"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Another possibility is that higher % of postal voters than in the past, are holding onto their ballots until the last minute, trying to decide who(m) to vote for?
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
Totally off topic, and following from your comments a few threads ago: Nils Taube was one of the greats. I stayed good friends with him after he left THS and we would have lunch at Le Caprice every two or three weeks.
And John Hodson - who I sat next to for a year - sadly passed away during Covid.
Cato I remain in sporadic contact with, albeit less since he moved to Belgium.
"...Like a dog lying in a corner They will bite you and never warn you Look out, they'll tear your insides out 'Cause everybody hates a tourist Especially one who, who thinks it's all such a laugh Yeah, and the chip stains and grease will come out in the bath..."
It always pisses me off that they cut these lines when playing the radio version. They absolutely make the song.
On UNS Sir John Curtice is forecasting a result closer to what Michael Howard got in 2005 for Sunak than what Major got in 1997 and Hague got in 2001. On an MRP forecast though Curtice says the Tory result could be even worse than 1997
'Sir John Curtice projects 370 Labour seats, 191 Tory seats and 34 LD and 34 SNP seats, 2 Plaid, 1 Green and 0 Reform on universal national swing based on analysis of 8 recent polls.
However on an MRP change the results look significantly different, with Curtice saying Labour could then get 447 seats, the Tories 98, the LDs 53, the SNP 21, Reform 8 and the Greens and Plaid 2 each' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl7y2xj728do
So he doesnt know.
Here's my regular reminder that if one methodology gives one result and another gives another, the truth is not in splitting the difference, the truth is that one of them is wrong. We now have to decide whether polls+UNS is right, or MRP is right.
Or neither, because something non-uniform is happening, but not based on the assumptions in the MRP model.
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Another possibility is that higher % of postal voters than in the past, are holding onto their ballots until the last minute, trying to decide who(m) to vote for?
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
I think, given the reputation of UK postal services, few who want to vote will delay.
(With apologies to @BlancheLivermore who I am sure does a fantastic job, as do our Posties tbf.)
Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
I’m a lot younger, slimmer, and sexier than you.
And most letchy old men of your age think I’m dead hot.
How would you know? Do they approach you on the buses and say "I'm a letchy old man who thinks you're dead hot"?
Seems a reasonable guess. Letchy old men tend to think anyone female is dead hot. Part of the job description.
On behalf of lechy old men I refute this baseless slur
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
Except of course you fall at the first hurdle because Brexit has not failed. We have left the EU and will not be returning.
If you jump off a cliff, you haven’t failed to leave the clifftop, but the results may not be all that you imagined.
When everyone told you it was a cliff and it turned out to be nothing more than a small step a lot of people would have the good grace to feel rather foolish.
That’s rather glib when Brexit has sent many small UK exporters to the wall.
UK Exports to the EU rose from £300 billion in 2019 to £357 billion in 2023.
In other words, rather less than inflation. And the small exporters are small but vital for the future.
Interesting thread about the claim UK's exports have increased in relative terms since Brexit. They are but it is distorted by gold movements and is only temporary anyway. Once you strip out gold, the UK's trade performance is weakening, especially in goods
France exports for 2022 was $963.97B, a 8.45% increase from 2021. France exports for 2021 was $888.84B, a 22.86% increase from 2020. France exports for 2020 was $723.48B, a 16.08% decline from 2019.
i.e compound 11.2% over three years.
So, that 2019 - 2020 decline at the beginning of your chosen date range makes it pretty hard to keep up with high inflation anyway...
Edit: Ignore, I ought to find those figures in euro...
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Another possibility is that higher % of postal voters than in the past, are holding onto their ballots until the last minute, trying to decide who(m) to vote for?
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
Anecdotally, my wife's postal ballot came very late, but it did arrive. Even more anecdotally, on the last two occasions the UK has changed Prime Minister she has been visiting her mother in Connecticut. She's there now.
And in October/November she will have the quadrennial fun of obtaining her postal ballot for the US election.
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Another possibility is that higher % of postal voters than in the past, are holding onto their ballots until the last minute, trying to decide who(m) to vote for?
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
I think, given the reputation of UK postal services, few who want to vote will delay.
(With apologies to @BlancheLivermore who I am sure does a fantastic job, as do our Posties tbf.)
I know the way that the sorting offices work - they won’t delay ballot papers if they can possible avoid it.
What I don’t know is how many councils were caught on the hop by the surprise election announcement and didn’t have their arrangements for producing and mailing the PVs ready to go?
Technically there is no such thing as a Supermajority in the UK.
A landslide I would say is c. 120+ majority. Some would set the bar a bit lower.
I suspect that this Tory / Daily Mail Supermajority message is cutting through and I’m not too unhappy about it. If it helps defeat @Leon ’s warped worldview then it’s a double win as far as I’m concerned.
There seems to be mixed signals. On one hand "its cutting through" - as I have to presume witnessed by this absurd 48 Hours thing. On the other hand the net of seats to LB attack / Tory defend gets stretched further and further.
It won't people an avalanche of people voting Labour. But they're voting against the Tories. Only a few days to find out if there is a late Tory swingback or not. But lets assume there is, and the "please please no" campaign has "worked" and Labour "only" win a 150 majority
Bit abject isn't it for the Tories? "We successfully avoided getting crushed! We only got beat by a massive landslide! WooHoo!!!!"
I would suggest you may be missing the point that many conservatives look on in disgust at Reform and their stated aim to take over the party and are determined to fight for the one nation conservative cause, but also to have at least a viable opposition and yes including an increased lib dem seat count
I have no idea of Fridays seat totals but disenchantment with all governing parties is at an extreme high, not just here but elsewhere and you only need to witness what is happening in France to be concerned if the centre right is marginalised into irrelevance
No I get it - we don't want Farage.
That is a given, the motivation to salvage as many seats as possible. And *that* is my point. The best case scenario - one the party is now spending its remaining cash pleading for - is to only give Labour a landslide.
How the mighty have fallen. It took Labour over a decade to recover from a badly misguided comedy note channeling Reginald Maudling. How long will it take the Tories to recover from "please don't destroy us, isn't a landslide enough for you?"
I kinda understand BigG's position. But a clearer signal to the Tories to return to the centre would be to vote for the centre. That's the Lib Dems, probably.
I want to address this directly
I was going to vote Lib Dem post Sunak's D day error but it was when Farage entered the fray as leader of Reform that we (my wife and I) made the decision it was correct for us to return to the conservatives as it it far more important to us that the conservatives out vote Reform in votes
Whether that happens I do not know but a vote for the Lib Dems here would have been a wasted vote anyway as labour are going to easily regain the seat
You could equally have decided it was important that the Lib Dems beat Reform on votes. Or that Plaid Cymru beat Reform in Wales. But you didn't. Because you're a Tory tribalist. It's not about Reform, it's about finding some reason to justify what you were always going to do anyway.
Basically every single thing you say can be discounted if it can be contradicted with "but you'll vote Tory anyway". Because you will. Your bland handwringing over Tory scandals can be (and in some quarters was) safely disregarded because the conclusion was always going to be same.
Please disregard everything I post and say if you so wish
I will continue to post as honestly as I can as long as I can
Already do, but I hope you don't think that also means I'll stop pointing out hypocrisy
Oh, I guess you won't be voting Starmer then?
Correct, I won't be
And yet you seem so keen for him to be PM. Hypocrite.
Do I? I'm keen for the Conservatives to be out of power, and I'm realistic enough to know that Labour are the only likely winner. If pushed, I would prefer a Lib Dem led government over a Labour one, but a Labour one will do.
Nigel, if you're going to call people hypocrites at least try to get a handle on their actual view instead of just making any old shit up, there's a good lad.
Hypocrite. There you go, and sorry I really couldn't give a flying fuck about your sad "actual view", as it appears that your "actual view" is really pretty unpleasant..
I have voted LD for the last two elections, though I am pleased that I will not be voting alongside a party that has such unpleasant emotionally unintelligent gits amongst it's following such as yourself. There is also the slight problem with the LDs having a fat buffoon as leader; Boris-Johnson-lite.
I'm probably* not voting Lib Dem either. You can have yet another go if you like! Eventually you might have enough of a handle on what's actually going on and then you can find some deep set hypocrisy and wound me, wound me with your formidable wit.
*I might, though. I will decide tomorrow.
What do I need to say to get your vote? Latest campaign push on FB points out that both Tory and SNP are saying the exact same thing about each other - you have to vote for x to stop y. What people are actually saying on the doorstep doesnt concern either of those two.
I’m the only candidate who’s been talking up jobs and the cost of living and the state of the NHS and council services - literally the only things anyone raises in the doors. And that isn’t just my opinion - Ross and Logan both confirmed that’s what they hear as well.
So why are they only talking about each other? People want change - so vote for it. Voting for more cuts and more broken promises and more failure changes nothing
Same thing I've been saying all along: my priority is that the Tories lose. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your policy platform. I voted Lib Dem last time around and I don't think you're worse now than you were then. So it's 100% an available option for me. Policy wise, you're EASILY within my quite flexibile limits. There are five parties: I will NEVER vote for Reform. I will ONLY vote for Conservative if it's them vs Reform because I'd MUCH rather have a Conservative MP than a Reform one. But that's not the situation, so CON are out. I could vote Labour I could vote SNP I could vote Lib Dem
So it's down to three. I've established to my satisfaction that Labour aren't going to win here: their candidate is suspended and I've heard not a peep from them, honestly ever, since I moved here. So they obviously aren't best placed to beat the Tories.
So it's down to two. My working assumption is the SNP are going to finish above Lib Dem. It's been a few days since I've delved into any polling or MRPs on the subject because I'm waiting for tomorrow when I'll have the freshest data as close to the vote as I can get. If I think Lib Dems will run the Tories the closest, I vote Lib Dem. If it's the SNP, I vote SNP. It's that simple.
Incidentally, update on campaigning: I passed the SNP bus driving along an A-road coming out of Peterhead, and I've seen one -- ONE! -- SNP poster in a window. On the same drive I saw that bus I also saw a big SNP banner in a field, just south of Peterhead near the turning for the Bullers. The permanent Alba poster a couple of miles from me remains in its window. It's been there for years and of course they're not even standing here. No other poster activity.
Thanks for the answer. I’m out in Fochabers - they definitely backed Ross last time and he’s been back here knocking as it’s in his comfort zone.
He isn’t getting their vote this time. The anger with the party is as palpable here as I’ve seen it anywhere. But what are the voters saying? They don’t want the SNP either.
I spoke to one guy who postal voted SNP purely because he hates the Tories. But genuinely I’ve had half a dozen other conversations this afternoon with people switching from the Tories to me. My campaign has been mentioned a few times - it’s cutting through.
And on the SNP side? They’re so pissed off with me that they’ve been reduced to begging for Labour votes despite most of their national campaign being an attack on Labour. Too many of their people last time on the doors saying not this time. I’m picking up votes off them - openly and as I’ve heard repeatedly now there’s people who have switched but don’t want to say so as there is this horrible omertà on speaking out against them.
I’m prepared for every possible result on Thursday. I’m not saying I am going to win - but in a change election people will win from worse positions than I started from. So I *could* win. And there’s a vibe going about both locally and in the wider LD campaign. Let’s put it like this. The Tories are telling candidates who are sitting MPs they have lost and to stop. We’re pushing further and further into Tory safe seats…
Don’t get over excited. You’ve fought a spirited campaign, but will be so far away from winning that you need to prepare yourself for the result.
I concur. ANME will be interesting for sure. But I'm struggling to see the farmers, fisherfolk and oil'n'gas workers having a rochdale-gasm on Thursday.
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Could be the second. After all, one of the swings to anticipate is Con to not voting. And if postal voters tend older, that would tend towards the blue team.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
[Part 1 of 2...] Failed? We Brexited, didn't we? Though arguably failed in that the right - both populist and mercantilist (do I mean that? do you know what I mean? the Singapore-on-Thames lobby) lost control of it, and neither really got to implement their particular vision of Brexit. So perhaps. Was it a project of the right though? Arguably the right lent Brexit most, though not all, of its leadership - but it wasn't really right-leaning voters who delivered it: the correlation between those who voted right previously and those who voted for Brexit was ambiguous, and in terms of geography weak. I'd say it was sui generis. But I can see the point you're making. And did it absorb and stunt populist right energy? Well I'd say it did, initially. Sadly, those of us who wanted Brexit on grounds of either governance (i.e. the democratic argument) or economics (the European-economy-looking-a-bit-parlous-best-disentangle-ourselves argument) were probably not those who swayed the day - what swayed the day was (as always) the emotional side: both the towns like Clacton who felt distinctly left out of the growth brought about by globalism, and, as always, the immigration angle (particularly if you remember the immigration issues mainland Europe was having in 2016). On both of those issues, those who voted Brexit had reason initially to think that their concerns might be being addressed. Boris was elected with an explicit focus on the areas which had not benefited from globalism, and (possibly coincidentally - covid must have been a factor) immigration dropped down the list of concerns. And also, after years of prevarication by parliament, Brexit was pushed through. And with labour shortages, wages began to rise. And the far right began to ebb, and the Tories won Hartlepool in a by-election.
... [cont]
Yep:
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get. - the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get. - Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
My guess is most Reform voters are very keen on a change of government. They might not like Labour, but they definitely don't want another 5 years of this Conservative government. So it's a waste of time. You may as well say if Con + Reform is greater than Lab then all the Conservative voters should vote Reform.
100% agree. Arbitrarily lumping one party's voters in with another is a fool's errand. See also the Green/Lib Dem/PC pact at the last election which was excellent news for the Tories in Wales at least.
See also the Blue Wall Tories and the Red Wall Tories Sunak's special trick seems to be managing to alienate both.
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Could be the second. After all, one of the swings to anticipate is Con to not voting. And if postal voters tend older, that would tend towards the blue team.
If it is a reduction in turnout then I think that's a very large reduction in turnout.
IIRC we had a figure of 85% for turnout by postal vote. There's still a couple of days for more to arrive, but most are returned early, so a 50% rate now would be a huge drop. (Albeit the 50% rate is wired only by a single council)
Time to take another look at betting on a low turnout?
"...Like a dog lying in a corner They will bite you and never warn you Look out, they'll tear your insides out 'Cause everybody hates a tourist Especially one who, who thinks it's all such a laugh Yeah, and the chip stains and grease will come out in the bath..."
It always pisses me off that they cut these lines when playing the radio version. They absolutely make the song.
What! They cut those lines. They're the best lines.
"ANAS Sarwar has rejected calls for him to back the SNP campaign against outgoing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross – despite Labour not standing a candidate in the constituency."
Thanks for the heads up. Shows you how desperate the SNP are getting. My campaign is cutting through - I’m out-spending them talking about jobs, investment, public services and the cost of living. They’re putting out quotes from MSPs saying you have to vote SNP to stop the Tories.
EDIT - posting this under a tree sheltering from a passing shower here in Fochabers!
Any word on which water companies the SNP are allowing to dump sewage into our rivers, lochs and seas? It would be really good to know before I cast my vote. Perhaps you could do a bar chart showing the respective companies and their sewage dumping.
Scottish Water have the lowest rate of outfall monitoring at just 4%, but by some measures are still the worst performing in the whole U.K.
And they are, of course, publicly owned...
A Scotch water expert as I live and breathe. I'd still trust my fishing pals who are out on the water week in, week out, who haven't once mentioned sewage but endlessly complain about salmon farming and agri run off, with a soupçon of overfishing in the Clyde estuary. Anyway on the arguable basis that Scottish Water (a corporation) is a company, this piece of classic LD election literature mentions companies(pl); which are the other ones?
'The Reform UK chairman has admitted to "mistakes" in the party's selection process after its candidate in Orkney and Shetland suggested Nicola Sturgeon should be shot.
Robert Smith posted numerous insults about prominent women on social media between 2016 and last year, The Times has reported [...]
The Times reported that Mr Smith made several insulting comments about Ms Sturgeon, as well as author and activist JK Rowling and Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank.'
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Could be the second. After all, one of the swings to anticipate is Con to not voting. And if postal voters tend older, that would tend towards the blue team.
"...Like a dog lying in a corner They will bite you and never warn you Look out, they'll tear your insides out 'Cause everybody hates a tourist Especially one who, who thinks it's all such a laugh Yeah, and the chip stains and grease will come out in the bath..."
It always pisses me off that they cut these lines when playing the radio version. They absolutely make the song.
Top song.
Do they? I've never heard them do so. Though I think there are at least two versions, and the slightly longer version (which I think is the single version) is better - though strangely it's the album version which gets played on the radio. I think.
Anyway - if you've never done so, you really should check out William Shatner's version. It is unexpectedly genuinely and unironically brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0
This whole album, by the way, is a work of genius. (The genius in question being Ben Folds, who wrote and arranged it.) Some of the most unexpectedly moving pop music of the noughties. "That's me trying" in particular: if that doesn't give you a lump in the throat you are almost certainly already dead. Shatner doesn't even sing - he just speaks - but as he is a professional actor, he does so very, very well.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
[Part 1 of 2...] Failed? We Brexited, didn't we? Though arguably failed in that the right - both populist and mercantilist (do I mean that? do you know what I mean? the Singapore-on-Thames lobby) lost control of it, and neither really got to implement their particular vision of Brexit. So perhaps. Was it a project of the right though? Arguably the right lent Brexit most, though not all, of its leadership - but it wasn't really right-leaning voters who delivered it: the correlation between those who voted right previously and those who voted for Brexit was ambiguous, and in terms of geography weak. I'd say it was sui generis. But I can see the point you're making. And did it absorb and stunt populist right energy? Well I'd say it did, initially. Sadly, those of us who wanted Brexit on grounds of either governance (i.e. the democratic argument) or economics (the European-economy-looking-a-bit-parlous-best-disentangle-ourselves argument) were probably not those who swayed the day - what swayed the day was (as always) the emotional side: both the towns like Clacton who felt distinctly left out of the growth brought about by globalism, and, as always, the immigration angle (particularly if you remember the immigration issues mainland Europe was having in 2016). On both of those issues, those who voted Brexit had reason initially to think that their concerns might be being addressed. Boris was elected with an explicit focus on the areas which had not benefited from globalism, and (possibly coincidentally - covid must have been a factor) immigration dropped down the list of concerns. And also, after years of prevarication by parliament, Brexit was pushed through. And with labour shortages, wages began to rise. And the far right began to ebb, and the Tories won Hartlepool in a by-election.
... [cont]
Yep:
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get. - the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get. - Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
I'm glad you said that, because in my highly inexpert view of Singapore, I thought they had a LOT of government planning over the decades, and I never really understood what exactly the SoT lot actually wanted.
It's always "Singapore on Thames" and never "Singapore on Trent".
It's obvious how these people saw the future economy, and it was never to be a future for the "Red Wall".
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Another possibility is that higher % of postal voters than in the past, are holding onto their ballots until the last minute, trying to decide who(m) to vote for?
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
I think, given the reputation of UK postal services, few who want to vote will delay.
(With apologies to @BlancheLivermore who I am sure does a fantastic job, as do our Posties tbf.)
I know the way that the sorting offices work - they won’t delay ballot papers if they can possible avoid it.
What I don’t know is how many councils were caught on the hop by the surprise election announcement and didn’t have their arrangements for producing and mailing the PVs ready to go?
Croydon do mention some delays in printing but say:
"Our postal votes were sent out in 3 main dispatches. Monday 17 June (around 42,000) Monday 24 June (around 2,000) Thursday 27 June (around 3,000) The final dispatch was slightly later than we had planned. This was caused by delays in the production of the postal vote packs by our print contractors. But they were all dispatched 1st class with enough time to return them to us before the day of election."
17th June is over two weeks ago, plenty of time for the vast bulk to have got back. Also, they say:
"The majority of the re-issues requested so far have been from voters on the last two dispatches, which is to be expected. "
...which doesn't imply that many of the 42k first batch went missing on the way out.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
[Part 1 of 2...] Failed? We Brexited, didn't we? Though arguably failed in that the right - both populist and mercantilist (do I mean that? do you know what I mean? the Singapore-on-Thames lobby) lost control of it, and neither really got to implement their particular vision of Brexit. So perhaps. Was it a project of the right though? Arguably the right lent Brexit most, though not all, of its leadership - but it wasn't really right-leaning voters who delivered it: the correlation between those who voted right previously and those who voted for Brexit was ambiguous, and in terms of geography weak. I'd say it was sui generis. But I can see the point you're making. And did it absorb and stunt populist right energy? Well I'd say it did, initially. Sadly, those of us who wanted Brexit on grounds of either governance (i.e. the democratic argument) or economics (the European-economy-looking-a-bit-parlous-best-disentangle-ourselves argument) were probably not those who swayed the day - what swayed the day was (as always) the emotional side: both the towns like Clacton who felt distinctly left out of the growth brought about by globalism, and, as always, the immigration angle (particularly if you remember the immigration issues mainland Europe was having in 2016). On both of those issues, those who voted Brexit had reason initially to think that their concerns might be being addressed. Boris was elected with an explicit focus on the areas which had not benefited from globalism, and (possibly coincidentally - covid must have been a factor) immigration dropped down the list of concerns. And also, after years of prevarication by parliament, Brexit was pushed through. And with labour shortages, wages began to rise. And the far right began to ebb, and the Tories won Hartlepool in a by-election.
... [cont]
Yep:
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get. - the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get. - Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
I'm glad you said that, because in my highly inexpert view of Singapore, I thought they had a LOT of government planning over the decades, and I never really understood what exactly the SoT lot actually wanted.
The right-wing battlecry for low regulation had always been cover for regulation for thee and not for me. Freedom for employers, but regulation for unions.
Singapore might be highly-regulated, but I would guess it's the sort of regulation that appeals to right-wingers.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
[Part 1 of 2...] Failed? We Brexited, didn't we? Though arguably failed in that the right - both populist and mercantilist (do I mean that? do you know what I mean? the Singapore-on-Thames lobby) lost control of it, and neither really got to implement their particular vision of Brexit. So perhaps. Was it a project of the right though? Arguably the right lent Brexit most, though not all, of its leadership - but it wasn't really right-leaning voters who delivered it: the correlation between those who voted right previously and those who voted for Brexit was ambiguous, and in terms of geography weak. I'd say it was sui generis. But I can see the point you're making. And did it absorb and stunt populist right energy? Well I'd say it did, initially. Sadly, those of us who wanted Brexit on grounds of either governance (i.e. the democratic argument) or economics (the European-economy-looking-a-bit-parlous-best-disentangle-ourselves argument) were probably not those who swayed the day - what swayed the day was (as always) the emotional side: both the towns like Clacton who felt distinctly left out of the growth brought about by globalism, and, as always, the immigration angle (particularly if you remember the immigration issues mainland Europe was having in 2016). On both of those issues, those who voted Brexit had reason initially to think that their concerns might be being addressed. Boris was elected with an explicit focus on the areas which had not benefited from globalism, and (possibly coincidentally - covid must have been a factor) immigration dropped down the list of concerns. And also, after years of prevarication by parliament, Brexit was pushed through. And with labour shortages, wages began to rise. And the far right began to ebb, and the Tories won Hartlepool in a by-election.
... [cont]
Yep:
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get. - the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get. - Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
I'm glad you said that, because in my highly inexpert view of Singapore, I thought they had a LOT of government planning over the decades, and I never really understood what exactly the SoT lot actually wanted.
"At the time of writing, we have had around 50% of the dispatched postal votes returned. We are concerned by this, as we would have expected a higher response at this stage. Along with a number of other local councils, we have raised this with Royal Mail management locally and nationally as a matter of urgency. Our concerns are being investigated, and I will update you when I have further information."
Could be lost in the post I guess or... could it be that postal voters are sitting this one out?
Could be the second. After all, one of the swings to anticipate is Con to not voting. And if postal voters tend older, that would tend towards the blue team.
If it is a reduction in turnout then I think that's a very large reduction in turnout.
IIRC we had a figure of 85% for turnout by postal vote. There's still a couple of days for more to arrive, but most are returned early, so a 50% rate now would be a huge drop. (Albeit the 50% rate is wired only by a single council)
Time to take another look at betting on a low turnout?
If the 1997 precedent is a precedent, turnout should be lower than last time. If nothing else, few people expect this election to be competitive.
Besides, one of the back of an envelope models of this election is Conservatives losing about half their 2019 vote. If the postals are Conservative biased...
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
[Part 1 of 2...] Failed? We Brexited, didn't we? Though arguably failed in that the right - both populist and mercantilist (do I mean that? do you know what I mean? the Singapore-on-Thames lobby) lost control of it, and neither really got to implement their particular vision of Brexit. So perhaps. Was it a project of the right though? Arguably the right lent Brexit most, though not all, of its leadership - but it wasn't really right-leaning voters who delivered it: the correlation between those who voted right previously and those who voted for Brexit was ambiguous, and in terms of geography weak. I'd say it was sui generis. But I can see the point you're making. And did it absorb and stunt populist right energy? Well I'd say it did, initially. Sadly, those of us who wanted Brexit on grounds of either governance (i.e. the democratic argument) or economics (the European-economy-looking-a-bit-parlous-best-disentangle-ourselves argument) were probably not those who swayed the day - what swayed the day was (as always) the emotional side: both the towns like Clacton who felt distinctly left out of the growth brought about by globalism, and, as always, the immigration angle (particularly if you remember the immigration issues mainland Europe was having in 2016). On both of those issues, those who voted Brexit had reason initially to think that their concerns might be being addressed. Boris was elected with an explicit focus on the areas which had not benefited from globalism, and (possibly coincidentally - covid must have been a factor) immigration dropped down the list of concerns. And also, after years of prevarication by parliament, Brexit was pushed through. And with labour shortages, wages began to rise. And the far right began to ebb, and the Tories won Hartlepool in a by-election.
... [cont]
Yep:
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get. - the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get. - Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
I'm glad you said that, because in my highly inexpert view of Singapore, I thought they had a LOT of government planning over the decades, and I never really understood what exactly the SoT lot actually wanted.
It's always "Singapore on Thames" and never "Singapore on Trent".
It's obvious how these people saw the future economy, and it was never to be a future for the "Red Wall".
Now I bow to no-one in my chippiness and northern resentment of London. But I don't think that's totally true. SoT was a way of - like Singapore, or at least like the SoTs believe Singapore to be - turning the UK into somewhere which makes things and sells them abroad. Which is pretty much how I see the future of the North. I do agree that it probably betrays the mind map of the SoTsers though, who were largely southeastern and who possibly see Britain as an island which the Thames neatly and evenly bisects north/south.
Energy and environmental impacts of air-to-air heat pumps in a mid-latitude city
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49836-3 Heat pumps (HPs) have emerged as a key technology for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. This study evaluates the potential switch to air-to-air HPs (AAHPs) in Toulouse, France, where conventional space heating is split between electric and gas sources. In this context, we find that AAHPs reduce heating energy consumption by 57% to 76%, with electric heating energy consumption decreasing by 6% to 47%, resulting in virtually no local heating-related CO2 emissions. We observe a slight reduction in near-surface air temperature of up to 0.5 °C during cold spells, attributable to a reduction in sensible heat flux, which is unlikely to compromise AAHPs operational efficiency. While Toulouse’s heating energy mix facilitates large energy savings, electric energy consumption may increase in cities where gas or other fossil fuel sources prevail. Furthermore, as AAHPs efficiency varies with internal and external conditions, their impact on the electrical grid is more complex than conventional heating systems. The results underscore the importance of matching heating system transitions with sustainable electricity generation to maximize environmental benefits...
Little bit of a Tory uptick, but nothing to set the world on fire.
Unless the Reform vote implodes in the privacy of the polling booth, the Conservatives will be well short of 30% of the popular vote. Easily their worst ever result at a GE.
Totally off topic, and following from your comments a few threads ago: Nils Taube was one of the greats. I stayed good friends with him after he left THS and we would have lunch at Le Caprice every two or three weeks.
And John Hodson - who I sat next to for a year - sadly passed away during Covid.
Cato I remain in sporadic contact with, albeit less since he moved to Belgium.
I guess we must have been in the same room on several occasions. Nils was a loyal customer to quite a small circle of St James and Mayfair restaurants.
Sorry to hear that Covid got John.
I have been away from the City for so long, and only keep in intermittent touch with a few of the old lags. I will try to be back in the autumn and hold a catch up for "those that remember me". Maybe, if you are this side of the herring pond sometime we could also set up another PB gathering in the NLC.
I've now seen 2 Labour, 1 LD, and 1 Reform posters/signs in SWW Wiltshire. Not sure why people would leave it so late to put something up, real swing voters perhaps.
Two point swing Lab to Con from 1st to last Redfield poll across the campaign (46 23 to 41 22) I'll try and post up each pollsters first to last today and tomorrow
Labour will be happy with the R&W poll. But a long way still to go in terms of polls and actual voting and I’m sure they will be chewing nails until the exit poll.
Will the Royal Mail foul-up as regards the issuing and processing of returned Postal Votes further depress overall turnout levels? That seems likely, although I haven't seen the precise scale of the poblem having been referred to. What we do know is that approx 20% of the electorate have appled for a postal vote, so possibly BIG numbers are involved and potentially a seat or two. This has led me to have a punt on the 60.00% - 62.49% turnout band where Ladbrokes' 7/2 is currently the best odds available and also on the 62.50% - 64.99% band where those nice folk at the Betfair Exchange go 7/2 (or 3.325/1 net of their 5% comm'n).
Every election time, Royal Mail will have a team sorting through the incoming mail and fast-tracking outgoing and returning postal votes, and in delivery offices it will be the same. They may arrive later than intended, but I would be surprised if many arrive too late - no-one at RM wants to put the company at the centre of such a national news story.
In our local elections last year, 679 completed postal votes were delivered back to the council late. It is usually about 60. At least one council ward result could have been swayed by this failure of Royal Mail.
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
You do realise that Rishi isn't that short don't you? And that a fair section of the population is by definition short? I'm not sure all these heightist jokes land quite as you want.
Meh? That's a 50% vote increase for the SNP in one poll!
Or it could be MoE.
Surely not.
Joking aside though I would expect some decent swingback to the SNP come election day. They are the incumbents, and while they're not the government in Westminster I would imagine the same dynamic of telling pollsters one thing in protest but then returning to your previous party will happen in Scotland too.
The Tories, as expected, are doing better as people move away from recording a protest to actually deciding who they will vote to lead the country for the next 5 years.
That coupled with that Tories usually turnout, imo suggests going to be closer than we think.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
Except of course you fall at the first hurdle because Brexit has not failed. We have left the EU and will not be returning.
Yes it happened alright. If we just consider it as an event rather than a change then it can neither succeed nor fail. There's something in that but it's not how it was pitched or is usually discussed.
It was usually discussed as an existential catastrophe and an ELE for the British economy. If that's what you were expecting I suppose you could say that it's failed to live up to its billing.
Well give it time. It's more a slow poison than a nuclear bomb.
The only recent tweet from Damian Lyons Lowe of Survation is this interesting reply just now
It's not true if you look at the past week. The past 6 weeks, definitely. But RefUK are edging down and Con are edging up.
The Reform fizzle this time round has seemed like the most predictable thing ever. That may not hold forever if they get seats in parliament, but it was always going to happen in 2024.
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
Except of course you fall at the first hurdle because Brexit has not failed. We have left the EU and will not be returning.
Yes it happened alright. If we just consider it as an event rather than a change then it can neither succeed nor fail. There's something in that but it's not how it was pitched or is usually discussed.
It was usually discussed as an existential catastrophe and an ELE for the British economy. If that's what you were expecting I suppose you could say that it's failed to live up to its billing.
Well give it time. It's more a slow poison than a nuclear bomb.
So you're predicting that Starmer's government will fail on the economy?
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
Unless you Baxter with UNS:
LAB 432 CON 142 LIB D 40 Ref 0 Green 1 SNP 13
Highlighting that how this GE’s swing falls will be absolutely critical.
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
Unless you Baxter with UNS:
LAB 432 CON 142 LIB D 40 Ref 0 Green 1 SNP 13
Wouldn't it be funny if after all the sound and fury Ref got no seats?
Most polls from here will show the Tories going up, Reform going down and Labour's lead narrowing.
I strongly suspect Reform will poll lower than the lowest number they get in any poll between now and Thursday, and the Tories will poll higher than their highest number.
"London Reform candidate defects claiming party is 'racist, misogynistic, and bigoted'
Georgie David, standing in West Ham and Beckton, said she was suspending her general election campaign in the east London seat
“I am in no doubt that the party and its senior leadership are not racist,” she said. “However, as the vast majority of candidates are indeed racist, misogynistic, and bigoted, I do not wish to be directly associated with people who hold such views that are so vastly opposing to my own and what I stand for."
Mr Sunak is having a laugh. IF 30,000 people vote Labour or Lib Dem and not Tory there will not be any Tory seats, that is how daft these suggestions are.. All the recent polls are supported by local by election results. It is going to be a slaughter.
Redfield final call Labour leads the Conservatives by 19% in our final poll.
🇬🇧 Westminster Voting Intention (28 June - 2 July):
Labour 41% (-1) Conservative 22% (+3) Reform UK 16% (-2) Liberal Democrat 10% (-1) Green 6% (+1) SNP 3% (+1) Other 2% (–)
Changes +/- 26-27 Jun
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
Looks like a late Ref > Con switch is happening?
I feel like Reform will drop to the mid teens, Tories between 20-25, away from the worst predictions of sub 20 but not by much.
LDs seem rooted to 10-12, they have a low ceiling thesedays.
I think the LDs will outperform slightly, getting 12-13% on the night.
Years of disappointments with Lib Dem performances have taught me to trust the polls rather than my wishcasting hunches. Or rather, trust them if they're going down, ignore them if they're going up.
Current flap re: UK postal voting in the light of USA vote-by-mail:
> In USA prior to 2020 general election, lots of coverage in American media concerning problems with United States Postal Service (USPS) which is a quasi-government whatever-you-call-it. Problems both long-term AND exacerbated by Trump administration screw-ups (some accidental, others deliberate).
> In UK prior to 2024 general, sudden spike (if not frenzy) in media coverage of Royal Mail's Horizon scandal, along with other issues concerning deterioration (if PB's any indication) of basic postal service.
> In USA attacks by growing numbers of Republican politicos, pundits, activists on absentee and vote-by-mail as alleged conduits of electoral corruption (amplified by ramping & related disinformation) with effect of making many GOP voters reluctant to vote via the mail, and also making many Dems concerned whether Trump-inspired sabotage of USPS could disenfranchise them; in turn this led lost of Republicans to wait until Election Day to vote AND Democrats to either vote earlier via mail OR use ballot boxes and early in-person voting. My own guess is that Dems benefited more than Reps from this dynamic.
> In WA State where all elections are conducted via vote-by-mail, the Secretary of State and local county auditors have close & frequent contacts with USPS managers, in order to respond to problems that arise in mail ballots out to voters, and with voters mailing them back to election authorities. AND even better, to plan and prepare for massive numbers of individual postal ballots moving both directions through the system - ballots that need to be properly processed, indeed expedited, in order to enfranchise voters, guard against error AND tampering, and (lest we forget) move all that mail down the line so that BlancheLivermore & etc. can get it where it needs to go.
> In UK, there is relative absence (I think) of MAGA-GOP anti-postalism (though maybe NOT on PB) so that's not much of a factor. But appears to be growing angst about postal votes NOT getting counted because they're stuck on a truck somewhere on the M1.
Survation MRP today and their ‘final call’ MRP tomorrow will be interesting and informative hopefully
Also when are we getting our final yougov?
Final YouGov MRP tomorrow and I'd imagine there will be a final regular voting intention poll in the works as well (maybe that will be released later?)
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
Unless you Baxter with UNS:
LAB 432 CON 142 LIB D 40 Ref 0 Green 1 SNP 13
Highlighting that how this GE’s swing falls will be absolutely critical.
For the Conservative Party. Not to the election result.
"A Workers Party of Britain candidate said he was "fearful for his life" after his son was attacked while canvassing for him.
Wajad Burkey, the party’s general election candidate for Sutton Coldfield, said his son had a head injury after being "beaten up" and was being treated in hospital. He has suspended his campaign.
West Midlands Police said a man was attacked by a group with a baseball bat on Beaconsfield Road in Sutton Coldfield on Sunday."
LAB 468 (41%) CON 69 (22%) LIB DEM 67 (10%) REFUK 6 (16%) GREEN 3 (6%) SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
Lib Dems to finish 2nd in seats without Labour has drifted out to 7.6 and I really like it on these poll showings. Seems like it really doesn’t need a huge amount to line up to come off, even if it looks slightly less likely than when the Tories were polling in the teens
It's interesting that the LDs continue to have low numbers when all the signs are they're doing well in their targets. Their vote cratering in non-target seats may well make it easier for them to come 2nd in total seats. So counter-intuitively a reason to back them for 2nd W/O Labour
She’s gone from the mid teens to the mid 30 percent. In one election. A ginormous leap
Also see this about Bardella, from the same FT article
“Driving much of the change is Le Pen’s 28-year old protégé Jordan Bardella, who appeals to women and does not have the baggage of the Le Pen name.”
Women - younger women - are shifting to the RN. Despite the mewlings of geriatric thermos-freak and self declared anarchist @Heathener, sitting under her tartan blankie on the top deck of her hipster revolutionary bus heading into suburban Sidmouth, I am right. The young are moving to the hard right
Yes, the claim that 'we have already done that' with Brexit is nonsense. Brexit was a) driven by the old, b) about one specific issue, and c) arguably didn't really entail any sort of change of view: the British had always been pretty Eurosceptic anyway and while there was probably a majority in support of the EU as it was circa 1987 or 1992 or even 2005, I don't think in retrospect there was ever really support for the EU as it was post Lisbon. It certainly wasn't a rightwards shift, still less one driven by the young.
Well Brexit was a (failed) project of the populist right (both inside and outside the Tory Party) and to the extent we have a certain amount of 'populist right energy' in the UK it has absorbed and stunted it rather than fed the flames. France is France but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for more of that sort of stuff here. The opposite in fact. Landslide majorities for a politician like Keir Starmer don't happen in countries gagging for a hard right strongman.
Except of course you fall at the first hurdle because Brexit has not failed. We have left the EU and will not be returning.
Yes it happened alright. If we just consider it as an event rather than a change then it can neither succeed nor fail. There's something in that but it's not how it was pitched or is usually discussed.
It was usually discussed as an existential catastrophe and an ELE for the British economy. If that's what you were expecting I suppose you could say that it's failed to live up to its billing.
Well give it time. It's more a slow poison than a nuclear bomb.
So you're predicting that Starmer's government will fail on the economy?
I'm hoping for a sterling job on damage limitation over the next decade or so.
Sources: Democratic governors held a call yesterday afternoon...
Just governors – no staffs – no one from campaign or WH...
Organized by Gov Tim Walz of Minnesota for the DGA...
On the call Dem. governors expressed concern about what's going on with the president
They know if they come forward publicly with concern that likely will cause Biden to dig in more
They were also surprised none of them had heard from him (!)
Did they regularly hear from him before?
The next week or so will be crucial: will enough pressure be placed on Biden that he decides to withdraw, or will he remain the nominee dragging his party down?
(FWIW, I don't think it is impossible for Biden to win. I think the Supreme Court has done a massive favour to the Democrats, first with Roe v Wade, next with Presidential immunity. The two of these are likely to be big drivers of turnout for the Democrats. That said, I'm sure the Dems would do better with Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as candidate.)
Comments
Way out here on the fringes of existence in WA State, one of the main reasons why voters in our all vote-by-mail election retain their ballots until the deadline, is because they don't want to vote and THEN find out some information that would have altered their decision.
This is in context where we typically have multiple races, measures, candidates to vote on. But just sayin.
Totally off topic, and following from your comments a few threads ago: Nils Taube was one of the greats. I stayed good friends with him after he left THS and we would have lunch at Le Caprice every two or three weeks.
And John Hodson - who I sat next to for a year - sadly passed away during Covid.
Cato I remain in sporadic contact with, albeit less since he moved to Belgium.
(With apologies to @BlancheLivermore who I am sure does a fantastic job, as do our Posties tbf.)
France exports for 2022 was $963.97B, a 8.45% increase from 2021.
France exports for 2021 was $888.84B, a 22.86% increase from 2020.
France exports for 2020 was $723.48B, a 16.08% decline from 2019.
i.e compound 11.2% over three years.
So, that 2019 - 2020 decline at the beginning of your chosen date range makes it pretty hard to keep up with high inflation anyway...
Edit: Ignore, I ought to find those figures in euro...
And in October/November she will have the quadrennial fun of obtaining her postal ballot for the US election.
What I don’t know is how many councils were caught on the hop by the surprise election announcement and didn’t have their arrangements for producing and mailing the PVs ready to go?
I may of course be proven to be very wrong very shortly.
The problem with the Conservatives post 2019 is that they managed to fail three groups of people:
- the Singapore-on-Thames group, who wanted massive deregulation*, and the opening of trade barriers. Which they didn't get.
- the Left Behinders who cared principally about restricting immigration and protection of British industry. Which they didn't get.
- Remainers who wanted a very soft Brexit and remain in Brussels' orbit. Which they didn't get.
On the positive side, if you are a childless property owning pensioner, you've done really well!
* Which, ironically, Singapore doesn't have: it's one of the most regulated economies on Earth
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/jeffrey-donaldson-faces-further-seven-sexual-offence-charges
IIRC we had a figure of 85% for turnout by postal vote. There's still a couple of days for more to arrive, but most are returned early, so a 50% rate now would be a huge drop. (Albeit the 50% rate is wired only by a single council)
Time to take another look at betting on a low turnout?
I'd still trust my fishing pals who are out on the water week in, week out, who haven't once mentioned sewage but endlessly complain about salmon farming and agri run off, with a soupçon of overfishing in the Clyde estuary. Anyway on the arguable basis that Scottish Water (a corporation) is a company, this piece of classic LD election literature mentions companies(pl); which are the other ones?
I have a meeting at the bank later, and if all goes well my money problems will be over.
I'm so excited I can barely put on my ski mask.
Though I think there are at least two versions, and the slightly longer version (which I think is the single version) is better - though strangely it's the album version which gets played on the radio. I think.
Anyway - if you've never done so, you really should check out William Shatner's version. It is unexpectedly genuinely and unironically brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0
This whole album, by the way, is a work of genius. (The genius in question being Ben Folds, who wrote and arranged it.) Some of the most unexpectedly moving pop music of the noughties. "That's me trying" in particular: if that doesn't give you a lump in the throat you are almost certainly already dead.
Shatner doesn't even sing - he just speaks - but as he is a professional actor, he does so very, very well.
https://x.com/conservatives/status/1808155567614992811
But overall more likely that the movement is in line with the betting
It's obvious how these people saw the future economy, and it was never to be a future for the "Red Wall".
Says on it at the bottom "Promoted by and on behalf of Stop Akehurst North Durham at (address in Stanley)"
Never seen a purely negative campaign leaflet before not (at least apparently) by any particular political party.
"Our postal votes were sent out in 3 main dispatches.
Monday 17 June (around 42,000)
Monday 24 June (around 2,000)
Thursday 27 June (around 3,000)
The final dispatch was slightly later than we had planned. This was caused by delays in the production of the postal vote packs by our print contractors. But they were all dispatched 1st class with enough time to return them to us before the day of election."
17th June is over two weeks ago, plenty of time for the vast bulk to have got back. Also, they say:
"The majority of the re-issues requested so far have been from voters on the last two dispatches, which is to be expected. "
...which doesn't imply that many of the 42k first batch went missing on the way out.
Singapore might be highly-regulated, but I would guess it's the sort of regulation that appeals to right-wingers.
But that’s not been the case with others at all.
Deputy PM Oliver Dowden reveals his pick for next Tory leader in leaked recording
https://x.com/REWearmouth/status/1808162919999275278
@TelePolitics
📸 Rise and shine! After an early wake up, the Prime Minister stops off for McDonalds in Buckinghamshire
@BurgerKingUK
Things can only get better
Besides, one of the back of an envelope models of this election is Conservatives losing about half their 2019 vote. If the postals are Conservative biased...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eater#History
The only recent tweet from Damian Lyons Lowe of Survation is this interesting reply just now
Which is pretty much how I see the future of the North.
I do agree that it probably betrays the mind map of the SoTsers though, who were largely southeastern and who possibly see Britain as an island which the Thames neatly and evenly bisects north/south.
Labour leads the Conservatives by 19% in our final poll.
🇬🇧 Westminster Voting Intention (28 June - 2 July):
Labour 41% (-1)
Conservative 22% (+3)
Reform UK 16% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 10% (-1)
Green 6% (+1)
SNP 3% (+1)
Other 2% (–)
Changes +/- 26-27 Jun
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
Labour leads the Conservatives by 19% in our final poll.
🇬🇧 Westminster Voting Intention (28 June - 2 July):
Labour 41% (-1)
Conservative 22% (+3)
Reform UK 16% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 10% (-1)
Green 6% (+1)
SNP 3% (+1)
Other 2% (–)
Changes +/- 26-27 Jun
https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1808168755731878026
Labour leads the Conservatives by 19% in our final poll.
🇬🇧 Westminster Voting Intention (28 June - 2 July):
Labour 41% (-1)
Conservative 22% (+3)
Reform UK 16% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 10% (-1)
Green 6% (+1)
SNP 3% (+1)
Other 2% (–)
Changes +/- 26-27 Jun
https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1808168755731878026
LAB 41% (-1)
CON 22% (+3)
RFM 16% (-2)
LIB 10% (-1)
GRN 6% (+1)
SNP 3% (+1)
OTH 2% (=0)
Faragasm endeth. Otherwise meh.
LAB 468 (41%)
CON 69 (22%)
LIB DEM 67 (10%)
REFUK 6 (16%)
GREEN 3 (6%)
SNP 15
Labour Majority 286
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49836-3
Heat pumps (HPs) have emerged as a key technology for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. This study evaluates the potential switch to air-to-air HPs (AAHPs) in Toulouse, France, where conventional space heating is split between electric and gas sources. In this context, we find that AAHPs reduce heating energy consumption by 57% to 76%, with electric heating energy consumption decreasing by 6% to 47%, resulting in virtually no local heating-related CO2 emissions. We observe a slight reduction in near-surface air temperature of up to 0.5 °C during cold spells, attributable to a reduction in sensible heat flux, which is unlikely to compromise AAHPs operational efficiency. While Toulouse’s heating energy mix facilitates large energy savings, electric energy consumption may increase in cities where gas or other fossil fuel sources prevail. Furthermore, as AAHPs efficiency varies with internal and external conditions, their impact on the electrical grid is more complex than conventional heating systems. The results underscore the importance of matching heating system transitions with sustainable electricity generation to maximize environmental benefits...
Unless the Reform vote implodes in the privacy of the polling booth, the Conservatives will be well short of 30% of the popular vote. Easily their worst ever result at a GE.
Sorry to hear that Covid got John.
I have been away from the City for so long, and only keep in intermittent touch with a few of the old lags. I will try to be back in the autumn and hold a catch up for "those that remember me". Maybe, if you are this side of the herring pond sometime we could also set up another PB gathering in the NLC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57SQ9bDhxDY
I'll try and post up each pollsters first to last today and tomorrow
LDs seem rooted to 10-12, they have a low ceiling thesedays.
Not entirely sure I agree with putting the British No.1 on Court 3 for her opening match.
They may yet just edge Labour on Scottish seats won.
Joking aside though I would expect some decent swingback to the SNP come election day. They are the incumbents, and while they're not the government in Westminster I would imagine the same dynamic of telling pollsters one thing in protest but then returning to your previous party will happen in Scotland too.
That coupled with that Tories usually turnout, imo suggests going to be closer than we think.
Sources: Democratic governors held a call yesterday afternoon...
Just governors – no staffs – no one from campaign or WH...
Organized by Gov Tim Walz of Minnesota for the DGA...
On the call Dem. governors expressed concern about what's going on with the president
They know if they come forward publicly with concern that likely will cause Biden to dig in more
They were also surprised none of them had heard from him (!)
LAB 432
CON 142
LIB D 40
Ref 0
Green 1
SNP 13
I strongly suspect Reform will poll lower than the lowest number they get in any poll between now and Thursday, and the Tories will poll higher than their highest number.
Labour will be high 30s.
God knows on seats!
Also when are we getting our final yougov?
Georgie David, standing in West Ham and Beckton, said she was suspending her general election campaign in the east London seat
“I am in no doubt that the party and its senior leadership are not racist,” she said. “However, as the vast majority of candidates are indeed racist, misogynistic, and bigoted, I do not wish to be directly associated with people who hold such views that are so vastly opposing to my own and what I stand for."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-reform-candidate-defects-tories-georgia-david-racism-b1168085.html
IF 30,000 people vote Labour or Lib Dem and not Tory there will not be any Tory seats, that is how daft these suggestions are..
All the recent polls are supported by local by election results. It is going to be a slaughter.
Welsh Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 40% (-5)
RFM: 16% (+3)
CON: 16% (-2)
PLC: 14% (+2)
LDM: 7% (+2)
GRN: 5% (+1)
Via @YouGov, 27 Jun - 1 Jul.
Changes w/ 30 May - 3 Jun.
Baxter is pretty broken, IMHO.
> In USA prior to 2020 general election, lots of coverage in American media concerning problems with United States Postal Service (USPS) which is a quasi-government whatever-you-call-it. Problems both long-term AND exacerbated by Trump administration screw-ups (some accidental, others deliberate).
> In UK prior to 2024 general, sudden spike (if not frenzy) in media coverage of Royal Mail's Horizon scandal, along with other issues concerning deterioration (if PB's any indication) of basic postal service.
> In USA attacks by growing numbers of Republican politicos, pundits, activists on absentee and vote-by-mail as alleged conduits of electoral corruption (amplified by ramping & related disinformation) with effect of making many GOP voters reluctant to vote via the mail, and also making many Dems concerned whether Trump-inspired sabotage of USPS could disenfranchise them; in turn this led lost of Republicans to wait until Election Day to vote AND Democrats to either vote earlier via mail OR use ballot boxes and early in-person voting. My own guess is that Dems benefited more than Reps from this dynamic.
> In WA State where all elections are conducted via vote-by-mail, the Secretary of State and local county auditors have close & frequent contacts with USPS managers, in order to respond to problems that arise in mail ballots out to voters, and with voters mailing them back to election authorities. AND even better, to plan and prepare for massive numbers of individual postal ballots moving both directions through the system - ballots that need to be properly processed, indeed expedited, in order to enfranchise voters, guard against error AND tampering, and (lest we forget) move all that mail down the line so that BlancheLivermore & etc. can get it where it needs to go.
> In UK, there is relative absence (I think) of MAGA-GOP anti-postalism (though maybe NOT on PB) so that's not much of a factor. But appears to be growing angst about postal votes NOT getting counted because they're stuck on a truck somewhere on the M1.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgrwdex9zzo
"A Workers Party of Britain candidate said he was "fearful for his life" after his son was attacked while canvassing for him.
Wajad Burkey, the party’s general election candidate for Sutton Coldfield, said his son had a head injury after being "beaten up" and was being treated in hospital. He has suspended his campaign.
West Midlands Police said a man was attacked by a group with a baseball bat on Beaconsfield Road in Sutton Coldfield on Sunday."
Their vote cratering in non-target seats may well make it easier for them to come 2nd in total seats.
So counter-intuitively a reason to back them for 2nd W/O Labour
The next week or so will be crucial: will enough pressure be placed on Biden that he decides to withdraw, or will he remain the nominee dragging his party down?
(FWIW, I don't think it is impossible for Biden to win. I think the Supreme Court has done a massive favour to the Democrats, first with Roe v Wade, next with Presidential immunity. The two of these are likely to be big drivers of turnout for the Democrats. That said, I'm sure the Dems would do better with Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as candidate.)