreme, mean 40% in 20 constituencies. Some MRPs pick up some share for "Others" in places, but I'm not convinced they're fully across it.
Not seen a Muslim VI or a constituency VI with an Independent other than a couple of Corbyn ones.
My hunch is still that Labour lose a handful of seats to their left - not sure if Rochdale will be one of of them tbh - because I don't see how the pattern of the locals dissipates entirely given that pattern wasn't about a local issue. Of the 5 seats covering Kirklees, Dewsbury & Batley, which EC would have as the safest Labour seat, is the one I am least sure of a Labour victory in.
What I would say about WPGB, is they have selected seats by candidate volunteering, and as a result I don't think they have put up candidates in their strongest range of seats.
The polling yesterday on how different ethnic minorities are planning to vote seems to tell a story.
The various "left wing" parties that Galloway has started over the years have never done particularly well apart from the odd high profile seat. This time round I think they were hoping that Gaza would be a way in to a strong base of Muslim voters, but it doesn't look like it's worked.
YouGov instead found a huge spike in support for the Green party amongst people from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The vote for 'others' is a little higher, but it was:
Labour 44 Green 29
And everyone else 10 or below.
The main reason people gave to the switch to Green, was Gaza. So Galloway was right, that Gaza could be a difference maker, but it's not looking like he's the one to benefit.
Wonder if this affects the Green vote significantly in any constituencies?
(p.s. Slight warning. There was polling in February of Muslim voters, which won't be a perfect match, but will be similar. That showed a much smaller switch to other parties and hardly any switch to Green. https://swingometer.substack.com/p/labour-and-muslim-voters)
Maybe they're misunderstanding the sense of "Green". Or maybe the rest of us are.
I think it's simply the fact that the Green party have been strongest in support of Palestine.
Considering they're home to much of the 'student left' (of all ages), that's probably not a surprise.
Considering that they are meant to be a party that focuses on environmentalism it is just daft.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
Yes, the bradykinesis, mumbling, shuffling gait and expressionless face all fits quite well. Quite possible to have both of course.
She also points out that pretty much everyone over 70 has some form of vascular change (I'm just the messenger @PB oldies). With highly intelligent people this can be compensated for, but Biden's baseline is much more obvious given decades of TV etc etc. If you watch a video of Biden from 5 years ago he's nowhere near as sharp as he was 20 years ago, for example.
(Also reckons that if it is Parkinson's, his medical team didn't quite get the timing correct for the debate)
Doesn't matter what exactly he has.
He called and pushed for an early debate to show America that he was fit and able and up for the fight and a long campaign.
He failed his own test and that's an end to it imho.
Dems sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting 'just a cold' and 'we all have bad days' is just like putting out a welcoming mat for Trump 2.0 at the white house door.
They need to get a bloody grip and do the deed.
Yes it was said that Biden wanted the early debate, precisely so he could shut down internal party mutterings about his age and cognitive abilities, after the whitewash of a primary season with no competition allowed.
Instead, he had a very bad day and the calls to replace him are now louder than ever, including senior elected people in the party and The NY Times editorial.
Yes. And as I’ve pointed out, if he’s got Parkinson’s than that really isn’t a whole lot better than dementia. It means he probably will get dementia plus he already has a host of other issues. He’s 81
The democrats now have no choice. They have to get Joe to step down or they face certain defeat and massive damage to the party. Can’t they call on the party donors? Without money the party cannot function and the president cannot campaign
But I still wonder if the democrats have the stomach for this ordeal
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
The argument is not that Biden HAS dementia - it is that this is a question now, legitimately, being asked. Even by senior Democrats. Does he have dementia? As many on here point out - we cannot be sure. Biden’s case is not helped by all the lies his aides have told - eg trying to smear the special counsel who interviewed Biden and honestly said “he’s a very old man with memory issues, no jury would convict”
The "he's got a cold" lie was particularly egregious and ludicrous. It's like the last days of Chernenko when they were doing his signature with a coal fired mechanical pantagraph.
I was surprised at DJT's restraint in the Debby Ates when it was obvious that JRB was away with the mixer. He could have finished JRB off completely with some withering mockery.
Actually I think Trump got the tactics right. He did have some zinger lines, but if he had gone full on assault on Biden you are in danger of the sympathy vote / also plays into Trump is evil. See how Brown got a bump when the Sun ran the piece about him disrespecting the mother of a killed solider, he was already unpopular, his reaction was poor (typical getting into an argument about not being wrong), but the Sun went OTT.
I agree that Trump played it perfectly. He realised Biden was digging his own grave and just sat back and watched. He did do that one zinger “I’ve no idea what Biden just said, and I don’t think he knows either”
That’s a line that will resonate down the ages as a truly brutal debate blow. Like “I knew President John Kennedy”. Also evidence that Trump still has mojo
The delivery of that line was, accidentally or not, perfect. It was laden with pity and the sort of exasperation you feel when your opposition makes mistakes, you are glad they made them but just want a mercy killing.
He didn’t loudly mock, rub it in, tease. Just sad pity.
Anyone know what polls we can expect this weekend?
Usually it's a quiet time for them but I imagine the papers will want a last shot at it.
I feel sure we'll a large scale poll from YouGov either this evening or tomorrow. Although they clearly have far more muscle and financial resources than most of their competitors, their most recent survey undertaken on 24-25 June appeared to be something of an outlier with support for Labour shown as being only 36% ... that must be around 5% lower than the Red Team's average level of support over the past couple of weeks. From their own point of view, I imagine they would like to undertake a further poll asap to support their earlier findings or to belatedly align themselves more closely with other pollsters.
Given YouGov's model it isn't surprising if there is a bias towards people willing to spend a lot of time online, and my guess is that their tendency to produce higher %ages for Reform and the Greens reflects the challenge of balancing off the keyboard warriors with enough regular folk willing to answer fifteen minute online questionnaires about brands of biscuit in return for 50p.
Interesting watching Fiona Bruce with Farage and the leader of the Greens last night....... An excellent audience. As good as I've seen. Extremely well informed and articulate It was quite life affirming to see how much they loathed farage and how little they tolerated his confected bullshit
Though the audience will have been selected to represent different views I doubt they tried to balance their ages so Farages older cohort in all likelihood wouldn't have been able to make it. Not a single clap for him in half an hour
BBC always have hand picked audiences they are government sockpuppets
I thought Fiona Bruce was good and she certainly was scrupulously fair. Too much so for my taste. It felt a bit like painting by numbers
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
Yes, the bradykinesis, mumbling, shuffling gait and expressionless face all fits quite well. Quite possible to have both of course.
She also points out that pretty much everyone over 70 has some form of vascular change (I'm just the messenger @PB oldies). With highly intelligent people this can be compensated for, but Biden's baseline is much more obvious given decades of TV etc etc. If you watch a video of Biden from 5 years ago he's nowhere near as sharp as he was 20 years ago, for example.
(Also reckons that if it is Parkinson's, his medical team didn't quite get the timing correct for the debate)
Doesn't matter what exactly he has.
He called and pushed for an early debate to show America that he was fit and able and up for the fight and a long campaign.
He failed his own test and that's an end to it imho.
Dems sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting 'just a cold' and 'we all have bad days' is just like putting out a welcoming mat for Trump 2.0 at the white house door.
They need to get a bloody grip and do the deed.
Yes it was said that Biden wanted the early debate, precisely so he could shut down internal party mutterings about his age and cognitive abilities, after the whitewash of a primary season with no competition allowed.
Instead, he had a very bad day and the calls to replace him are now louder than ever, including senior elected people in the party and The NY Times editorial.
Yes. And as I’ve pointed out, if he’s got Parkinson’s than that really isn’t a whole lot better than dementia. It means he probably will get dementia plus he already has a host of other issues. He’s 81
The democrats now have no choice. They have to get Joe to step down or they face certain defeat and massive damage to the party. Can’t they fall on the party donors? Without money the party cannot function and the president cannot campaign
But I still wonder if the democrats have the stomach for this ordeal
Yes - advanced Parkinson's can be as serious a cognitive condition as any other. I wasn't seeking to minimise the problem, just that blithely shouting dementia undermines your argument somewhat.
The argument is not that Biden HAS dementia - it is that this is a question now, legitimately, being asked. Even by senior Democrats. Does he have dementia? As many on here point out - we cannot be sure. Biden’s case is not helped by all the lies his aides have told - eg trying to smear the special counsel who interviewed Biden and honestly said “he’s a very old man with memory issues, no jury would convict”
The "he's got a cold" lie was particularly egregious and ludicrous. It's like the last days of Chernenko when they were doing his signature with a coal fired mechanical pantagraph.
I was surprised at DJT's restraint in the Debby Ates when it was obvious that JRB was away with the mixer. He could have finished JRB off completely with some withering mockery.
Actually I think Trump got the tactics right. He did have some zinger lines, but if he had gone full on assault on Biden you are in danger of the sympathy vote / also plays into Trump is evil. See how Brown got a bump when the Sun ran the piece about him disrespecting the mother of a killed solider, he was already unpopular, his reaction was poor (typical getting into an argument about not being wrong), but the Sun went OTT.
I agree that Trump played it perfectly. He realised Biden was digging his own grave and just sat back and watched. He did do that one zinger “I’ve no idea what Biden just said, and I don’t think he knows either”
That’s a line that will resonate down the ages as a truly brutal debate blow. Like “I knew President John Kennedy”. Also evidence that Trump still has mojo
The delivery of that line was, accidentally or not, perfect. It was laden with pity and the sort of exasperation you feel when your opposition makes mistakes, you are glad they made them but just want a mercy killing.
He didn’t loudly mock, rub it in, tease. Just sad pity.
It was the most memorable presidential debate I can, er, remember. 98% are entirely forgettable
That one line plus 10 minutes of Biden freezing and babbling. Horrible but compelling: real drama played out live
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
The argument is not that Biden HAS dementia - it is that this is a question now, legitimately, being asked. Even by senior Democrats. Does he have dementia? As many on here point out - we cannot be sure. Biden’s case is not helped by all the lies his aides have told - eg trying to smear the special counsel who interviewed Biden and honestly said “he’s a very old man with memory issues, no jury would convict”
The "he's got a cold" lie was particularly egregious and ludicrous. It's like the last days of Chernenko when they were doing his signature with a coal fired mechanical pantagraph.
I was surprised at DJT's restraint in the Debby Ates when it was obvious that JRB was away with the mixer. He could have finished JRB off completely with some withering mockery.
Actually I think Trump got the tactics right. He did have some zinger lines, but if he had gone full on assault on Biden you are in danger of the sympathy vote / also plays into Trump is evil. See how Brown got a bump when the Sun ran the piece about him disrespecting the mother of a killed solider, he was already unpopular, his reaction was poor (typical getting into an argument about not being wrong), but the Sun went OTT.
I agree that Trump played it perfectly. He realised Biden was digging his own grave and just sat back and watched. He did do that one zinger “I’ve no idea what Biden just said, and I don’t think he knows either”
That’s a line that will resonate down the ages as a truly brutal debate blow. Like “I knew President John Kennedy”. Also evidence that Trump still has mojo
The delivery of that line was, accidentally or not, perfect. It was laden with pity and the sort of exasperation you feel when your opposition makes mistakes, you are glad they made them but just want a mercy killing.
He didn’t loudly mock, rub it in, tease. Just sad pity.
Trump campaign have put out an attack ad, it is just 90s of low lights of Biden performance, but no Trump hulk smash or mocking. They don't even include the zingers. It is highly effective because it doesn't do that. All you see is a guy unable to form a sentence, and that is the lasting memory they want you to have.
The argument is not that Biden HAS dementia - it is that this is a question now, legitimately, being asked. Even by senior Democrats. Does he have dementia? As many on here point out - we cannot be sure. Biden’s case is not helped by all the lies his aides have told - eg trying to smear the special counsel who interviewed Biden and honestly said “he’s a very old man with memory issues, no jury would convict”
The "he's got a cold" lie was particularly egregious and ludicrous. It's like the last days of Chernenko when they were doing his signature with a coal fired mechanical pantagraph.
I was surprised at DJT's restraint in the Debby Ates when it was obvious that JRB was away with the mixer. He could have finished JRB off completely with some withering mockery.
Actually I think Trump got the tactics right. He did have some zinger lines, but if he had gone full on assault on Biden you are in danger of the sympathy vote / also plays into Trump is evil. See how Brown got a bump when the Sun ran the piece about him disrespecting the mother of a killed solider, he was already unpopular, his reaction was poor (typical getting into an argument about not being wrong), but the Sun went OTT.
I agree that Trump played it perfectly. He realised Biden was digging his own grave and just sat back and watched. He did do that one zinger “I’ve no idea what Biden just said, and I don’t think he knows either”
That’s a line that will resonate down the ages as a truly brutal debate blow. Like “I knew President John Kennedy”. Also evidence that Trump still has mojo
The delivery of that line was, accidentally or not, perfect. It was laden with pity and the sort of exasperation you feel when your opposition makes mistakes, you are glad they made them but just want a mercy killing.
He didn’t loudly mock, rub it in, tease. Just sad pity.
It was the most memorable presidential debate I can, er, remember. 98% are entirely forgettable
That one line plus 10 minutes of Biden freezing and babbling. Horrible but compelling: real drama played out live
"There he goes again" from Reagan vs Carter was the most brutal "polite put down" I have seen in a political debate.
NORTHERN IRELAND KLAXON 🔷SF 23% (-1 from 2 weeks ago) 🔷DUP 21% (unchanged) 🔷Alliance 18% (+1) 🔷SDLP 14% (+1) 🔷UUP 13% (+1) 🔷TUV 4% (-1) PBP, Aontu and Green all 1% Lucid Talk https://x.com/SuzyJourno/status/1806788403138003169?s=19
Ok. So, it may be just me but I associate 'KLAXON' with something startling happening.
This might be the least startling poll ever, just saying.
Depends how you read it. If instead of thinking unionist vs nationalist/republican we look at batshit sectarian vs sensible, rhd sensibles are up 3 and the sectarians down 2.
This is why the Tories are where they are. The worst thing they can suggest Labour will do, is what they themselves have already done!
LOL. I do love the fact that seeing just the headline before reading what you had written below I had the identical thought.
As did I. I find it hard to recall anything Conservative that the Conservatives have done since 2019.
Isn’t the “conservatism” as much about what they haven’t done? They haven’t nationalised the Princess of Wales or given Jersey back to the French.
The policy differences between major parties are entirely trivial. There has not, for decades, been an option for traditional conservatism, and I think it would now be impossible. It's more or less impossible even to articulate it.
Just suppose for a moment that a major party suggested that the state had no particular business being involved in social welfare, education or health provision and that these were matters for the voluntary sector, insurance, charities, families, personal responsibility and private enterprise to sort. The state tax take to halve.
IMHO the watershed was the 1945 election.
The only options put to us now are about the speed of increasing state expenditure and control.
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
It was magnificently BBC yesterday listening to Radio 6 dj interviewing a BBC news presenter who was DJing at Glastonbury this year and then playing his dance remix of the bbc news theme tune. Then followed an interview with Annie Mac ahead of her Radio 6 programme starting about her two sets she’s playing at Glastonbury.
Luckily it wasn’t just Radio 6 people helping make Glastonbury “happen” as the lady presenting woman’s hour earlier yesterday was presenting live from Glastonbury and telling us how exciting it had been waking. Up in a yurt there.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
The VAT rise on private schools has been the perfect policy for Starmer to preview because he knew the Tory press would focus on that rather than on the policies that would affect the vast majority of voters. And hence he has got away with very little scrutiny.
Absolutely brilliant from Starmer. I hate that he will win a kabillion majority but you have to give him his tactical dues.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
I used to like that there was coverage of Glastonbury when it was something I could choose to care about. Now it has been elevated to something I MUST care about, I slightly resent it.
I also slightly resent that it is so achingly mainstream now. It's like the One Show in a field. It's target market appears to be a middle aged couple from the Cotswolds called Clive and Linda.
I am begging Tories, please don't copy 2019 Labour and tell the voters they are wrong. It's really not what you want to do.
To be fair, if Starmer gets election based on a platform of staying out of the single market, cutting immigration, and being tougher on crime, the Tories will be able to say that they won the argument. They just weren't seen as credible people to deliver it.
They may never win your vote, but they will eventually win the majority. Track what 1997’s 25 year olds did in 2010.
This sounds like denial to me. And they have won my vote before.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Who is “us”? I’m not a Tory member or (this time) voter. And I am (just) a millennial, which is who we were talking about. I talk to myself quite often.
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I agree. If only they all realised that user-friendliness is second only to content. It's not even difficult. Just use Netflix as your template
The argument is not that Biden HAS dementia - it is that this is a question now, legitimately, being asked. Even by senior Democrats. Does he have dementia? As many on here point out - we cannot be sure. Biden’s case is not helped by all the lies his aides have told - eg trying to smear the special counsel who interviewed Biden and honestly said “he’s a very old man with memory issues, no jury would convict”
The "he's got a cold" lie was particularly egregious and ludicrous. It's like the last days of Chernenko when they were doing his signature with a coal fired mechanical pantagraph.
I was surprised at DJT's restraint in the Debby Ates when it was obvious that JRB was away with the mixer. He could have finished JRB off completely with some withering mockery.
Even Trump is smart enough to see that his best chance is against a failing Biden.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
It was magnificently BBC yesterday listening to Radio 6 dj interviewing a BBC news presenter who was DJing at Glastonbury this year and then playing his dance remix of the bbc news theme tune. Then followed an interview with Annie Mac ahead of her Radio 6 programme starting about her two sets she’s playing at Glastonbury.
Luckily it wasn’t just Radio 6 people helping make Glastonbury “happen” as the lady presenting woman’s hour earlier yesterday was presenting live from Glastonbury and telling us how exciting it had been waking. Up in a yurt there.
Even Radio 4 pretends to think this is significant.
NORTHERN IRELAND KLAXON 🔷SF 23% (-1 from 2 weeks ago) 🔷DUP 21% (unchanged) 🔷Alliance 18% (+1) 🔷SDLP 14% (+1) 🔷UUP 13% (+1) 🔷TUV 4% (-1) PBP, Aontu and Green all 1% Lucid Talk https://x.com/SuzyJourno/status/1806788403138003169?s=19
Ok. So, it may be just me but I associate 'KLAXON' with something startling happening.
This might be the least startling poll ever, just saying.
Depends how you read it. If instead of thinking unionist vs nationalist/republican we look at batshit sectarian vs sensible, rhd sensibles are up 3 and the sectarians down 2.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
5 and 6 should have been done in 2005 before the Eastern European countries were given access to freedom of movement.
But I would love to see how you could get any party to agree to point 7....
I have briskly voted. Won't know what to do with myself on Thursday
I'm going for a haircut on polling day.
"Something for the weekend sir?"
"Yes please - a Labour government!"
I'd like to see a 'Labour Government' haircut. I imagine it would cost an eye-watering sum and turn a golden flowing mane into a few mangey tufts.
Your posts are sometimes SO funny.
Sadly, however, that's not usually when you are trying to be witty.
Isn’t a Labour haircut more like a mullet? A once popular thing that has inexplicably come back, so might not be around for so once people realise why it was thought of as naff in the first place.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
5 and 6 should have been done in 2005 before the Eastern European countries were given access to freedom of movement.
But I would love to see how you could get any party to agree to point 7....
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
I'd love it if the BBC could represent the majority of the population and have a presenter on who rips the sh*t out of Glastonbury and the attendees whilst the wankfest is on.
They may never win your vote, but they will eventually win the majority. Track what 1997’s 25 year olds did in 2010.
This sounds like denial to me. And they have won my vote before.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Who is “us”? I’m not a Tory member or (this time) voter. And I am (just) a millennial, which is who we were talking about. I talk to myself quite often.
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
We're talking about people in the demographic identified in a decade, I will just/almost be in that demographic.
I am happy to acknowledge a split in that demographic but I know people who will be early 40s in that time and none of them will vote Tory on the basis of how they have treated us now. I think you under-estimate just how much young people feel shafted.
Received a leaflet from the Greens. It features 2 "stories". One is about the need for more affordable housing. The other is about their opposition to a new development on a council estate. NIMBY next to YIMBY.
Just typical NIMBY scum.
We need more affordable housing, just not near me. Someone else can take it.
That's pretty much the definition of NIMBY and is sadly too common. Even here.
Yeah I see it whenever I post about infrastructure.
“I want masts but not to cover rural areas”, why? Why are rural people excluded from better coverage?
Frankly I’d make planning a tickbox exercise. It’s frankly nuts that MNOs cannot build where they want. Fine, hide the masts but people reject them because they’re things in the ground, have they seen the pylons? What about the telegraph poles?
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
I'd love it if the BBC could represent the majority of the population and have a presenter on who rips the sh*t out of Glastonbury and the attendees whilst the wankfest is on.
Surprised that Channel 4 hasn’t got “Not the Glastonbury Festival” on this weekend, with a bunch of comedians roasting the whole event and the BBC coverage of it.
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
I've been corrected - if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours.
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
I have briskly voted. Won't know what to do with myself on Thursday
I'm going for a haircut on polling day.
"Something for the weekend sir?"
"Yes please - a Labour government!"
I'd like to see a 'Labour Government' haircut. I imagine it would cost an eye-watering sum and turn a golden flowing mane into a few mangey tufts.
Your posts are sometimes SO funny.
Sadly, however, that's not usually when you are trying to be witty.
Isn’t a Labour haircut more like a mullet? A once popular thing that has inexplicably come back, so might not be around for so once people realise why it was thought of as naff in the first place.
Labour are the fifties revival in the seventies. A surfeit of naffness.
They may never win your vote, but they will eventually win the majority. Track what 1997’s 25 year olds did in 2010.
This sounds like denial to me. And they have won my vote before.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Who is “us”? I’m not a Tory member or (this time) voter. And I am (just) a millennial, which is who we were talking about. I talk to myself quite often.
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
We're talking about people in the demographic identified in a decade, I will just/almost be in that demographic.
I am happy to acknowledge a split in that demographic but I know people who will be early 40s in that time and none of them will vote Tory on the basis of how they have treated us now. I think you under-estimate just how much young people feel shafted.
You’re a little bit younger than me by the sounds of it (I am just about 40). A realisation that has crept in over the last ten years, with age, is how much I have changed and continue to change. We do not stay the same person, and everything else around us changes as well. Unless you support a political party like a football team (rare these days) it’s hard to hate them forever for something the leadership said or did ten years ago.
See my views on Labour. By 2010 I despised them. I don’t now, and even have a soft spot for Brown.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
Glastonbury can pay peanuts because of the audience the BBC generates for the bands - heck I have had an email from Coldplay saying anyone in the world can watch their show tonight via BBC iplayer and it's available for the next 10 days.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
I have an American friend with a substack. I thought he was making beer money but we recently had a proper chat about it and he revealed he is making six figures. Incredible!
He’s only got about 2000 subscribers but they are willing to pay $5-10 a month
I’m very tempted to have a go. It would mean I quit PB. I can hear the moans of despair already
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I assume with the Guardian, being owned by a Trust, that readership, and open access, is prized more highly than at a newspaper with an owner. So long as they're not going bust, and have the money to spend on journalism, they would want as many people to be able to read as possible, and for people who can't afford to pay, to still access the site.
They do also have paid access, which avoids the begging letter route.
As for Netflix/Spotify, wouldn't Readly and PressReader be those services?
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
I'd love it if the BBC could represent the majority of the population and have a presenter on who rips the sh*t out of Glastonbury and the attendees whilst the wankfest is on.
Surprised that Channel 4 hasn’t got “Not the Glastonbury Festival” on this weekend, with a bunch of comedians roasting the whole event and the BBC coverage of it.
Most comedians I know are doing sets at Glastonbury - bigger audience than they usually get, get to hang out with their mates (fellow comedians) with the chance that people may see them on their next tour.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
Glastonbury can pay peanuts because of the audience the BBC generates for the bands - heck I have had an email from Coldplay saying anyone in the world can watch their show tonight via BBC iplayer and it's available for the next 10 days.
Its exactly that. Its one giant ad for your upcoming tour.
They may never win your vote, but they will eventually win the majority. Track what 1997’s 25 year olds did in 2010.
This sounds like denial to me. And they have won my vote before.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Who is “us”? I’m not a Tory member or (this time) voter. And I am (just) a millennial, which is who we were talking about. I talk to myself quite often.
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
We're talking about people in the demographic identified in a decade, I will just/almost be in that demographic.
I am happy to acknowledge a split in that demographic but I know people who will be early 40s in that time and none of them will vote Tory on the basis of how they have treated us now. I think you under-estimate just how much young people feel shafted.
You’re a little bit younger than me by the sounds of it (I am just about 40). A realisation that has crept in over the last ten years, with age, is how much I have changed and continue to change. We do not stay the same person, and everything else around us changes as well. Unless you support a political party like a football team (rare these days) it’s hard to hate them forever for something the leadership said or did ten years ago.
I'm not saying people don't change, I am asking you why you think they will change to vote Tory. In previous times there have been reasons to do that - but this time there does not seem to be.
Thatcher won the youth vote. The Tories are on track to come third.
I want to cut the grass but it's too wet obviously so checked the weather forecast. Rain and highs of 16 consistently for the next seven days.
Joy.
It’s lovely down here
Bit muggy but lovely in the East Mids.
Bart, you're not making the cardinal error of using the BBC forecast are you? The BBC weather forecast always forecasts rain and gloom. It's as if it wants you to be miserable. The Met Office forecast for Manchester - and I know you are not far away - is, well, average for the time of year. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcw2hzs1u#?date=2024-07-04 Bit of rain but mainly dry. Warmish without being too spectacular. You'd be disappointed if you had a test match ticket for today, but over 7 days no worse than average.
Excellent post. The BBC raw output is absolutely hopeless yet is the most widely used. It always vastly overestimates the chance of rain, showing a rain symbol when there is a 30% chance of 1mm. It is becoming a problem for the leisure industry, because people believe it. Its verification rates at 3 days plus are awful.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I agree. If only they all realised that user-friendliness is second only to content. It's not even difficult. Just use Netflix as your template
Netflix is becoming less, not more user friendly. Content is way more important - and is what made Netflix grow as it did.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
I'd love it if the BBC could represent the majority of the population and have a presenter on who rips the sh*t out of Glastonbury and the attendees whilst the wankfest is on.
Surprised that Channel 4 hasn’t got “Not the Glastonbury Festival” on this weekend, with a bunch of comedians roasting the whole event and the BBC coverage of it.
Most comedians I know are doing sets at Glastonbury - bigger audience than they usually get, get to hang out with their mates (fellow comedians) with the chance that people may see them on their next tour.
Ha so they’re just as bad as the bands, using the festival as an opportunity to showcase and sell tour tickets.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Another PBer who gets weirdly triggered by Glastonbury. It is the world’s biggest music festival. It is newsworthy.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
5 and 6 should have been done in 2005 before the Eastern European countries were given access to freedom of movement.
But I would love to see how you could get any party to agree to point 7....
Sort out 5 and 6 and the problem goes away.
5 and 6 have already been sorted by Brexit. Now when you come to the UK regardless of whether you bring your wife and chidren you aren't getting benefits for a long time..
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Another PBer who gets weirdly triggered by Glastonbury. It is the world’s biggest music festival. It is newsworthy.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I agree. If only they all realised that user-friendliness is second only to content. It's not even difficult. Just use Netflix as your template
Netflix is becoming less, not more user friendly. Content is way more important - and is what made Netflix grow as it did.
Netflix was great when they had absolutely everything on one platform. Now it’s all getting fragmented again, and people aren’t going to pay five different streamers $10 a month
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
BBC spend a lot of money on it. And half of them are there on the freebies.
The thing I found most interesting is apparently, they pay absolute buttons to the talent to play Glastonbury, 10% of the going rate. Great business model if you can make it work.
It was magnificently BBC yesterday listening to Radio 6 dj interviewing a BBC news presenter who was DJing at Glastonbury this year and then playing his dance remix of the bbc news theme tune. Then followed an interview with Annie Mac ahead of her Radio 6 programme starting about her two sets she’s playing at Glastonbury.
Luckily it wasn’t just Radio 6 people helping make Glastonbury “happen” as the lady presenting woman’s hour earlier yesterday was presenting live from Glastonbury and telling us how exciting it had been waking. Up in a yurt there.
Even Radio 4 pretends to think this is significant.
Indeed, I was kindly informed by the Today programme this morning that this is the first time two women have headlined at Glastonbury and there is a Lesbian stage or zone called “Scissors”. I’m just looking forward to Shania Twain headlining tomorrow to watch the crowd go wild over the three songs they know.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
Would a limited company be allowed to act as a 'party' in the Commons? If they win seats might it be the case that they are forced to change their party structure?
I don't *think* so. You elect the MP who votes as an individual. The concept of a party is useful in deciding who is LOTO, how many questions they get, etc, but how that company is organised/constituted isn't specified.
Any info about how Galloways lot are faring in the 150 or so seats they are standing in?
This is the great mystery. A 1% others vote share could, at the extreme, mean 40% in 20 constituencies. Some MRPs pick up some share for "Others" in places, but I'm not convinced they're fully across it.
Not seen a Muslim VI or a constituency VI with an Independent other than a couple of Corbyn ones.
My hunch is still that Labour lose a handful of seats to their left - not sure if Rochdale will be one of of them tbh - because I don't see how the pattern of the locals dissipates entirely given that pattern wasn't about a local issue. Of the 5 seats covering Kirklees, Dewsbury & Batley, which EC would have as the safest Labour seat, is the one I am least sure of a Labour victory in.
What I would say about WPGB, is they have selected seats by candidate volunteering, and as a result I don't think they have put up candidates in their strongest range of seats.
The polling yesterday on how different ethnic minorities are planning to vote seems to tell a story.
The various "left wing" parties that Galloway has started over the years have never done particularly well apart from the odd high profile seat. This time round I think they were hoping that Gaza would be a way in to a strong base of Muslim voters, but it doesn't look like it's worked.
YouGov instead found a huge spike in support for the Green party amongst people from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The vote for 'others' is a little higher, but it was:
Labour 44 Green 29
And everyone else 10 or below.
The main reason people gave to the switch to Green, was Gaza. So Galloway was right, that Gaza could be a difference maker, but it's not looking like he's the one to benefit.
Wonder if this affects the Green vote significantly in any constituencies?
(p.s. Slight warning. There was polling in February of Muslim voters, which won't be a perfect match, but will be similar. That showed a much smaller switch to other parties and hardly any switch to Green. https://swingometer.substack.com/p/labour-and-muslim-voters)
Maybe they're misunderstanding the sense of "Green". Or maybe the rest of us are.
I think it's simply the fact that the Green party have been strongest in support of Palestine.
Considering they're home to much of the 'student left' (of all ages), that's probably not a surprise.
Considering that they are meant to be a party that focuses on environmentalism it is just daft.
Their policy should be "Nowt to do with us".
The campaigns which forced Baillie Gifford out of all their literary festival sponsorship was all about ending fossil fuels.
Until it became about support for Palestine.
The arguments are that the two issues are 'intrinsically linked', but I suspect the 'link' is that the campaigners care about both issues, and therefore believe they must be part of a greater whole.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I assume with the Guardian, being owned by a Trust, that readership, and open access, is prized more highly than at a newspaper with an owner. So long as they're not going bust, and have the money to spend on journalism, they would want as many people to be able to read as possible, and for people who can't afford to pay, to still access the site.
They do also have paid access, which avoids the begging letter route.
As for Netflix/Spotify, wouldn't Readly and PressReader be those services?
I actually hadn't heard of Readly. But they are all the traditional magazines. I was thinking something bigger. Spotify is now basically an open platform for artists to upload their music to. At the moment we have numerous different bits and pieces, substack, newspapers, traditional magazines, new expert written content like an Athletic.
The reason everybody has Spotify or the couple of other services is it is now basically all music ever all in one place.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
Supporters of Reform on here. Assuming you want your “party” to control the executive and legislature does not the simple statement in the below link worry you about the democratic credentials of your man?
If a man controls a “party” (in this case a limited company of said man who owns 8 out of its 13 shares) which has a majority in the Commons I would imagine that the principle of pleasing the leader is becomes the imperative.
No I want them to get a toehold of a few MPs so that when Labour run into the sand and end up as unpopular as the Tories are now we will have an actually conservative party (which is far broader than Reform), shorn of libdem fifth columnists calling themselves centrists, willing to make the necessary reforms that Brexit now empowers Parliament to do.
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
But folk are concerned that full time work doesn't pay their bills. And that they can't get a doctor's appointment. Or a dentist at all. This explains the coming election result.
They may never win your vote, but they will eventually win the majority. Track what 1997’s 25 year olds did in 2010.
This sounds like denial to me. And they have won my vote before.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Who is “us”? I’m not a Tory member or (this time) voter. And I am (just) a millennial, which is who we were talking about. I talk to myself quite often.
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
We're talking about people in the demographic identified in a decade, I will just/almost be in that demographic.
I am happy to acknowledge a split in that demographic but I know people who will be early 40s in that time and none of them will vote Tory on the basis of how they have treated us now. I think you under-estimate just how much young people feel shafted.
You’re a little bit younger than me by the sounds of it (I am just about 40). A realisation that has crept in over the last ten years, with age, is how much I have changed and continue to change. We do not stay the same person, and everything else around us changes as well. Unless you support a political party like a football team (rare these days) it’s hard to hate them forever for something the leadership said or did ten years ago.
I'm not saying people don't change, I am asking you why you think they will change to vote Tory. In previous times there have been reasons to do that - but this time there does not seem to be.
Thatcher won the youth vote. The Tories are on track to come third.
That’s in impossible question to answer. Neither of knows what the Tory platform will be in ten years (beyond the basics) - they will have adapted. Or they will have died and conservatism will live on in something else. But in the end, the pendulum swings.
People write the obituary of conservatism in 1997, 2001, and 2005, for all the reasons you say. And then Cameron rode some huskies and hugged some hoodies.
I have briskly voted. Won't know what to do with myself on Thursday
I'm going for a haircut on polling day.
"Something for the weekend sir?"
"Yes please - a Labour government!"
I'd like to see a 'Labour Government' haircut. I imagine it would cost an eye-watering sum and turn a golden flowing mane into a few mangey tufts.
Your posts are sometimes SO funny.
Sadly, however, that's not usually when you are trying to be witty.
Isn’t a Labour haircut more like a mullet? A once popular thing that has inexplicably come back, so might not be around for so once people realise why it was thought of as naff in the first place.
Labour are the fifties revival in the seventies. A surfeit of naffness.
So another respect in which they'll be continuity Tories ?
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
I have an American friend with a substack. I thought he was making beer money but we recently had a proper chat about it and he revealed he is making six figures. Incredible!
He’s only got about 2000 subscribers but they are willing to pay $5-10 a month
I’m very tempted to have a go. It would mean I quit PB. I can hear the moans of despair already
I pay for 4 or 5 subs but I am getting bored of it given most people make most content free, e.g. astralcodexten's subscriber only content is very thin (I think his desire to be read outweighs his avarice), and for that much money I could subscribe to the spectator and read a dozen writers a week (or rather I could if I didn't know how to hack the speccie pay wall).
That focus group compared to the one in 2019 is really interesting.
I'm not sure I'd even go as far as saying "no enthusiasm" for SKS, actually to me it came across more like "he's dull but I want dull" and in the contrast to "loveable buffoon" they got in 2019, that's an asset SKS has. Polling of SKS's own ratings supports this.
I do think SKS was the best leader Labour could have chosen. He is underrated as a politician, he's got something and it appealed in some way to all of the voters they spoke to - or didn't repel anyone. I do wonder if for this reason the Tories will struggle against him if they go even more extreme.
This focus group has underlined my confidence that the Tories may well be out for a decade. They've lost these voters for good.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
The numbers are all rather vague, but there’s at least a couple of dozen making a million dollars per year.
I want to cut the grass but it's too wet obviously so checked the weather forecast. Rain and highs of 16 consistently for the next seven days.
Joy.
It’s lovely down here
Bit muggy but lovely in the East Mids.
Bart, you're not making the cardinal error of using the BBC forecast are you? The BBC weather forecast always forecasts rain and gloom. It's as if it wants you to be miserable. The Met Office forecast for Manchester - and I know you are not far away - is, well, average for the time of year. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcw2hzs1u#?date=2024-07-04 Bit of rain but mainly dry. Warmish without being too spectacular. You'd be disappointed if you had a test match ticket for today, but over 7 days no worse than average.
Excellent post. The BBC raw output is absolutely hopeless yet is the most widely used. It always vastly overestimates the chance of rain, showing a rain symbol when there is a 30% chance of 1mm. It is becoming a problem for the leisure industry, because people believe it. Its verification rates at 3 days plus are awful.
All the symbol based ones are problematic because they have to average out the whole day. The same data can be seen in much better visual meteograms - here’s an example of my favourite format:
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
I've been corrected - if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours.
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
"if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours."
It varies from person to person to be honest.
But if he does have PD and the Dems are hiding this and this is later found out during the campaign then Trump can start loading his removal van with the gold golf clubs or whatever and head straight to the WH.
Later stages of PD can often include hallucinations, wild delusions and major memory issues.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
I have an American friend with a substack. I thought he was making beer money but we recently had a proper chat about it and he revealed he is making six figures. Incredible!
He’s only got about 2000 subscribers but they are willing to pay $5-10 a month
I’m very tempted to have a go. It would mean I quit PB. I can hear the moans of despair already
I pay for 4 or 5 subs but I am getting bored of it given most people make most content free, e.g. astralcodexten's subscriber only content is very thin (I think his desire to be read outweighs his avarice), and for that much money I could subscribe to the spectator and read a dozen writers a week (or rather I could if I didn't know how to hack the speccie pay wall).
I think what we are seeing is people in these areas are forming new media groups and that will bring these people together, so that your $5-10 goes further. We are seeing it with podcasts, the big ones are no longer a bloke out their bedroom with possibility a webcam. They are shot in professional studios, with multi-camera setup, etc etc etc. The likes of Steven Bartlett has formed a new media group, obviously Lineker has his goalhanger group.
I think the spin is that you let experts be experts or people who have a niche continue to do that, but you offer economy of scale e.g having these professional studios. But you still aren't trying to be traditional media of everything to everybody.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
There’s also a lot of independents making serious bank from Substack.
Yes, some of those people are making far more than they ever would as a journalist with a mainstream publication.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
I have an American friend with a substack. I thought he was making beer money but we recently had a proper chat about it and he revealed he is making six figures. Incredible!
He’s only got about 2000 subscribers but they are willing to pay $5-10 a month
I’m very tempted to have a go. It would mean I quit PB. I can hear the moans of despair already
You should give it a go. I'm pretty sure you'd find at least that many punters.
I am generous enough to forego the pleasure of your gratis musings. Though not without a small pang.
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Another PBer who gets weirdly triggered by Glastonbury. It is the world’s biggest music festival. It is newsworthy.
Yes, it’s a quaintly British attitude. Roskilde is just as corporate and mainstream but the Danes are justifiably proud of it.
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I assume with the Guardian, being owned by a Trust, that readership, and open access, is prized more highly than at a newspaper with an owner. So long as they're not going bust, and have the money to spend on journalism, they would want as many people to be able to read as possible, and for people who can't afford to pay, to still access the site.
They do also have paid access, which avoids the begging letter route.
As for Netflix/Spotify, wouldn't Readly and PressReader be those services?
I actually hadn't heard of Readly. But they are all the traditional magazines. I was thinking something bigger. Spotify is now basically an open platform for artists to upload their music to. At the moment we have numerous different bits and pieces, substack, newspapers, traditional magazines, new expert written content like an Athletic.
The reason everybody has Spotify or the couple of other services is it is now basically all music ever all in one place.
All music is big, but all writing is a lot bigger.
All TV and film would have been nice too, but I now have half a dozen services, which added together don't give me anything like the access to films that the old dvd by post system had.
I have briskly voted. Won't know what to do with myself on Thursday
I'm going for a haircut on polling day.
"Something for the weekend sir?"
"Yes please - a Labour government!"
I'd like to see a 'Labour Government' haircut. I imagine it would cost an eye-watering sum and turn a golden flowing mane into a few mangey tufts.
Your posts are sometimes SO funny.
Sadly, however, that's not usually when you are trying to be witty.
Isn’t a Labour haircut more like a mullet? A once popular thing that has inexplicably come back, so might not be around for so once people realise why it was thought of as naff in the first place.
Labour are the fifties revival in the seventies. A surfeit of naffness.
So another respect in which they'll be continuity Tories ?
No the Tories are the Dave Clark Five. Uber naff nobodies
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
I've been corrected - if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours.
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
"if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours."
It varies from person to person to be honest.
But if he does have PD and the Dems are hiding this and this is later found out during the campaign then Trump can start loading his removal van with the gold golf clubs or whatever and head straight to the WH.
Later stages of PD can often include hallucinations, wild delusions and major memory issues.
And while Biden clearly isn't there yet, in 3 years time and China is half way to Taiwan...
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Another PBer who gets weirdly triggered by Glastonbury. It is the world’s biggest music festival. It is newsworthy.
And a big success story for the UK, surely?
Indeed. Covering major live events is something the BBC should do more of, not less. Its thin sports output is an embarrassment these days, its political coverage increasingly poor. It does well at Glastonbury - a rare gem!
Why do they get into such a wankfest over this every year?
The average viewer of a 24 hour news channel couldn't give a feck about a bunch of twats living in squalor for a week, and listening to bands they have never heard of.
Another PBer who gets weirdly triggered by Glastonbury. It is the world’s biggest music festival. It is newsworthy.
It’s not in the top ten of biggest music festivals and not even the biggest in UK.
That focus group compared to the one in 2019 is really interesting.
I'm not sure I'd even go as far as saying "no enthusiasm" for SKS, actually to me it came across more like "he's dull but I want dull" and in the contrast to "loveable buffoon" they got in 2019, that's an asset SKS has. Polling of SKS's own ratings supports this.
I do think SKS was the best leader Labour could have chosen. He is underrated as a politician, he's got something and it appealed in some way to all of the voters they spoke to - or didn't repel anyone. I do wonder if for this reason the Tories will struggle against him if they go even more extreme.
This focus group has underlined my confidence that the Tories may well be out for a decade. They've lost these voters for good.
Lost them for good? Why do you think they are different to the people who voted the Tories out in 1997 but voted Cameron in? Why are they different from the people who kicked out Brown, didn’t like how Milliband ate his sarnies, were terrified of Labour under Corbyn, but are ok with Starmer?
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
Yes, the bradykinesis, mumbling, shuffling gait and expressionless face all fits quite well. Quite possible to have both of course.
She also points out that pretty much everyone over 70 has some form of vascular change (I'm just the messenger @PB oldies). With highly intelligent people this can be compensated for, but Biden's baseline is much more obvious given decades of TV etc etc. If you watch a video of Biden from 5 years ago he's nowhere near as sharp as he was 20 years ago, for example.
(Also reckons that if it is Parkinson's, his medical team didn't quite get the timing correct for the debate)
Doesn't matter what exactly he has.
He called and pushed for an early debate to show America that he was fit and able and up for the fight and a long campaign.
He failed his own test and that's an end to it imho.
Dems sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting 'just a cold' and 'we all have bad days' is just like putting out a welcoming mat for Trump 2.0 at the white house door.
They need to get a bloody grip and do the deed.
Yes it was said that Biden wanted the early debate, precisely so he could shut down internal party mutterings about his age and cognitive abilities, after the whitewash of a primary season with no competition allowed.
Instead, he had a very bad day and the calls to replace him are now louder than ever, including senior elected people in the party and The NY Times editorial.
Yes. And as I’ve pointed out, if he’s got Parkinson’s than that really isn’t a whole lot better than dementia. It means he probably will get dementia plus he already has a host of other issues. He’s 81
The democrats now have no choice. They have to get Joe to step down or they face certain defeat and massive damage to the party. Can’t they call on the party donors? Without money the party cannot function and the president cannot campaign
But I still wonder if the democrats have the stomach for this ordeal
Seems odd to be having a conversation about Biden's symptoms and possible diagnosis.. American politics is 99% superficial and if he doesn't look or sound like a president then it's back to the drawing board whatever his qualities. I've spent several hours with a bunch of American execs choosing the COLOUR OF A MANS TIE for a CAR WAX commercial so choosing a president who looks like one would seem pretty basic
Is it true that Farage said he'd send the Royal Marines into France in order to get the small boats back there?
He wants to invade France? A late bid for my vote!
You jest, but the problem is genuinely that this is an actual act of actual war. Sending the RM in on their own obviously is, and sending them in with a rubber dinghy full of brown people of unknown nationality doesn't materially alter the legalities.
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
I've been corrected - if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours.
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
"if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours."
It varies from person to person to be honest.
But if he does have PD and the Dems are hiding this and this is later found out during the campaign then Trump can start loading his removal van with the gold golf clubs or whatever and head straight to the WH.
Later stages of PD can often include hallucinations, wild delusions and major memory issues.
So, he would look like a sort of cross between Rudi Giuliani, Donald Trump, Nicola Sturgeon and the solicitors I've been dealing with?
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
Telegraph and Mail are profitable for starters, successfully moving to subscription model. Times is profitable as well.
I would say the biggest liability is Reach group i.e. Mirror. Mirror is irrelevant, and they bought all those regional newspapers that are failing.
The raverage age of the readership of the Telegraph must be close to 100. Its rumoured Sheikh Mansour wants to turn it into a City fanzine
I thought it was stuffed and has definitely gone downhill, but when we have discussed this previously have on here, have been reliably informed their move to paywall has gone surprisingly well and making money. 100 year olds don't generally know how to use ipads, so i think they have attracted those over who a tad younger than than that are capable of ipad usage.
In all seriousness It had quite a good film critic which worked for me and those who subscribed found something they wanted. The subscription was also cheap and easy to cancel and was sent online so the mechanics plus the price worked. Oddly enough I find the Guardian the most irritating. I just send an arbitrary amount of money at different times as requested but it still manages to behave like a market trader and do a big selling job before I can read anything
Its because the Guardian still struggling to make it all work in the modern landscape. Apparently they get a good chunk of their readership from online via US audience. For whatever reason they don't want to or aren't confident to go the full pay wall route, so they have gone the begging letter approach instead. If I was them, I would bite the bullet and go pay wall. Its works for Times, the NYT, the Athletic. People are willing to pay £5-10 a month for really good content.
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
I assume with the Guardian, being owned by a Trust, that readership, and open access, is prized more highly than at a newspaper with an owner. So long as they're not going bust, and have the money to spend on journalism, they would want as many people to be able to read as possible, and for people who can't afford to pay, to still access the site.
They do also have paid access, which avoids the begging letter route.
As for Netflix/Spotify, wouldn't Readly and PressReader be those services?
I actually hadn't heard of Readly. But they are all the traditional magazines. I was thinking something bigger. Spotify is now basically an open platform for artists to upload their music to. At the moment we have numerous different bits and pieces, substack, newspapers, traditional magazines, new expert written content like an Athletic.
The reason everybody has Spotify or the couple of other services is it is now basically all music ever all in one place.
All music is big, but all writing is a lot bigger.
All TV and film would have been nice too, but I now have half a dozen services, which added together don't give me anything like the access to films that the old dvd by post system had.
The 27 different streaming services won't last. They will consolidate.
Maybe I was being a bit OTT with the all writing ever. I mean more it becomes a central go to hub for a lot of different areas. The Readly site appears to be more we have done a deal with the couple of big magazine publishers to show their content digitally. Which yes is what Spotify does, but it also does more. And as I say, this "expert" or "niche" thing is big. I think it is why some traditional magazines are still able to stand on their own, because they are seen as the expert, where as others are struggling / dying. I guess a good example is tech magazines or games, they are all struggling, because the magazines are basically trash. But people are more interested than ever and you get the mega YouTube sites for tech or games.
The 27 different streaming services won't last. They will consolidate.
Maybe I was being a bit OTT with the all writing ever. I mean more it becomes a central go to hub for a lot of different areas. The Readly site appears to be more we have done a deal with the couple of big magazine publishers to show their content digitally. Which yes is what Spotify does, but it also does more.
I still think Amazon or Apple will end up buying Spotify at some point.
A big debate on Twitter - often amongst Democrats - about Biden’s alleged dementia. As they are discussing it - and using the D word - surely we can
Lots of them are desperate for him to step aside. One argument they are making is that dementia is not just about mumbling and slowing, which can indeed be handled by good advisors taking over most tasks. Some dementias turn you paranoid, angry, aggressive - they can make you hallucinate
Someone in that state simply cannot be POTUS. Not anywhere near it. Logically, Biden either has to prove he’s not got dementia or he has to go. If he doesn’t do either of these he is absolutely going to lose as Americans absorb this logic
But Biden has not shown any of those symptoms.
Trump however...
(No doubt something is wrong with Biden but there are plenty of other options. My partner reckons she knows what it is, and she works in old age psych)
So what is it?
Parkinson's (but with no tremor), but they aren't giving him the full whack of medication because the side effects would be too obvious. Would explain the on/off days.
That's an interesting theory.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
I've been corrected - if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours.
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
"if Parkinson's, the medication gives you on/off hours."
It varies from person to person to be honest.
But if he does have PD and the Dems are hiding this and this is later found out during the campaign then Trump can start loading his removal van with the gold golf clubs or whatever and head straight to the WH.
Later stages of PD can often include hallucinations, wild delusions and major memory issues.
And while Biden clearly isn't there yet, in 3 years time and China is half way to Taiwan...
There is no way he will be president in three years time.
And this is one of main issues: Trump will run against Harris as he can very plausibly say that she'll be in the oval office within months of the re-election.
Anyone know what polls we can expect this weekend?
Usually it's a quiet time for them but I imagine the papers will want a last shot at it.
I feel sure we'll a large scale poll from YouGov either this evening or tomorrow. Although they clearly have far more muscle and financial resources than most of their competitors, their most recent survey undertaken on 24-25 June appeared to be something of an outlier with support for Labour shown as being only 36% ... that must be around 5% lower than the Red Team's average level of support over the past couple of weeks. From their own point of view, I imagine they would like to undertake a further poll asap to support their earlier findings or to belatedly align themselves more closely with other pollsters.
Well didn’t YouGov have Labour on 38 also fairly recently, which was notable for also being lower than most other pollsters?
The most recent YouGov merely had a sample of 1572, and showed Labour at least 3 points lower than all of the 11 following polls. Previous YouGovs also showed the party in the 36-39 range - you have to go back to June 12-13 to find them showing Labour above 40. As they've also shown Tories low (and Reform high) they've not attracted that much attention. It's possible that they're right, but more likely that their ;panel needs to be refreshed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election
Is it true that Farage said he'd send the Royal Marines into France in order to get the small boats back there?
He wants to invade France? A late bid for my vote!
You jest, but the problem is genuinely that this is an actual act of actual war. Sending the RM in on their own obviously is, and sending them in with a rubber dinghy full of brown people of unknown nationality doesn't materially alter the legalities.
Oh yes, if he has actually said it, it just confirms he has no interest in practicalities. It’s the sort of the thing a decent Tory leader could skewer him for.
I am begging Tories, please don't copy 2019 Labour and tell the voters they are wrong. It's really not what you want to do.
Telling the voters they were wrong would involve keeping Rishi and the useless centrist managerial approach. That's exactly what they're not going to do.
Comments
This might be the least startling poll ever, just saying.
Just repeating "they will vote for us eventually" isn't an analysis, that's just wishful thinking. I am asking you, why?
Have you spoken to any younger voters recently? Do you have any ideas what they actually want?
Their policy should be "Nowt to do with us".
1) Repeal ECHR membership.
2) Repeal Climate Change Act.
3) Repeal Equality Act and replace with bill of Rights (which will include measures to stop discrimination for whatever reason through measures similar to the common carrier legislation on Railways that stopped them refusing customers and stopped them charging different customers different amounts. (the common carrier legislation was the worlds first anti discrimination legislation)).
4) Abolish hate crime legislation and instead increase sentences on (non hate aggravated) offences to the levels of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation, with judges able to reduce them if mitigation applies.
5) Replace welfare system with contributory based welfare system. Min 5 years full NI contribtutions to get cover (unless child of contributor turning 18 in which case cover through parents for first five years). Transition period applies to avoid existing over 18 residents losing cover in first five years.
6) No NHS cover until 5 years full NI contributions unless cover through parents having such cover. Transition period as above.
7) All restrictions on migration dropped, however no enitlement to any state aid whatsoever for first five years.
If they do too well and get dozens of MPs it will be a disaster as all sorts of unsuitable people will get elected. This is a long game.
But stage 1 is a toehold and the Tories going the way of the Liberals in the 1920s.
Morally I’m with @rottenborough
The democrats now have no choice. They have to get Joe to step down or they face certain defeat and massive damage to the party. Can’t they call on the party donors? Without money the party cannot function and the president cannot campaign
But I still wonder if the democrats have the stomach for this ordeal
I presume at some point we will get a Netflix / Spotify service for written content.
He didn’t loudly mock, rub it in, tease. Just sad pity.
That one line plus 10 minutes of Biden freezing and babbling. Horrible but compelling: real drama played out live
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/treated-like-dogs-russia-recruiting-thousands-of-nepali-men-to-fight-in-war-on-ukraine-13095184
Just suppose for a moment that a major party suggested that the state had no particular business being involved in social welfare, education or health provision and that these were matters for the voluntary sector, insurance, charities, families, personal responsibility and private enterprise to sort. The state tax take to halve.
IMHO the watershed was the 1945 election.
The only options put to us now are about the speed of increasing state expenditure and control.
It raises the equation of how they spin the next off day that he has. 'A cold' doesn't really work.
Election Focus Group: how many 2019 Boris voters will back Conservatives now?
If this is at all representative, the polls are right.
Luckily it wasn’t just Radio 6 people helping make Glastonbury “happen” as the lady presenting woman’s hour earlier yesterday was presenting live from Glastonbury and telling us how exciting it had been waking. Up in a yurt there.
I think the landscape is if you have expert knowledge and you can provide it in a format that is interesting and entertaining, people will pay. You aren't trying to target a market of millions like a old school newspaper, you are trying to target the 1,000s or 10,000s that are really interested in whatever niche it is you know about.
Absolutely brilliant from Starmer. I hate that he will win a kabillion majority but you have to give him his tactical dues.
I also slightly resent that it is so achingly mainstream now. It's like the One Show in a field. It's target market appears to be a middle aged couple from the Cotswolds called Clive and Linda.
Sadly, however, that's not usually when you are trying to be witty.
One year into KS premiership:
"Keir blames NHS collapse on Sunak."
I laughed
The wheel turns. People move on and forget. Leader change, and so do policies. The Tory Party might even die but the centre right will be in power within 15 years, and millennials will vote for it.
But I would love to see how you could get any party to agree to point 7....
I am happy to acknowledge a split in that demographic but I know people who will be early 40s in that time and none of them will vote Tory on the basis of how they have treated us now. I think you under-estimate just how much young people feel shafted.
Electioncast: The Run In"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm
So that would mean many more "off" hours during the election campaign. It does all feel a bit desperate tbh. Time for an Address to the Nation. We could even provide a diplomatic carrot and offer a holiday at Balmoral if he goes soon.
See my views on Labour. By 2010 I despised them. I don’t now, and even have a soft spot for Brown.
He’s only got about 2000 subscribers but they are willing to pay $5-10 a month
I’m very tempted to have a go. It would mean I quit PB. I can hear the moans of despair already
They do also have paid access, which avoids the begging letter route.
As for Netflix/Spotify, wouldn't Readly and PressReader be those services?
Thatcher won the youth vote. The Tories are on track to come third.
Content is way more important - and is what made Netflix grow as it did.
Until it became about support for Palestine.
The arguments are that the two issues are 'intrinsically linked', but I suspect the 'link' is that the campaigners care about both issues, and therefore believe they must be part of a greater whole.
The reason everybody has Spotify or the couple of other services is it is now basically all music ever all in one place.
This explains the coming election result.
People write the obituary of conservatism in 1997, 2001, and 2005, for all the reasons you say. And then Cameron rode some huskies and hugged some hoodies.
I'm not sure I'd even go as far as saying "no enthusiasm" for SKS, actually to me it came across more like "he's dull but I want dull" and in the contrast to "loveable buffoon" they got in 2019, that's an asset SKS has. Polling of SKS's own ratings supports this.
I do think SKS was the best leader Labour could have chosen. He is underrated as a politician, he's got something and it appealed in some way to all of the voters they spoke to - or didn't repel anyone. I do wonder if for this reason the Tories will struggle against him if they go even more extreme.
This focus group has underlined my confidence that the Tories may well be out for a decade. They've lost these voters for good.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters/highest-earning-substacks/
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=49069&model=gfs&var=210&run=6&lid=OP&bw=1
It varies from person to person to be honest.
But if he does have PD and the Dems are hiding this and this is later found out during the campaign then Trump can start loading his removal van with the gold golf clubs or whatever and head straight to the WH.
Later stages of PD can often include hallucinations, wild delusions and major memory issues.
I think the spin is that you let experts be experts or people who have a niche continue to do that, but you offer economy of scale e.g having these professional studios. But you still aren't trying to be traditional media of everything to everybody.
I'm pretty sure you'd find at least that many punters.
I am generous enough to forego the pleasure of your gratis musings. Though not without a small pang.
All TV and film would have been nice too, but I now have half a dozen services, which added together don't give me anything like the access to films that the old dvd by post system had.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/us/politics/jill-biden-says-she-reassured-the-president-in-the-moments-after-a-dismal-debate.html
FFS. This is bloody madness.
embarrassment these days, its political coverage increasingly poor. It does well at Glastonbury - a rare gem!
https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/27/glastonbury-biggest-music-festival-world-21113741/#:~:text=That would be Creamfields, which,arts festival in the world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/06/28/jill-biden-now-has-the-fate-of-the-world-in-her-hands/
https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2024/05/britainpredicts
https://election.pressassociation.com/general-election/general-election-2024/
The 27 different streaming services won't last. They will consolidate.
Maybe I was being a bit OTT with the all writing ever. I mean more it becomes a central go to hub for a lot of different areas. The Readly site appears to be more we have done a deal with the couple of big magazine publishers to show their content digitally. Which yes is what Spotify does, but it also does more. And as I say, this "expert" or "niche" thing is big. I think it is why some traditional magazines are still able to stand on their own, because they are seen as the expert, where as others are struggling / dying. I guess a good example is tech magazines or games, they are all struggling, because the magazines are basically trash. But people are more interested than ever and you get the mega YouTube sites for tech or games.
And this is one of main issues: Trump will run against Harris as he can very plausibly say that she'll be in the oval office within months of the re-election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election