Keir's speech is on btw. It's a long list of things.
Not really. Apart from change, delivery, public service and standards - the general themes about being different from the chaotic Tories - there expressly wasn't anything much on policy. It's mood music again, not detail. Probably the most significant thing is that he's starting off with a tour of the devolved administrations, followed by inviting all the metro mayors to a conference on Tuesday. It's an early indication that the interest in devolution is genuine.
Sorry - I was being a little sarcastic about the long list of things.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
A while back, some kids who participated in the murder of another - stabbing near Oxford Street - got a year, IIRC. They held the victim down…
Because of time in custody, early release etc. this was literally Out For Christmas.
We need to be more creative in our punishments. Inflicting brief but severe mental pain for violent criminals?
Constant electronic surveillance via robot. So intrusive it ruins your life. Etc
All that can be done and it will still deter and it will save shitloads of cash. Imprisonment is an 18th century solution for 21st century villains
There are many options with surveillance that never existed before which would potentially act as punishment and so avoid the need for jail.
I suppose you could try something like psychological torture via AI, but this would probably raise human rights concerns.
Forced to listen to Radiohead Live At Glastonbury on repeat?
Keir's speech is on btw. It's a long list of things.
Not really. Apart from change, delivery, public service and standards - the general themes about being different from the chaotic Tories - there expressly wasn't anything much on policy. It's mood music again, not detail. Probably the most significant thing is that he's starting off with a tour of the devolved administrations, followed by inviting all the metro mayors to a conference on Tuesday. It's an early indication that the interest in devolution is genuine.
Huge difference to the Tories. Very interesting news.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
One issue is that a lot of the demand for high prison sentences are driven by disgust and repulsion towards the dark side of human nature that isn't really processed and reflected on. At some point you need to think what you really want to do with someone like this character Plumb. It is very easy to just say 'throw away the key' but is a whole life sentence really correct/proportionate for someone that didn't act out on their ideas? If not a life sentence what is going to be achieved by say 10 years in jail (as I would guess would be the likely outcome) - a 500k bill and then after he is out he is going to be dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?
He was given a suspended sentence for his first attempts at kidnap via threatening note. It was such a deterrent that, 2 years later, he stepped up to grabbing and tying up schoolgirls at knife-point.
Softly, softly was tried. It failed. Softly, softly is the reason most of the women I know hate walking alone at night.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
To give them their due I don't think most of the 2019 Tory MPs went to parliament to spend their time lying on the Prime minister's behalf. I don't blame them for getting rid of him.
The polling was not great, but also not apocalyptic at the time. But he kept asking too much of his MPs to defend his own personal, rather than policy, cockups. That wears MPs down after awhile.
And everyone treats the polling as static. Given his personal behaviour it is hard to believe it wouldn't have continued downwards.
I'm confident it would have levelled out eventually.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
To give them their due I don't think most of the 2019 Tory MPs went to parliament to spend their time lying on the Prime minister's behalf. I don't blame them for getting rid of him.
The polling was not great, but also not apocalyptic at the time. But he kept asking too much of his MPs to defend his own personal, rather than policy, cockups. That wears MPs down after awhile.
And everyone treats the polling as static. Given his personal behaviour it is hard to believe it wouldn't have continued downwards.
For all the "he gets it now" talk from Nads and other cheerleaders he really didn't get it.
Which is odd because while he had always been self-serving he hadn't been so unnecessarily self-destructive.
I have wondered before if the replacement of Marina Wheeler with Carrie Symonds might have been a factor in his decision making.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
A while back, some kids who participated in the murder of another - stabbing near Oxford Street - got a year, IIRC. They held the victim down…
Because of time in custody, early release etc. this was literally Out For Christmas.
We need to be more creative in our punishments. Inflicting brief but severe mental pain for violent criminals?
Constant electronic surveillance via robot. So intrusive it ruins your life. Etc
All that can be done and it will still deter and it will save shitloads of cash. Imprisonment is an 18th century solution for 21st century villains
There are many options with surveillance that never existed before which would potentially act as punishment and so avoid the need for jail.
I suppose you could try something like psychological torture via AI, but this would probably raise human rights concerns.
Put them in a medically induced coma for the duration of their sentence.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
The RedWall is now the BlueWall, albeit with two shades of blue. To win these people over you have to pander to populism and "othering", although Farage is better at that than your Party are. Besides that doesn't return the Lib Dem BlueWall seats to you. I wonder in the same way once safe Labour seats are lost forever whether that might also be true of the LibDem gains in the Home Counties. Johnson's loutish behaviour didn't go down well in genteel Buckinghamshire.
And did anyone see Steve Baker's meltdown on GMB, blaming Ozzie and Balls for his defeat? Nurse, Nurse over here quickly please!
It wasn't a meltdown, it was a perfectly controlled and highly effective skewering which left Balls squirming and Osborne hiding behind his inscrutability act. This is mere tribalism: this man is on the other side, therefore he must smell of poo.
He was clearly very upset and he lost his shit. Whether his prediction that Labour will destroy the nation remains to be seen. From my point of view his previous predictions regarding Brexit, to me at least, suggest he is perhaps not the soothsayer you and Mr BEds have taken him for.
I am under no illusion that both the Labour and Conservative campaigns were disingenuous. Either taxes have to be raised or services cut, and Labour have been left holding that particular parcel.
Everything else being equal. Yes. How have we reached a situation in which public services have become so unproductive, despite the resources increasing? My local school has about 1,600 pupils, but has 200 full time equivalent members of staff. My local hospital has about a third more staff than it had even fifteen years ago.
In part, because patch and mend is cheap in the short term but expensive in the longer term. Whenever a problem comes up, the temptation is always to shift money from capital investment (pay lots upfront, reap the rewards gradually over a decade or more) to agency staff to get over this month's crisis.
It's been happening for ages, not just post-2019 or even post-2010, but the conseqences have been becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Good luck dealing with the multiple poonamis, Keir.
This is spot on. There has also been a focus on input measures (number of doctors etc) rather than outcomes.
Would be interested if, given a free hand, schools and hospitals would have spent more on IT and estates rather than staff (obviously they would have liked to do both).
Schools rather than hospitals are my thing, but the key problem is the difference between "urgent" and "important". It would only be possible to solve the important problems by accepting that some of the urgent problems have to go hang. And we don't want to do that.
It's that time management matrix thing attributed to Eisenhower. Do the urgent and important, make time for the non-urgent and important, delegate the urgent and less important. It can be a real struggle to clear the urgent/important list, so longer term important stuff just sits there waiting for years. And schools have increasingly become the delegatee of last resort for any problems involving young people.
Not easy to fix.
I'm not sure where we are on schools investment. From here the Schools Replacement Programme for 500 schools looks better and more significant that the Ed Balls PFI funded programme.
There are around 100-110 schools in Nottinghamshire built using the CLASP system in 195x to 1970x, which all need replacing by about 203x under their 60 year design life.
In my town we have 2 secondaries educating around 3000+ students which will be rebuilt under the SRP, and checking the data for Notts 11 secondaries are on the list from 2022.
AFAIC from Admissions data I think that is 11 out of 71 secondaries. The Admissions data seems to cover all of them.
I can't call how good it is, as I do not have the detail about the SRP to comment further.
I'm also not sure how good education results have been under the Tories - international data seems to say academically OK. But again, not my specialism.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
It might've actually been better if we'd had the 13 Reform MPs suggested by the exit poll as that would've included a bunch of unknown quantities and almost certainly some absolute fucking liabilities whose incompetence in office would've hastened said implosion. (As happened years ago when the BNP got local councillors elected, some of whom were barely literate and couldn't grasp key aspects of council workings, exposing their overall uselessness.)
Assuming Tice, Farage and Anderson are savvy enough to avoid major fuck-ups, we're reliant on the other two to publicly drag them down.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
A while back, some kids who participated in the murder of another - stabbing near Oxford Street - got a year, IIRC. They held the victim down…
Because of time in custody, early release etc. this was literally Out For Christmas.
We need to be more creative in our punishments. Inflicting brief but severe mental pain for violent criminals?
Constant electronic surveillance via robot. So intrusive it ruins your life. Etc
All that can be done and it will still deter and it will save shitloads of cash. Imprisonment is an 18th century solution for 21st century villains
There are many options with surveillance that never existed before which would potentially act as punishment and so avoid the need for jail.
I suppose you could try something like psychological torture via AI, but this would probably raise human rights concerns.
Put them in a medically induced coma for the duration of their sentence.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
You what? Where are these people trained for the job?
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
It might've actually been better if we'd had the 13 Reform MPs suggested by the exit poll as that would've included a bunch of unknown quantities and almost certainly some absolute fucking liabilities whose incompetence in office would've hastened said implosion. (As happened years ago when the BNP got local councillors elected, some of whom were barely literate and couldn't grasp key aspects of council workings, exposing their overall uselessness.)
Assuming Tice, Farage and Anderson are savvy enough to avoid major fuck-ups, we're reliant on the other two to publicly drag them down.
Farage and Anderson may be savvy, but I’m not convinced they’re on the same wavelength. Is there a market in first Reform UK MP to leave the party?
Some thoughts on the future of the SNP, and of Scottish Independence.
After heavy defeats, the Tories more right wing and Labour went more left wing, before realising it wasn’t getting them back to power.
I expect the SNP hierarchy to double down on their progressive agenda and continue to pay lip service to independence. The same people are still in control of the party and will continue to alienate the remaining members who value party democracy. They will be responsible for arranging the order of potential list MSPs on the ballot. Many insiders are now ex MPs (Smyth, Nicolson, Thewliss, Oswald) and will be looking for places at the top of the lists. The SNP are likely to be more reliant on list MSPs after they lose more constituency MSPs in 2026.
At some point in the future, there will be a battle for the heart and soul of the party. Until this happens, the party will not recover. However, success is cyclical. I have a feeling that the SNP will be next challenging for power at the 2036 Holyrood election. Expect Indyref 2 some time in the 2040s.
That’s exactly what I think. Sindyref isn’t off the agenda forever. Just pragmatically impossible for several reasons for 15-20 years. Indeed I think an eventual YES vote is about as possible as the UK Rejoining the EU. Not on the cards for a generation - but one day? Maybe
All that said I am also pretty certain that enormous societal and technological changes will make these political issues look utterly trivial and decorative, like installing new wallpaper in a house that’s about to be turned into an intergalactic portal
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Got used to.
That's the modern BBC for you. Direct quote from them.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
Sigh....first up BBC Political Editor Chris Mason who asks Starmer if he has unpacked, found his way around Downing Street ...
Oh gods. I'm sure he's been there before.
They will asking him next if he wears slippers or crocs.
"I think that's an important question, and the most important thing is not to judge people for their choices but to lead a government that is for all the people. There are occasions where I wear slippers, and occasions I wear crocs, and I staunchly defend the right of those who wear neither, or mix and match, or wear boots at all times. Under my administration I will make choice of footwear a fundamental right, with all employers having a duty of care to ensure foot comfort for their employees, or stump comfort for those with one or fewer feet"
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
The RedWall is now the BlueWall, albeit with two shades of blue. To win these people over you have to pander to populism and "othering", although Farage is better at that than your Party are. Besides that doesn't return the Lib Dem BlueWall seats to you. I wonder in the same way once safe Labour seats are lost forever whether that might also be true of the LibDem gains in the Home Counties. Johnson's loutish behaviour didn't go down well in genteel Buckinghamshire.
And did anyone see Steve Baker's meltdown on GMB, blaming Ozzie and Balls for his defeat? Nurse, Nurse over here quickly please!
It wasn't a meltdown, it was a perfectly controlled and highly effective skewering which left Balls squirming and Osborne hiding behind his inscrutability act. This is mere tribalism: this man is on the other side, therefore he must smell of poo.
He was clearly very upset and he lost his shit. Whether his prediction that Labour will destroy the nation remains to be seen. From my point of view his previous predictions regarding Brexit, to me at least, suggest he is perhaps not the soothsayer you and Mr BEds have taken him for.
I am under no illusion that both the Labour and Conservative campaigns were disingenuous. Either taxes have to be raised or services cut, and Labour have been left holding that particular parcel.
Everything else being equal. Yes. How have we reached a situation in which public services have become so unproductive, despite the resources increasing? My local school has about 1,600 pupils, but has 200 full time equivalent members of staff. My local hospital has about a third more staff than it had even fifteen years ago.
In part, because patch and mend is cheap in the short term but expensive in the longer term. Whenever a problem comes up, the temptation is always to shift money from capital investment (pay lots upfront, reap the rewards gradually over a decade or more) to agency staff to get over this month's crisis.
It's been happening for ages, not just post-2019 or even post-2010, but the conseqences have been becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Good luck dealing with the multiple poonamis, Keir.
This is spot on. There has also been a focus on input measures (number of doctors etc) rather than outcomes.
Would be interested if, given a free hand, schools and hospitals would have spent more on IT and estates rather than staff (obviously they would have liked to do both).
Schools rather than hospitals are my thing, but the key problem is the difference between "urgent" and "important". It would only be possible to solve the important problems by accepting that some of the urgent problems have to go hang. And we don't want to do that.
It's that time management matrix thing attributed to Eisenhower. Do the urgent and important, make time for the non-urgent and important, delegate the urgent and less important. It can be a real struggle to clear the urgent/important list, so longer term important stuff just sits there waiting for years. And schools have increasingly become the delegatee of last resort for any problems involving young people.
Not easy to fix.
I'm not sure where we are on schools investment. From here the Schools Replacement Programme for 500 schools looks better and more significant that the Ed Balls PFI funded programme.
There are around 100-110 schools in Nottinghamshire built using the CLASP system in 195x to 1970x, which all need replacing by about 203x under their 60 year design life.
In my town we have 2 secondaries educating around 3000+ students which will be rebuilt under the SRP, and checking the data for Notts 11 secondaries are on the list from 2022.
AFAIC from Admissions data I think that is 11 out of 71 secondaries. The Admissions data seems to cover all of them.
I can't call how good it is, as I do not have the detail about the SRP to comment further.
I'm also not sure how good education results have been under the Tories - international data seems to say academically OK. But again, not my specialism.
AFAICS the English national numbers are 248 secondaries (SRP spreadsheet*) in the Schools Replacement Programme from 3458 nationally (Google). School age is not uniform so averages cannot be relied upon.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
One issue is that a lot of the demand for high prison sentences are driven by disgust and repulsion towards the dark side of human nature that isn't really processed and reflected on. At some point you need to think what you really want to do with someone like this character Plumb. It is very easy to just say 'throw away the key' but is a whole life sentence really correct/proportionate for someone that didn't act out on their ideas? If not a life sentence what is going to be achieved by say 10 years in jail (as I would guess would be the likely outcome) - a 500k bill and then after he is out he is going to be dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?
He was given a suspended sentence for his first attempts at kidnap via threatening note. It was such a deterrent that, 2 years later, he stepped up to grabbing and tying up schoolgirls at knife-point.
Softly, softly was tried. It failed. Softly, softly is the reason most of the women I know hate walking alone at night.
What is the hard punishment that you would impose at the first stage of the process - such that would have prevented what came after? Whole life sentences for every first time offender?
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
It is quite funny to watch centrists who dislike the conservative party and all its works solemnly advising them that the only route to salvation is to become Liberal Democrats with a blue veneer.
Sigh....first up BBC Political Editor Chris Mason who asks Starmer if he has unpacked, found his way around Downing Street ...
Oh gods. I'm sure he's been there before.
They will asking him next if he wears slippers or crocs.
"I think that's an important question, and the most important thing is not to judge people for their choices but to lead a government that is for all the people. There are occasions where I wear slippers, and occasions I wear crocs, and I staunchly defend the right of those who wear neither, or mix and match, or wear boots at all times. Under my administration I will make choice of footwear a fundamental right, with all employers having a duty of care to ensure foot comfort for their employees, or stump comfort for those with one or fewer feet"
...and woe betide anyone who doesn't toe the line.
Sigh....first up BBC Political Editor Chris Mason who asks Starmer if he has unpacked, found his way around Downing Street ...
Oh gods. I'm sure he's been there before.
They will asking him next if he wears slippers or crocs.
"I think that's an important question, and the most important thing is not to judge people for their choices but to lead a government that is for all the people. There are occasions where I wear slippers, and occasions I wear crocs, and I staunchly defend the right of those who wear neither, or mix and match, or wear boots at all times. Under my administration I will make choice of footwear a fundamental right, with all employers having a duty of care to ensure foot comfort for their employees, or stump comfort for those with one or fewer feet"
It is important, after all the average (arithmetical) person has less than 2 feet.
Some thoughts on the future of the SNP, and of Scottish Independence.
After heavy defeats, the Tories more right wing and Labour went more left wing, before realising it wasn’t getting them back to power.
I expect the SNP hierarchy to double down on their progressive agenda and continue to pay lip service to independence. The same people are still in control of the party and will continue to alienate the remaining members who value party democracy. They will be responsible for arranging the order of potential list MSPs on the ballot. Many insiders are now ex MPs (Smyth, Nicolson, Thewliss, Oswald) and will be looking for places at the top of the lists. The SNP are likely to be more reliant on list MSPs after they lose more constituency MSPs in 2026.
At some point in the future, there will be a battle for the heart and soul of the party. Until this happens, the party will not recover. However, success is cyclical. I have a feeling that the SNP will be next challenging for power at the 2036 Holyrood election. Expect Indyref 2 some time in the 2040s.
That’s exactly what I think. Sindyref isn’t off the agenda forever. Just pragmatically impossible for several reasons for 15-20 years. Indeed I think an eventual YES vote is about as possible as the UK Rejoining the EU. Not on the cards for a generation - but one day? Maybe
All that said I am also pretty certain that enormous societal and technological changes will make these political issues look utterly trivial and decorative, like installing new wallpaper in a house that’s about to be turned into an intergalactic portal
Geo-politics may have an influence, too.
Given Russia and friends, perhaps some Nats won't be quite as enthusiastic about setting off into the wild blue yonder, potentially like Jumblies from Edward Lear.
What would a non-destroyed party have gotten - 640 MPs?
Whilst I agree, there's something in this.
If you get votes entirely on silence, negativity and tedious tactical triangulation (which is Starmer all over) you have no depth to fall back on when the tide goes out on you.
Sigh....first up BBC Political Editor Chris Mason who asks Starmer if he has unpacked, found his way around Downing Street ...
Oh gods. I'm sure he's been there before.
They will asking him next if he wears slippers or crocs.
"I think that's an important question, and the most important thing is not to judge people for their choices but to lead a government that is for all the people. There are occasions where I wear slippers, and occasions I wear crocs, and I staunchly defend the right of those who wear neither, or mix and match, or wear boots at all times. Under my administration I will make choice of footwear a fundamental right, with all employers having a duty of care to ensure foot comfort for their employees, or stump comfort for those with one or fewer feet"
It is important, after all the average (arithmetical) person has less than 2 feet.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
One issue is that a lot of the demand for high prison sentences are driven by disgust and repulsion towards the dark side of human nature that isn't really processed and reflected on. At some point you need to think what you really want to do with someone like this character Plumb. It is very easy to just say 'throw away the key' but is a whole life sentence really correct/proportionate for someone that didn't act out on their ideas? If not a life sentence what is going to be achieved by say 10 years in jail (as I would guess would be the likely outcome) - a 500k bill and then after he is out he is going to be dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?
He was given a suspended sentence for his first attempts at kidnap via threatening note. It was such a deterrent that, 2 years later, he stepped up to grabbing and tying up schoolgirls at knife-point.
Softly, softly was tried. It failed. Softly, softly is the reason most of the women I know hate walking alone at night.
What is the hard punishment that you would impose at the first stage of the process - such that would have prevented what came after? Whole life sentences for every first time offender?
I worked with a guy who got done for Drunk and Disorderly on the Isle of Man and got one lash.
These questions are f##king moronic...its basically will you do want you said you would do in your manifesto from 3 f##king weeks ago. What's he going to say, nah, I was just having a laugh, I junked all of that, we are going full Corbyn.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Got used to.
That's the modern BBC for you. Direct quote from them.
“Leading Journalists” come from the same pool as “Leading Politicians”
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
This simplistic Move Right v Tack Centre stuff is such bullshit, and almost always framed by non-Tories.
Doubtless we will hear it constantly for the next 5 years.
I don't know where the idea the LDs are a southern party has arisen from. Scotland - 10.5% of MPs NE England - 0% NW England - 4% Yorkshire and the Humber - 2% Wales - 3% E Midlands - 0% W Midlands - 3.5% E England - 11.5% London - 8% SE England - 26% SW England - 38%
The interesting thing is the SW includes places they have essentially abandoned in the last 10 years but which used to be strong second places at least.
So whilst holding the 38% itself will not be easy, there is still room to grow in the region.
Looking at the Lib Dem target marginals, they're scattered all over the place - but the greatest proportion of them are in the South East, not the South West. That's partly because Conservative strength in the region has already been largely exhausted, and partly because Labour has emerged as the main beneficiary of the chuck out the Tories tactical vote in many of the surviving Conservative holds.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Got used to.
That's the modern BBC for you. Direct quote from them.
“Leading Journalists” come from the same pool as “Leading Politicians”
Why are you surprised by the result?
I keep hoping they might get a software update....
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
It is quite funny to watch centrists who dislike the conservative party and all its works solemnly advising them that the only route to salvation is to become Liberal Democrats with a blue veneer.
There is certainly a fair point about people who don't like a particular party perhaps not having their best interests at heart when giving advice.
On the other hand, die hard supporters are by their nature absolutely terrible at understanding how to appeal to people who are not die hard supporters.
Indeed, getting on board people who are not currently supporting you may well require listening to people who do not currently support you telling you what it would take to make them support you.
Some of that advice will be impractical or unhelpful - "become a socialist party" for instance probably would do more harm than good - but it shouldn't be dismissed outright because it's not coming from current supporters. Some of those centrists did vote Tory previously. As indeed did some on the right - both need to be listened to, and ideas developed on what it would take to get them on side.
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
What would a non-destroyed party have gotten - 640 MPs?
Whilst I agree, there's something in this.
If you get votes entirely on silence, negativity and tedious tactical triangulation (which is Starmer all over) you have no depth to fall back on when the tide goes out on you.
The second part that there is a possibility of being hurt when the Tories reorganise is fair enough, but the opening makes clear the angle is basically a whinge that Starmer is not lefty enough and they don't like that.
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
Now he's in opposition I'd assume he would be spending even more time on his legal work (before Starmer bans too much second job work or something), given how in demand he apparently is.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
OGH's rule still applies that the most accurate poll for Labour is the one that shows them doing least well.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
This simplistic Move Right v Tack Centre stuff is such bullshit, and almost always framed by non-Tories.
Doubtless we will hear it constantly for the next 5 years.
I advise uniting right and leave tacking centre for a couple years down the line.
Well, if the 2019 result was a clear mandate for no referendum, which is what Scotland got, then the 2024 result must be the opposite. I look forward to Starmer talking to the Scottish government to arrange a date.
If John Swinney has conceded the mandate for indyref 2 has expired, who are we to disagree with him?
Of course it has. But I'm troubled by the fact that a majority of MPs and a majority of MSPs wasn't enough. What's the peaceful path towards Scottish independence?
I think trying to overturn a referendum result within five years via parliamentary elections when you receive fewer votes than the winning side in the plebiscite can lead to a democratic deficit.
The realpolitik is that for the foreseeable future the only way an indyref is happening is if we have a Lab/SNP coalition at Westminster.
Otherwise we're looking at the mid 2030s before it happens/
But wait, which mandates expire and which don't? The 2014 referendum result persists but the 2015 Westminster, 2016 Holyrood, the 2017 Westminster, the 2019 Westminster results have all expired.
What about the 2021 Holyrood result? Has that expired now too?
"Realpolitik" is what happens in the absence of agreed upon rules. Such situations favour certain powerful interests and those are rarely the interests of the public. I find this approach illiberal and problematic.
The rules aka the law is that granting an independence referendum is solely down to Westminster not Holyrood, this was known well before the referendum.
So the number of MPs is strictly irrelevant and words like "mandate" don't mean a thing. There is no peaceful mechanism to independence other than begging England for a referendum.
There was a referendum only a few years ago. Another would be unstoppable if, say, 60% of Scots wanted independence according to consistent and proper polling. The breakup of countries is a non trivial matter and can't be left to pressure groups.
Only recently the SNP in a childish way wanted this GE to be referendum on independence. Now suddenly they didn't. That is no political state to be in if you want grown ups to take it seriously. This is how Trumpians do politics.
BTW, the SNP got about 30% vote share in Scotland. Unlike the SNP recently, this should not be taken as evidence against independence in the long term.
Ah, so now we're on to "look to the opinion polls".
This is what I mean about Kafkaesque traps. Some people say it's about polling, some people say it's about he amount of time you have to wait. Other think it's MPs and still more say it's MSPs. We've had TSE saying a coalition is the pathway.
You seem to be saying that the SNP have said this result isn't about independence but TSE was pointing out that Swinney was saying the opposite. I think you're wrong and TSE is right.
TSE also raised "realpolitik" which is illuminating. Realpolitik is a dangerous and transactional political mode, a stance borne out of a lack of structure. Such stances are commonplace in international relations where rules are weak and power is king. It would be odd to want to operate within such a risky methodology. That, in fact, is much closer to Trumpian politics than anything else. The fact that it's being done while playing with the language of the opposite, is evidence of a dishonest mindset.
In some respects, Alister Jack is the most honest of all. When he said that no Holyrood result would be a mandate, he's telling the truth. He's saying the answer would still be no. We don't care how many MPs or MSPs you win, the answer is still a polite version of fuck off.
The only reason I've dug into this topic today is because I've absorbed that political reality while others seemingly haven't. Those who say the catastrophic result for the SNP has hurt any mandate for a referendum also seem to try to wriggle away from the implied notion that there was a mandate before. If there was, why wasn't it allowed? And if there wasn't, what would a mandate look like? TSE's given answers which strike me as special pleading, a narrow lawyerly reading of 2011 which delegitimises specifically small pro-indy parties. And yet they're still the most thoughtful answers available. That's problematic.
There is a mandate - SNP elected in 2007 led to a referendum in 2014. Vote was no. Same party is still in government saying giz a referendum - you had it.
It isn't me or others saying the SNP crushing hurts the mandate, it was John Swinney. He put Independence on page 1 and said that a majority of MPs would represent a mandate. They got crushed, so his own argument says there was a rejection of that mandate.
We can't have a referendum every 5 years. If people vote in a new government with a mandate for a new referendum that would be one thing. But the same government that had a mandate for a referendum which it lost saying "we still have a mandate, lets do it again"? No.
I know, I've said the same in other parts of this conversation. Swinney is right, this result kills the mandate. There should not be an independence referendum imminently.
But there should have been one before this point. I simply do not accept that a party getting re-elected is somehow a weaker mandate than them losing and then winning again. I find it very weird that you'd think that was the correct mechanism. Just stop and think about what you're actually saying here: "ah yes, you (indy parties) won a majority in 2021, but because you also won in 2016 you can't have a referendum." Like, really? Are you serious?
OK, lets play the other side of the argument out. SNP minority government in 2007, said "make us a majority government and its a mandate for a referendum". 2011 election delivers that mandate and in 2014 we have a referendum which votes no. 2016 election sees the SNP lose their majority but the government continues. Being in office means a new mandate so we have a referendum which votes no. 2021 election sees the SNP continue to be just short of a majority so their government continues into a 4th term. Being in office means a new mandate so we have a referendum which votes no.
How many times do we repeat the exercise with the same party being in government? Every time they are re-elected? The problem with Scottish politics is that it is completely paralysed by the constitutional question where the SNP won't accept "no" as the answer.
In 2021 the mandate was to petition for a referendum and hold one anyway if told no. Such a referendum has not taken place because the SNP haven't followed through on their 11 point plan from their manifesto.
Instead they pivoted to the GE defacto referendum plan. The GE fulfilled that mandate of 2021. And people voted massively no.
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
Now he's in opposition I'd assume he would be spending even more time on his legal work (before Starmer bans too much second job work or something), given how in demand he apparently is.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
A while back, some kids who participated in the murder of another - stabbing near Oxford Street - got a year, IIRC. They held the victim down…
Because of time in custody, early release etc. this was literally Out For Christmas.
We need to be more creative in our punishments. Inflicting brief but severe mental pain for violent criminals?
Constant electronic surveillance via robot. So intrusive it ruins your life. Etc
All that can be done and it will still deter and it will save shitloads of cash. Imprisonment is an 18th century solution for 21st century villains
We could make them read a constant stream of your posts, I guess. (Though we'd have to remove the Bill of Rights edict against cruel and unusual punishments obvs.)
Actually something like that would be much cleverer than what we do now. Force them to read my comments so they are so amused it causes pain, and so gobsmacked by my brilliance it makes them vomit all the time
No, seriously. We shy away from more creative punishment because they seem inhumane. WTF is locking someone up in a tiny room for months or years? It's inhumane. How about an electric shock which is hideously painful but causes ni lasting damage. Is that more or less inhumane than incarceration?
Or make them blind for three weeks. Or use drugs that make them sleep at home for six months, with no energy. Get drones to hover 3m over their heads for a year
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
Now he's in opposition I'd assume he would be spending even more time on his legal work (before Starmer bans too much second job work or something), given how in demand he apparently is.
I think we should have elections for lobby / political journalists, so we can vote them out as well.
When somebody has already asked a question, you don't ask exactly the same one, again. Between the pandering, have you found the bogs and isn't it nice you have some poor people in your cabinet for once, it was literally the same 2 questions over and over again, one being a "gotcha" of Timpson quote.
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
Now he's in opposition I'd assume he would be spending even more time on his legal work (before Starmer bans too much second job work or something), given how in demand he apparently is.
I think so too, but it seems a fun long odds bet. Being LOTO would probably be a bit less demanding than being PM. And I think he'd have a great chance in the members ballot if he got through - especially if some hatchet faced one nation no hoper gets sent through with him.
I see there was a question about the Cabinet reflecting the country.
I'm not sure in what way they mean, but that does make me wonder - is the Cabinet more or less diverse than recent Tory Cabinets? I'm guessing the number of women will be higher at least.
I see there was a question about the Cabinet reflecting the country.
I'm not sure in what way they mean, but that does make me wonder - is the Cabinet more or less diverse than recent Tory Cabinets? I'm guessing the number of women will be higher at least.
At various times the Tory ministers was very diverse, only problem being for all that diversity in appearance, they were, with the odd exception, shit at their jobs.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Jesus Christ, these questions...The next question comes from a Channel 4 journalist who asks Starmer if he has gotten used to being called prime minister.
Got used to.
That's the modern BBC for you. Direct quote from them.
“Leading Journalists” come from the same pool as “Leading Politicians”
Why are you surprised by the result?
I keep hoping they might get a software update....
I don't know where the idea the LDs are a southern party has arisen from. Scotland - 10.5% of MPs NE England - 0% NW England - 4% Yorkshire and the Humber - 2% Wales - 3% E Midlands - 0% W Midlands - 3.5% E England - 11.5% London - 8% SE England - 26% SW England - 38%
The interesting thing is the SW includes places they have essentially abandoned in the last 10 years but which used to be strong second places at least.
So whilst holding the 38% itself will not be easy, there is still room to grow in the region.
Looking at the Lib Dem target marginals, they're scattered all over the place - but the greatest proportion of them are in the South East, not the South West. That's partly because Conservative strength in the region has already been largely exhausted, and partly because Labour has emerged as the main beneficiary of the chuck out the Tories tactical vote in many of the surviving Conservative holds.
A big reconfiguration has happened IMO. This election continued a trend that has been going on for ten years. The Tories have lost their southern bastion. Their heartlands such as they are, are now in the Midlands and Yorkshire outside the cities.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
Over the last 15 years, it seems like we have had the same question raised repeatedly. Maybe it is just really hard now to get truly representative samples. People don't have landlines / want to talk on the phone and the online panels are over represented by overly engaged / keen people.
Assume all don't know last time Tory voters return at the ballot box, exclude anyone under 25 from your sample and double count pensioners
I'd love to model this election with the Tories on 28% and Reform down to 10%.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
Over the last 15 years, it seems like we have had the same question raised repeatedly. Maybe it is just really hard now to get truly representative samples. People don't have landlines / want to talk on the phone and the online panels are over represented by overly engaged / keen people.
Assume all don't know last time Tory voters return at the ballot box, exclude anyone under 25 from your sample and double count pensioners
I'd love to model this election with the Tories on 28% and Reform down to 10%.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
My guess is 170-180 seats was very achievable.
I'd agree with that. A little bit of Reform blunting and dozens of seats more would have been held, 20 above exit poll instead of 20 below for example.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
These questions are f##king moronic...its basically will you do want you said you would do in your manifesto from 3 f##king weeks ago. What's he going to say, nah, I was just having a laugh, I junked all of that, we are going full Corbyn.
Political journalism in the UK is atrocious. Any random thread on PB will provide better questions than journalists appear capable of, and often better answers than you would get from the government.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
One issue is that a lot of the demand for high prison sentences are driven by disgust and repulsion towards the dark side of human nature that isn't really processed and reflected on. At some point you need to think what you really want to do with someone like this character Plumb. It is very easy to just say 'throw away the key' but is a whole life sentence really correct/proportionate for someone that didn't act out on their ideas? If not a life sentence what is going to be achieved by say 10 years in jail (as I would guess would be the likely outcome) - a 500k bill and then after he is out he is going to be dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?
He was given a suspended sentence for his first attempts at kidnap via threatening note. It was such a deterrent that, 2 years later, he stepped up to grabbing and tying up schoolgirls at knife-point.
Softly, softly was tried. It failed. Softly, softly is the reason most of the women I know hate walking alone at night.
What is the hard punishment that you would impose at the first stage of the process - such that would have prevented what came after? Whole life sentences for every first time offender?
You're position was that putting him away for the Willoughby crime would make him a 'dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?'. He's already that, he's been that for at least a decade. He's a serious, repeat offender who's abnormal desires and actions are increasing in severity rather than declining as he ages. There comes a point where warehousing him - and similar - away from the general public is in the general interest. And if that wasn't after the two schoolgirls then it certainly is now.
If it makes you feel better treat it as a mental illness and make his release dependent on a shrink putting their name to him being fixed.
These questions are f##king moronic...its basically will you do want you said you would do in your manifesto from 3 f##king weeks ago. What's he going to say, nah, I was just having a laugh, I junked all of that, we are going full Corbyn.
Political journalism in the UK is atrocious. Any random thread on PB will provide better questions than journalists appear capable of, and often better answers than you would get from the government.
I thought the only good question was could you give us something you will achieve in the first 100 days, and Starmer-bot didn't really have an answer, wittering on about service and duty, country vs party. I think that is a fair question, tell us something actionable you are going to do, to give us an example / insight into how you are going to get started on solving problems.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
That seems the most likely. Tice seems sensible and I know nothing about one of them, but generally going by their time in the EU parliament they fall out. if they don't do that they might say or do something that initiates a recall election and of course Farage is famous for not doing the bread and butter work on committees. I wouldn't want to be one of his constituents with an issue.
Boris is a lazy but charismatic leader and he held down a seat (and the mayoralty of London) - it's about having a good team. I think Reform's parliamentary team looks pretty strong, given it's Farage, Tice, Anderson, the millionaire giving his salary to good works, and two/three more.
These questions are f##king moronic...its basically will you do want you said you would do in your manifesto from 3 f##king weeks ago. What's he going to say, nah, I was just having a laugh, I junked all of that, we are going full Corbyn.
Political journalism in the UK is atrocious. Any random thread on PB will provide better questions than journalists appear capable of, and often better answers than you would get from the government.
The process of becoming an MP probably does not prepare people well for being one. Likewise the process for becoming a political journalist. What would exhaustive knowledge, doggedness, or insight gain you? They'll bring in outside experts for that geekery.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
It is quite funny to watch centrists who dislike the conservative party and all its works solemnly advising them that the only route to salvation is to become Liberal Democrats with a blue veneer.
I agree. It is a misunderstanding that the Conservatives need to move "right" or "centre" to eliminate the threat from Reform. They need to rebuild a Party with a notion of how *in practice* to address the problems we face as a nation over the next 20-30 years, a coherent policy platform built around that, and people obviously able to communicate and execute. Otherwise it is just superannuated PPE graduates and playground games.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
Yes I know some Australians and its the same response. The thing is that was probably the best response all said and done, but the public in no mood to accept that. I think they did go over the top in some places with the China-esque quarantine camps.
Would they have preferred, no, well you are in Tier 1 this week, but 10 miles down the road, its Tier 3, so you can all go clubbing, oh shit, too much COVID, shut it down again, no open up, no shut it down....
I see there was a question about the Cabinet reflecting the country.
I'm not sure in what way they mean, but that does make me wonder - is the Cabinet more or less diverse than recent Tory Cabinets? I'm guessing the number of women will be higher at least.
More women but less ethnically diverse. There was a thing about this on the radio this morning.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
Over the last 15 years, it seems like we have had the same question raised repeatedly. Maybe it is just really hard now to get truly representative samples. People don't have landlines / want to talk on the phone and the online panels are over represented by overly engaged / keen people.
Assume all don't know last time Tory voters return at the ballot box, exclude anyone under 25 from your sample and double count pensioners
I'd love to model this election with the Tories on 28% and Reform down to 10%.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
My guess is 170-180 seats was very achievable.
But there would be a corresponding higher outturn for Labour in that scenario, IF it was picked up by the polling.
I think the main reason for this remarkably low share is 1) The MRPs with the Tories on 70 2) The "supermajority" line. Both stimulated complacency, and Labour were very lucky that people still turned out in the marginals.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
Masterful inactivity works more often than it should. Keir Starmer has a mandate for doing things differently over the next five years. The Tories could spend that time doing ... nothing much.
Watch this it’s fascinating - I asked James Timpson what he’d do about prisons and sentencing if he was in charge. He believes only a third of prisoners in jail should definitely be there. He’s now in charge of prisons (but not sentencing). [VIDEO]
Good appointment. The starting point might be that once you have sorted out which prisoners (more than the current number, and not all murderers) should never be let out on account of either badness or madness, the rest are coming out sometime and the rest of us are less safe if they come out still deeply immature or bad or mad - or any combination - so the big case against the Daily Mail/Sun 'lock 'em up' line is that it fails to protect us.
In response, I would say, you have to try very hard to get into gaol. Most people who are inside are there because either they have done really heinous things, or they're recidivists, and judges have already bent over backwards giving them non-custodial sentences. Fortunately, crime is mostly a young person's (especially, a young man's activity), and most criminals grow out of it, eventually.
Gary Plumb, the man who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Holly Willoughby, had already been convicted twice of attempting to kidnap women, and had served a total of 16 months, a sentence so light that it's almost condoning what he did.
Most people who are in gaol very much deserve to be there.
One issue is that a lot of the demand for high prison sentences are driven by disgust and repulsion towards the dark side of human nature that isn't really processed and reflected on. At some point you need to think what you really want to do with someone like this character Plumb. It is very easy to just say 'throw away the key' but is a whole life sentence really correct/proportionate for someone that didn't act out on their ideas? If not a life sentence what is going to be achieved by say 10 years in jail (as I would guess would be the likely outcome) - a 500k bill and then after he is out he is going to be dependent on welfare and categorised as vulnerable and probably in all likelihood a threat to public safety with nothing to lose?
Plumb has proved that he is a danger to women. Women should not have to walk the streets with that man on the loose.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
Over the last 15 years, it seems like we have had the same question raised repeatedly. Maybe it is just really hard now to get truly representative samples. People don't have landlines / want to talk on the phone and the online panels are over represented by overly engaged / keen people.
Assume all don't know last time Tory voters return at the ballot box, exclude anyone under 25 from your sample and double count pensioners
I'd love to model this election with the Tories on 28% and Reform down to 10%.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
My guess is 170-180 seats was very achievable.
I'd agree with that. A little bit of Reform blunting and dozens of seats more would have been held, 20 above exit poll instead of 20 below for example.
Yes, and if CCHQ had run a half-competent campaign.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
Yes I know some Australians and its the same response. The thing is that was probably the best response all said and done. No, well you are in Tier 1 this week, but 10 miles down the road, its Tier 3, so you can all go clubbing, oh shit, too much COVID, shut it down again, no open up, no shut it down....
I dunno. I can see both arguments
Australia already feels cut off from the world, Covid meant it was almost entirely sealed off for 18 months-2 years
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
It is quite funny to watch centrists who dislike the conservative party and all its works solemnly advising them that the only route to salvation is to become Liberal Democrats with a blue veneer.
I agree. It is a misunderstanding that the Conservatives need to move "right" or "centre" to eliminate the threat from Reform. They need to rebuild a Party with a notion of how *in practice* to address the problems we face as a nation over the next 20-30 years, a coherent policy platform built around that, and people obviously able to communicate and execute. Otherwise it is just superannuated PPE graduates and playground games.
I don't particularly care whether policies are right wing or left wing as long as they are effective and I can at least understand their objectives even when I dont fully agree with them. That is a small minority on a site such as this, but it is where a lot of the floating voters are.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Exactly. The rule of thumb is pretty simple. If something bad happens on your watch you normally get the blame even if you are blameless.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
The Aussies I met were proud of it. I was slightly confused by this until someone explained that, gap years aside, Australians simply don't holiday abroad as much as we do.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
Yes I know some Australians and its the same response. The thing is that was probably the best response all said and done. No, well you are in Tier 1 this week, but 10 miles down the road, its Tier 3, so you can all go clubbing, oh shit, too much COVID, shut it down again, no open up, no shut it down....
I dunno. I can see both arguments
Australia already feels cut off from the world, Covid meant it was almost entirely sealed off for 18 months-2 years
For a lot of people, families, couples, that was miserable beyond anything we had in the UK
They managed to have a death rate of less than a quarter of Italy, the UK, and US, and just over half of Canada and Denmark. And it was certainly tough, but was better than New Zealand and they got vaccines efficiently etc.
But it goes to the point, most incumbents got kicked in the nuts over it regardless of performance of their response to COVID.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
This simplistic Move Right v Tack Centre stuff is such bullshit, and almost always framed by non-Tories.
Doubtless we will hear it constantly for the next 5 years.
"If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage."
Which is like saying that if Labour becomes the party of euroscepticism, immigration control and small government, they'll get my vote.
Nobody on the right would want to support the kind of Conservative Party that you want.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Exactly. The rule of thumb is pretty simple. If something bad happens on your watch you normally get the blame even if you are blameless.
They do try to get credit for good things on their watch even if they don't deserve it, so it's all part of the game.
And we expect good things, so aren't super grateful for them even when we should be.
Are there any decent explanations yet of why of all the hundreds and hundreds of GE polls not one of them was anywhere close to the basic figure of the gap between Tory and Labour (10%).
Over the last 15 years, it seems like we have had the same question raised repeatedly. Maybe it is just really hard now to get truly representative samples. People don't have landlines / want to talk on the phone and the online panels are over represented by overly engaged / keen people.
Assume all don't know last time Tory voters return at the ballot box, exclude anyone under 25 from your sample and double count pensioners
I'd love to model this election with the Tories on 28% and Reform down to 10%.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
My guess is 170-180 seats was very achievable.
Doing that on EC you get: C166, L383, LD62, Ref 2, Green 3, SNP 11, PC 3
(I entered Con 29% and Ref 10.5% because EC wants GB % not UK.)
EC gives quite a good approximation for the actual GB vote % results: C126, L412, LD67, Ref 8, Green 3, SNP 11, PC 3. So I think its model is quite robust.
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
The Aussies I met were proud of it. I was slightly confused by this until someone explained that, gap years aside, Australians simply don't holiday abroad as much as we do.
Experiences may vary. The Aussies I know were angry as f##k, only more angry at the madness of New Zealand (as they have relatives there). I did say you know what it was like here and they thought that sounded daft, but it didn't make them think Australia did well.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Exactly. The rule of thumb is pretty simple. If something bad happens on your watch you normally get the blame even if you are blameless.
They do try to get credit for good things on their watch even if they don't deserve it, so it's all part of the game.
And we expect good things, so aren't super grateful for them even when we should be.
A fair point. If you claim the credit for things you didn't do you will also get the blame.
Starmer has nailed this. Can't think why he didn't state it this clearly in the campaign.
Speaking to the media in Downing Street, the prime minster said:
"The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent. Look at the numbers that have come over in the first six and a bit months of this year, they are record numbers, that is the problem that we are inheriting. It has never acted as a deterrent, almost the opposite, because everybody has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim, less than 1%, that it was never a deterrent. The chances were of not going and not being processed and staying here, therefore, in paid for accommodation for a very, very long time. It’s had the complete opposite effect and I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.”
Was having a chat with my dad this morning about the road not taken with Boris hanging on, given how weak the Labour vote share was I think we'd be in a hung parliament right now with Boris clinging on as PM. I'm actually not sure whether that would be better than this loveless landslide.
The Conservatives have lost 20% since 2019.
Perhaps:
5% for the lockdown parties 5% for all the sleaze 5% for the Truss disaster 5% for rises in interest rates, prices, taxes
The first three could have been avoided.
I doubt that the first three did that much damage.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
Few countries seemed grateful about their COVID response. Australia seemed to do pretty well all told in their COVID response particularly with big connection to China. They went very hard on the lockdown / isolation early, got vaccines and then opened up (so not like prison island of New Zealand that carried on too long and no vaccines). But even their government got absolute smashed in the nuts.
Aussies I know (including my younger daughter) are EXTREMELY bitter about the draconian quarantining of the entire country, and sometimes states within the country (no getting in or out of WA, for instance)
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
The Aussies I met were proud of it. I was slightly confused by this until someone explained that, gap years aside, Australians simply don't holiday abroad as much as we do.
Maybe I am biassed because this involves my own daughter, but it is the case in my experience: some Aussies are proud of their country's tough quarantine, and some Aussies think it was murderously evil and dictatorial, infringing many human rights, almosr as bad as North Korea
Certainly, they haven't rewarded their politicians for it
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
The Conservatives should almost focus on nothing else but high-quality candidate selection.
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
Can be difficult to get seats back from the Lib Dems once they're in, they (2015 excepted !) normally don't have to deal with the mucky business of government. The seat you really want next time round as a Tory candidate is Truss' old one - that to my mind is the easiest Con Gain of 2029 or whenever right now.
Your old campaigning ground of Derbyshire NE had an almost identical result in 2024 to that in 2015:
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
Darlington, Redcar, Middlesborough South, the Stocktons need to figure in alongside Bolsover, Rother Valley etc and they need a fairly radical NW strategy
One idea would be to give Reform a free run in Sunderland/Durham etc in return for standing down round here and other close seconds.
The Tories need to fight Reform tooth and nail, pointing out the vacuity of their policies and weakness of their leaders. If they cede them any ground, they are consigning themselves to the bin.
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
More well meaning advice to viciously attack other right wingers and become more centrist from *checks notes* non conservatives.
Fair point perhaps, though Reform attacked the Conservatives just as much as anyone else so that was right on right. I think the Tories will try to heal on the right before going for the centre, but it's not a one way street where the Tories cannot also go after Reform, who openly sought to replace them. They are the Tory enemy too, just of a different kind and requiring different strategies.
I think there's a misconception in politicians that they cannot appeal in different directions. Yes you can risk looking schizophrenic, but no one is ideologically consistent 100% of the time, it is possible to not repel centrists whilst still keeping on board people on your left or right.
I agree - the two parties should continue to oppose each other, as Labour and the Lib Dems have done. Otherwise there would be no merit in them seeking different seats and voters.
My slight irritation is that people on a site called 'politicalbetting.com' can continue to peddle psephological fantasy, insisting that the Tories lost because they weren't centrist and managerial enough, as well as insisting that they fight tooth and nail with right-wing parties whose supporters are closely aligned in opinion with theirs. These aren't insights, they are peoples' political hopes dressed up as insights.
The Tories are in a real fix because one way or another they need to sort out the Reform issue in order to rebuild. But that’s easier said than done - they need some of Reform’s voting base, and simply saying “well, be centre-right and competent and the electoral problem will fix itself” might be true (though no guarantee - look what has happened to the right in other countries) but it is also easier said than done in an opposition that has just been in government and roundly discredited for being incompetent. Who are these excellent centre right administrators who are going to pull in the voters and where were they keeping them for the past few years?
In some ways it is less risky and easier for them to go full populist right (which I do not want), eat the Reform vote, lose (assuming they would do so), and tack back to the centre in time when people are willing to give another party a chance. But that requires long term strategic thinking and clear appreciation that the party is at least 2 terms away from power, and political parties do not exist with that kind of long-term leadership. It also causes a problem with a number of MPs (eg Noakes) who are much further to the left of the membership.
Of course this is all still based on the assumption that elections will be won in the centre. We expect that to hold, but it may not.
Tories need to totally crush Reform or be totally absorbed by them to stand a chance at the next election. Otherwise they need Lib Dem and Labour voters to switch to them, which isn't easy to do if they are accommodating the far right.
WRT Reform, they need to wait for a bit, to see what happens. They might easily just implode.
2024, they were NOTA.
Now they are the above. 2029, we will either have a new NOTA - or the Tories will be an acceptable vote.
If you give them a free ride again they will punish your party.
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
It is quite funny to watch centrists who dislike the conservative party and all its works solemnly advising them that the only route to salvation is to become Liberal Democrats with a blue veneer.
I have no interest either way in advising the Conservative Party on their political strategy, but I can do basic arithmetic. Conservative and Reform voters combined are about the same as Labour voters. Lib Dems, Greens and Gaza are a lot more fungible with Labour than with the Tories. This strongly suggests to me the Conservatives will only win again if they persuade Labour and possibly Lib Dem voters to switch. They may want to think about what would attract them to do that.
"If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage."
Which is like saying that if Labour becomes the party of euroscepticism, immigration control and small government, they'll get my vote.
Nobody on the right would want to support the kind of Conservative Party that you want.
Cameron would, if he had a vote of course. And he is not going to be alone.
Fwiw I think they have to tack towards Farage and Reform now, before returning to the centre right in a decade or so. They may or may not be electorally successful with Farage in between but it wont last either way.
I don't know where the idea the LDs are a southern party has arisen from. Scotland - 10.5% of MPs NE England - 0% NW England - 4% Yorkshire and the Humber - 2% Wales - 3% E Midlands - 0% W Midlands - 3.5% E England - 11.5% London - 8% SE England - 26% SW England - 38%
The interesting thing is the SW includes places they have essentially abandoned in the last 10 years but which used to be strong second places at least.
So whilst holding the 38% itself will not be easy, there is still room to grow in the region.
Looking at the Lib Dem target marginals, they're scattered all over the place - but the greatest proportion of them are in the South East, not the South West. That's partly because Conservative strength in the region has already been largely exhausted, and partly because Labour has emerged as the main beneficiary of the chuck out the Tories tactical vote in many of the surviving Conservative holds.
A big reconfiguration has happened IMO. This election continued a trend that has been going on for ten years. The Tories have lost their southern bastion. Their heartlands such as they are, are now in the Midlands and Yorkshire outside the cities.
I think longer term reflection on this election has a long way to go. Everything about this was weird.One huge question, despite the Tories losing so heavily is this:
How is it possible, after the degree of unpopularity of the Tory government, the trashing of the brand in the election and Reform getting 14% of the poll and 1,000 polls daily telling us that Labour was about 20 points ahead, how is it possible that the Tories still came within 10 points of Labour.
It doesn't remotely add up. It looks as if, without Farage intervening this would have been really close.
What would the Tories have to do to lose big (by c20 points, as predicted)?
I quite like Sir Geoffrey Cox for next leader. He has a caretaker vibe to him, but could actually school SKS (as a considerably better barrister) at Prime Minister's Questions. He's a Brexiteer, but patrician enough to engender respect from the one nation faction, who are all pretty snobbish.
Now he's in opposition I'd assume he would be spending even more time on his legal work (before Starmer bans too much second job work or something), given how in demand he apparently is.
That would be high on my list if I were Starmer: No outside paid employment for MPs.
It's a no cost change that sends a good message to the country. I suspect it also stuffs chancers like Farage where it hurts.
These questions are f##king moronic...its basically will you do want you said you would do in your manifesto from 3 f##king weeks ago. What's he going to say, nah, I was just having a laugh, I junked all of that, we are going full Corbyn.
Political journalism in the UK is atrocious. Any random thread on PB will provide better questions than journalists appear capable of, and often better answers than you would get from the government.
Any countries with *non-atrocious* political journalism? America?
Comments
Softly, softly was tried. It failed. Softly, softly is the reason most of the women I know hate walking alone at night.
Hard to go below 0%
Which is odd because while he had always been self-serving he hadn't been so unnecessarily self-destructive.
I have wondered before if the replacement of Marina Wheeler with Carrie Symonds might have been a factor in his decision making.
There are around 100-110 schools in Nottinghamshire built using the CLASP system in 195x to 1970x, which all need replacing by about 203x under their 60 year design life.
In my town we have 2 secondaries educating around 3000+ students which will be rebuilt under the SRP, and checking the data for Notts 11 secondaries are on the list from 2022.
AFAIC from Admissions data I think that is 11 out of 71 secondaries. The Admissions data seems to cover all of them.
I can't call how good it is, as I do not have the detail about the SRP to comment further.
I'm also not sure how good education results have been under the Tories - international data seems to say academically OK. But again, not my specialism.
It might've actually been better if we'd had the 13 Reform MPs suggested by the exit poll as that would've included a bunch of unknown quantities and almost certainly some absolute fucking liabilities whose incompetence in office would've hastened said implosion. (As happened years ago when the BNP got local councillors elected, some of whom were barely literate and couldn't grasp key aspects of council workings, exposing their overall uselessness.)
Assuming Tice, Farage and Anderson are savvy enough to avoid major fuck-ups, we're reliant on the other two to publicly drag them down.
Tonight, in his first few hours as Prime Minister, @Keir_Starmer has spoken to allies and partners across the world.
The UK stands ready to continue to work with them to deliver security and growth at home and abroad.
https://nitter.poast.org/10DowningStreet/status/1809314668621754509#m
Kudos on strategic flag placement.
All that said I am also pretty certain that enormous societal and technological changes will make these political issues look utterly trivial and decorative, like installing new wallpaper in a house that’s about to be turned into an intergalactic portal
If your party moves to the right they will punish your party. The Tory can claim their cat may be black but Reform's cat will always be blacker. If Labour fail, Farage becomes PM.
If your party tacks to the Centre and rips Farage's head off for the **** he is you will be rehabilitated. It might not be the next election, it might be the one after that as the party of rejoin. They would get my vote assuming I could still hold a pencil by that stage.
And if the question was about the personal flat that's still stupid, why would have have trouble finding his way around even a sizeable flat?
"Have you found where the bathroom is yet?" would be a really dumb question.
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
Given Russia and friends, perhaps some Nats won't be quite as enthusiastic about setting off into the wild blue yonder, potentially like Jumblies from Edward Lear.
It won't affect the bitter-enders, though.
If you get votes entirely on silence, negativity and tedious tactical triangulation (which is Starmer all over) you have no depth to fall back on when the tide goes out on you.
He thought it a rather effective deterrent.
Certainly a very cheap one.
Why are you surprised by the result?
Doubtless we will hear it constantly for the next 5 years.
On the other hand, die hard supporters are by their nature absolutely terrible at understanding how to appeal to people who are not die hard supporters.
Indeed, getting on board people who are not currently supporting you may well require listening to people who do not currently support you telling you what it would take to make them support you.
Some of that advice will be impractical or unhelpful - "become a socialist party" for instance probably would do more harm than good - but it shouldn't be dismissed outright because it's not coming from current supporters. Some of those centrists did vote Tory previously. As indeed did some on the right - both need to be listened to, and ideas developed on what it would take to get them on side.
SNP minority government in 2007, said "make us a majority government and its a mandate for a referendum".
2011 election delivers that mandate and in 2014 we have a referendum which votes no.
2016 election sees the SNP lose their majority but the government continues. Being in office means a new mandate so we have a referendum which votes no.
2021 election sees the SNP continue to be just short of a majority so their government continues into a 4th term. Being in office means a new mandate so we have a referendum which votes no.
How many times do we repeat the exercise with the same party being in government? Every time they are re-elected? The problem with Scottish politics is that it is completely paralysed by the constitutional question where the SNP won't accept "no" as the answer.
In 2021 the mandate was to petition for a referendum and hold one anyway if told no. Such a referendum has not taken place because the SNP haven't followed through on their 11 point plan from their manifesto.
Instead they pivoted to the GE defacto referendum plan. The GE fulfilled that mandate of 2021. And people voted massively no.
No, seriously. We shy away from more creative punishment because they seem inhumane. WTF is locking someone up in a tiny room for months or years? It's inhumane. How about an electric shock which is hideously painful but causes ni lasting damage. Is that more or less inhumane than incarceration?
Or make them blind for three weeks. Or use drugs that make them sleep at home for six months, with no energy. Get drones to hover 3m over their heads for a year
All much smarter, and vastly less expensive
When somebody has already asked a question, you don't ask exactly the same one, again. Between the pandering, have you found the bogs and isn't it nice you have some poor people in your cabinet for once, it was literally the same 2 questions over and over again, one being a "gotcha" of Timpson quote.
I'm not sure in what way they mean, but that does make me wonder - is the Cabinet more or less diverse than recent Tory Cabinets? I'm guessing the number of women will be higher at least.
The Tories probably lost the election the day the pandemic began, and incumbent governments everywhere are getting a kicking for that and the inflation from the war in Ukraine. There aren't many countries in the world where people are thinking "we are happy and the government has done a great job".
You only have to look at the US, Biden didn't come to power until after the pandemic begun, and did a better job on it that Trump. Also the US has been relatively insulated from the fuel and other commodities price increases, and the US economy by most measures is doing very well. But people in the US feel fed up with the government, economy, and general state of the world. So much so that they may elect a lunatic for another shot at permanently trashing the US government.
That's what I think would have happened without Farage turning up and the betgate/D-Day stuff.
My guess is 170-180 seats was very achievable.
If it makes you feel better treat it as a mental illness and make his release dependent on a shrink putting their name to him being fixed.
Families were separated, lovers divided, siblings estranged, divorces proliferated, and this went on for many many months. So they may have escaped a UK-style death toll, but they argue they had it worse in some ways
Would they have preferred, no, well you are in Tier 1 this week, but 10 miles down the road, its Tier 3, so you can all go clubbing, oh shit, too much COVID, shut it down again, no open up, no shut it down....
I think the main reason for this remarkably low share is 1) The MRPs with the Tories on 70 2) The "supermajority" line. Both stimulated complacency, and Labour were very lucky that people still turned out in the marginals.
Australia already feels cut off from the world, Covid meant it was almost entirely sealed off for 18 months-2 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia
For a lot of people, families, couples, that was miserable beyond anything we had in the UK
With Bottomley losing no MPs from before the 80s left, and only a handful from before the 90s I think.
But it goes to the point, most incumbents got kicked in the nuts over it regardless of performance of their response to COVID.
Don't turn that way
Straight down the middle until next Thursday
First to the left
Then back to the right
Twist and turn till you've got it right
Get the balance right
Get the balance right
Which is like saying that if Labour becomes the party of euroscepticism, immigration control and small government, they'll get my vote.
Nobody on the right would want to support the kind of Conservative Party that you want.
And we expect good things, so aren't super grateful for them even when we should be.
(I entered Con 29% and Ref 10.5% because EC wants GB % not UK.)
EC gives quite a good approximation for the actual GB vote % results: C126, L412, LD67, Ref 8, Green 3, SNP 11, PC 3. So I think its model is quite robust.
What a dreadful man.
Speaking to the media in Downing Street, the prime minster said:
"The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent.
Look at the numbers that have come over in the first six and a bit months of this year, they are record numbers, that is the problem that we are inheriting.
It has never acted as a deterrent, almost the opposite, because everybody has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim, less than 1%, that it was never a deterrent.
The chances were of not going and not being processed and staying here, therefore, in paid for accommodation for a very, very long time.
It’s had the complete opposite effect and I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/06/keir-starmer-labour-cabinet-meeting-uk-general-election-conservatives-leadership#top-of-blog
Certainly, they haven't rewarded their politicians for it
Fwiw I think they have to tack towards Farage and Reform now, before returning to the centre right in a decade or so. They may or may not be electorally successful with Farage in between but it wont last either way.
How is it possible, after the degree of unpopularity of the Tory government, the trashing of the brand in the election and Reform getting 14% of the poll and 1,000 polls daily telling us that Labour was about 20 points ahead, how is it possible that the Tories still came within 10 points of Labour.
It doesn't remotely add up. It looks as if, without Farage intervening this would have been really close.
What would the Tories have to do to lose big (by c20 points, as predicted)?
It's a no cost change that sends a good message to the country. I suspect it also stuffs chancers like Farage where it hurts.