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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
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.
The problem is that it is a bit like voting reform...when they start to look it isn't just Cox making money, its across the board and often good reason why (not just the money), and when you are a member of the governing party, there are even more opportunities. PMs don't normally want a upset their own MPs, much better to keep them sweet.
"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.
It is utterly ridiculous. 'Agree with all my views and your party will be successful' - why would anyone give up conservatism, even if that were the price of power? The whole point in gaining power is to implement the policies of conservatism.
Quite apart from which, it isn't the price for power, given the numbers of people who voted for a nominally right wing party, even at the bitter fag end of a right-wing Government.
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.
Trouble is then we end up with even more professional politicians who have never done a proper day's work in their lives.
What about all those professions where you have to do a certain number of days work a year to keep your licences/professional qualifications?
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)?
Possible but you're saying in this hypothetical scenario that people voting for Farage as an alternative to the Tories would vote for the Tories instead. Rather than voting Labour or not voting at all.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
I imagine paid media gigs are also quite useful for political parties, it rather lets you get your said of the story, do positive PR, etc. Cameron wrote a regular paid column for the Guardian before he became leader, more recent likes of Lammy on LBC, GB News presenters, etc.
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.
Trouble is then we end up with even more professional politicians who have never done a proper day's work in their lives.
What about all those professions where you have to do a certain number of days work a year to keep your licences/professional qualifications?
Yes, I think an out and out ban may be too severe and cause unwanted issues.
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.
Coming all the way up here to laugh at Swinney seems a bit self indulgent.
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
Oh yeah - plenty of those kind of people. They had marches against lockdown in a way that we didn't here.
But if you were young or poor, it didn't have the material effect that it did on young and poor people in the UK, with far more people travelling and holidaying within their own state/territory.
I think there was a bit of friendly competition with NZ too.
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.
Trouble is then we end up with even more professional politicians who have never done a proper day's work in their lives.
What about all those professions where you have to do a certain number of days work a year to keep your licences/professional qualifications?
Yes, I think an out and out ban may be too severe and cause unwanted issues.
Problem is what do you do, put an upper limit on number of days or something. I think it is probably one of those issues that sound simple, but the more you look the trickier it gets and more risk of mutiny from your own backbenchers, so much easier to kick it into the long grass.
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.
The problem is that it is a bit like voting reform...when they start to look it isn't just Cox making money, its across the board and often good reason why (not just the money), and when you are a member of the governing party, there are even more opportunities. PMs don't normally want a upset their own MPs, much better to keep them sweet.
I'd expect it to come in.
Right now, there must be about 30 Labour MPs who were MPs in the last Parliament and have second jobs, so not that many to annoy.
Labour also suggested that if they do ban, there will be some flexibility for media work and even paid speeches (I'm guessing the speeches ban will be linked to them not being a way around lobbying payments).
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.
The Conservatives were in a strong position in the spring of 2021 with the success of the vaccination campaign and then they handled the ending of restrictions well, the booster vaccinations well and ignored the demands for a further lockdown at Christmas 2021.
What damaged them in the opinion polls were the stories about lockdown parties and the money grifting sleaze.
When a 'one rule for you, another rule for us' image sets in then its hard for a government to recover.
The Truss disaster made it look that they were both incompetent and reckless - after that they were given no credit for the things which they managed successfully.
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.
The problem is that it is a bit like voting reform...when they start to look it isn't just Cox making money, its across the board and often good reason why (not just the money), and when you are a member of the governing party, there are even more opportunities. PMs don't normally want a upset their own MPs, much better to keep them sweet.
I'd expect it to come in.
Right now, there must be about 30 Labour MPs who were MPs in the last Parliament and have second jobs, so not that many to annoy.
Labour also suggested that if they do ban, there will be some flexibility for media work and even paid speeches (I'm guessing the speeches ban will be linked to them not being a way around lobbying payments).
I'm sure members or regulator bodies, charities and quangos will also be exempt...
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.
Anyone trying to write the history of the next five years now, is just engaging in wishcasting fantasy. Let’s see some actual policy from Starmer’s government before we judge it a failure, or success.
The first big test for Starmer is this England game. I'm kinda serious - if they win and end up going far, the whole "new dawn" vibe will gather momentum. If the weather improves too...
Richard Tice seems a great guy, very sincere, and also has all the ingredients to be a successful presenter of political ideas - telegenic, nice tone of voice.
But somehow when he starts speaking, I tune out absolutely immediately, despite wanting to listen.
Maybe it's just a need for some speech coaching. He can't do off the cuff - but reading a prepared speech and being told when to pause, when to rise and fall, he might be a lot better. Being in the Commons might help actually.
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.
When the Lib Dems got their spectacular by-election wins in North Shropshire, Chesham and Amersham, Honiton and Tiverton, Somerton and Frome the conventional wisdom was that they would all lose at the next GE but all 4 by-election victors were returned on Thursday..
And the LDs almost won South Shropshire as well, one of the more remarkable results as the LDs started in third place behind Labour, their 8,000 votes last time up against the Tory's 37,000.
That the LDs came through so strongly past Labour in Home Counties seats like this re-enforces that, despite the merciless mid-campaign spinning from Palmer in his Didcot bunker, the LibDems really are the better placed to take on the Tories in the south away from the larger towns.
No, LD edged Labour to be second in 2019 in South Shropshire by a tiny margin having been a bad third in 2017. That was why it was so galling this time that the TV sites and MRP were advising Labour when anyone politically engaged in the seat knew that Matthew Green was best positioned to take it from the Tories, especially as the circumstances were not that dissimilar to when he took it in 2001.
Labour campaigned in Broseley where they have the council seat, there were lots of stakeboards, and that could have made the difference.
The LIbDem campaign in Didcot was interesting - they deluged the constituency in leaflets - 2 or 3 every week, some allegedly by paid-for deliverers - with almost no canvassing after the first few days. Labour did quite a lot of canvassing - against regional instructions, and ultimately with the regional data base switched off - but ultimately the sheer flood of LibDem leaflets did the trick, because they subliminally pushed the message that the LibDems were the main alternative, and given the non-ideological campaigns of the national parties there weren't many positive reasons to vote Labour rather than LibDem (or vice versa in the seats where Labour was trying and the LibDems weren't).
Would be different if it was a LibDems insurgency vs a Labour government, but worked a treat in the current circs. In retrospect more of us should have obeyed Region and gone to help in a surprisingly close race that Labour won narrowly. But it was sobering that convassing actually doesn't make much difference if the underlying message strikes a chord.
This may have been Nick's perception, but it's a touch mistaken. Understandably, seeing as we don't exactly swap details of what we're doing in depth!
Firstly, we had no paid-for deliverers. I can understand how Labour may have assumed we had to have them, with the amount of delivery, but we'd assiduously built up our volunteer network over several years. Consider: we had twenty-odd district councillors, all of whom had built up their local networks, and one of the first things Olly did was to find more and more volunteers to complete the networks and add redundancy.
Even so, I personally delivered fifteen rounds in the final five days.
Secondly, we did have plenty of canvassing. It started several years ago as we built up local government support and deepened further after 2019. Many places had several canvasses-worth of good data, and we had teams out every day through the campaign. It can be hard to see other party's canvassing - I personally only noticed Labour canvassers on the penultimate day when I ran into Nick and his team in South Didcot. But I can personally testify to plenty of canvassing teams. After all, you don't get so many stakeboard sites (approaching 400) without having done a LOT of canvassing. And the stakeboards everywhere reinforced that message that Lib Dems were the alternative.
We also had telling and GOTV - I personally carried out a 4-hour shift in south Didcot (Meadowhall). No Labour tellers there (or in Drayton); only Lib Dems, but I was told that there were Labour tellers elsewhere (for the first time in our memory). Very few Tory tellers anywhere, but a handful were present.
Voters noticed our canvassers even if Nick didn't - some brought it up to me unprompted while I was telling (and a couple said it made their minds up for us at the last moment, which I thought usually didn't happen).
I think Nick's campaign was too late in the day - we'd been laying the foundations for a long time by then. As he says, once the underlying message has hit home, it's hard to change, and the lesson here is to get that message out early. Leafleting wasn't just in the campaign - with our network in place, we'd been leafleting many areas once per month for several months before the campaign was called. Olly had major name recognition by the election, which also helped.
Certainly, in a council election, if you’re going to win, you’ve usually won already. Just like national elections, the campaign doesn’t actually make much difference. You can lose during a campaign, but it’s very unusual to win if you weren’t already ahead to begin with.
Liberal Democrats love delivering! I’ve delivered all day, I’ve delivered in the dark, I’ve delivered in the small hours. I’d recommend anyone to find a reason to deliver the streets around where you live, at least once. You really don’t know your local area until you’ve tried to deliver a leaflet to every home there, and you will be genuinely surprised at what you will learn.
The first big test for Starmer is this England game. I'm kinda serious - if they win and end up going far, the whole "new dawn" vibe will gather momentum. If the weather improves too...
England only win major tournaments when we have a Labour government.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
The SDP achieved a pretty shocking 33811 votes in 122 constituencies. I'd have expected that with some high profile media supporters they might have done a bit better. No wonder there was no candidate where I live.
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
To be honest I think Farage must be a little disapponted that he only picked up 4 million votes. That's barely above what he achieved in 2015.
I agree - I think he would have liked 6 million and 10-15 MPs. What he's done is still seismic though. Even to get himself in the Commons is a huge achievement given that detesting his very bones seems to run through every fibre of the British state.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So he can’t be subject to the UKIP infighting and removed as leader.
Which is odd given that he’ll only not be the leader when he decides to walk away.
The big question is whether Reform now puts down roots, with members and organisation and eventually councillors, and so becomes a long lasting feature of our politics. Or whether their MPs ignore their constituents and rarely turn up except for a few media stunts, Farage eventually loses interest, and the whole thing falls apart, leaving millions of voters looking for the next best way to kick the system.
So assuming that Drew Hendry does lose Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. That will be exactly 300 re-elected MPs, 335 new MPs and 15 returning MPs. The number of new MPs is a record, beating 1945 when there were 324 new MPs.
The retread MPs are listed here.
Stephen Gethins SNP Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP for North East Fife 2015-19
James Firth Lab Bury North MP for Bury North 2017-19
Mary Creagh Lab Coventry East MP for Wakefield 2005-19
Melanie Onn Lab Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes MP for Great Grimsby 2015-19
Jo Platt Lab Leigh and Atherton MP for Leigh 2017-19
Douglas Alexander Lab Lothian East MP for Paisley South 1997-2005, Paisley and Renfrewshire South 2005-15
Pamela Nash Lab Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke MP for Airdrie and Shotts 2010-15
Dan Norris Lab North East Somerset and Hanham MP for Wansdyke 1997-2010
Anna Turley Lab Redcar MP for Redcar 2015-19
Nicholas Dakin Lab Scunthorpe MP for Scunthorpe 2010-19
Andrew George LD St.Ives MP for St.Ives 1997-2015
Gareth Snell Lab Stoke-on-Trent Central MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central 2017-19
Heidi Alexander Lab Swindon South MP for Lewisham East 2010-18
Tessa Munt LD Wells and Mendip Hills MP for Wells 2010-15
Emma Reynolds Lab Wycombe MP for Wolverhampton North East 2010-19
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.
Why would he have been in the personal flat part of the building before?
The quote as stated (I am not watching it) was 'found his way around Downing Street', which is more than the personal flat.
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.
Downing Street is, contrary to impressions, huge, with a warren of rooms for different purposes. I’m not saying it’s top investigative journalism, but it’s not a completely dumb question.
The first big test for Starmer is this England game. I'm kinda serious - if they win and end up going far, the whole "new dawn" vibe will gather momentum. If the weather improves too...
England only win major tournaments when we have a Labour government.
Of course, who can forget winning Le Tournoi in 1997.
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.
When the Lib Dems got their spectacular by-election wins in North Shropshire, Chesham and Amersham, Honiton and Tiverton, Somerton and Frome the conventional wisdom was that they would all lose at the next GE but all 4 by-election victors were returned on Thursday..
And the LDs almost won South Shropshire as well, one of the more remarkable results as the LDs started in third place behind Labour, their 8,000 votes last time up against the Tory's 37,000.
That the LDs came through so strongly past Labour in Home Counties seats like this re-enforces that, despite the merciless mid-campaign spinning from Palmer in his Didcot bunker, the LibDems really are the better placed to take on the Tories in the south away from the larger towns.
No, LD edged Labour to be second in 2019 in South Shropshire by a tiny margin having been a bad third in 2017. That was why it was so galling this time that the TV sites and MRP were advising Labour when anyone politically engaged in the seat knew that Matthew Green was best positioned to take it from the Tories, especially as the circumstances were not that dissimilar to when he took it in 2001.
Labour campaigned in Broseley where they have the council seat, there were lots of stakeboards, and that could have made the difference.
The LIbDem campaign in Didcot was interesting - they deluged the constituency in leaflets - 2 or 3 every week, some allegedly by paid-for deliverers - with almost no canvassing after the first few days. Labour did quite a lot of canvassing - against regional instructions, and ultimately with the regional data base switched off - but ultimately the sheer flood of LibDem leaflets did the trick, because they subliminally pushed the message that the LibDems were the main alternative, and given the non-ideological campaigns of the national parties there weren't many positive reasons to vote Labour rather than LibDem (or vice versa in the seats where Labour was trying and the LibDems weren't).
Would be different if it was a LibDems insurgency vs a Labour government, but worked a treat in the current circs. In retrospect more of us should have obeyed Region and gone to help in a surprisingly close race that Labour won narrowly. But it was sobering that convassing actually doesn't make much difference if the underlying message strikes a chord.
This may have been Nick's perception, but it's a touch mistaken. Understandably, seeing as we don't exactly swap details of what we're doing in depth!
Firstly, we had no paid-for deliverers. I can understand how Labour may have assumed we had to have them, with the amount of delivery, but we'd assiduously built up our volunteer network over several years. Consider: we had twenty-odd district councillors, all of whom had built up their local networks, and one of the first things Olly did was to find more and more volunteers to complete the networks and add redundancy.
Even so, I personally delivered fifteen rounds in the final five days.
Secondly, we did have plenty of canvassing. It started several years ago as we built up local government support and deepened further after 2019. Many places had several canvasses-worth of good data, and we had teams out every day through the campaign. It can be hard to see other party's canvassing - I personally only noticed Labour canvassers on the penultimate day when I ran into Nick and his team in South Didcot. But I can personally testify to plenty of canvassing teams. After all, you don't get so many stakeboard sites (approaching 400) without having done a LOT of canvassing. And the stakeboards everywhere reinforced that message that Lib Dems were the alternative.
We also had telling and GOTV - I personally carried out a 4-hour shift in south Didcot (Meadowhall). No Labour tellers there (or in Drayton); only Lib Dems, but I was told that there were Labour tellers elsewhere (for the first time in our memory). Very few Tory tellers anywhere, but a handful were present.
Voters noticed our canvassers even if Nick didn't - some brought it up to me unprompted while I was telling (and a couple said it made their minds up for us at the last moment, which I thought usually didn't happen).
I think Nick's campaign was too late in the day - we'd been laying the foundations for a long time by then. As he says, once the underlying message has hit home, it's hard to change, and the lesson here is to get that message out early. Leafleting wasn't just in the campaign - with our network in place, we'd been leafleting many areas once per month for several months before the campaign was called. Olly had major name recognition by the election, which also helped.
Certainly, in a council election, if you’re going to win, you’ve usually won already. Just like national elections, the campaign doesn’t actually make much difference. You can lose during a campaign, but it’s very unusual to win if you weren’t already ahead to begin with.
Liberal Democrats love delivering! I’ve delivered all day, I’ve delivered in the dark, I’ve delivered in the small hours. I’d recommend anyone to find a reason to deliver the streets around where you live, at least once. You really don’t know your local area until you’ve tried to deliver a leaflet to every home there, and you will be genuinely surprised at what you will learn.
Very true. In any election, for all your strategy and tactics, in order to carry out your campaign, you have three key resources: Money, people, and time.
Money is always limited, especially for us. You do what you can to raise more, but the more targets you have, the more it's spread out. People are often the resource we focus on the most: volunteers are the heart of all campaigns. We assiduously cultivated more and more, but with five seats to fight in Oxfordshire (versus the one seat we've historically fought), even doubling or trebling our numbers would see us spread more thinly than ever. Time was the one resource we knew we had and could use well. So we worked all our targets (and held seat) assiduously for years. And it's the resource that most acts cumulatively, building upon itself more and more, so when we got to the acid test, we were pushing on doors that may or may not have been open, but they were definitely unlocked.
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
We must never, ever, ever join the Euro. It has forced the poor bastards into a 15 year depression.
This election result is so shallow and fractured that it's probably now politically impossible to Rejoin.
Now that Labour are in government it is easier for them to set the terms of debate and the agenda for political debate. But do they really want to spend a decade making the case for Rejoin? I sense that even Starmer would be bored rigid by revisiting the topic.
I would be surprised if European issues took up much government time, and I expect the government to be low-key about the things that are done.
I get the impression Starmer, unusually for a prime minister, is not particularly interested in foreign affairs. (Same also for Sunak)
He may not be interested but they will be interested in him.
Absolutely right. I added further to my comment about this. I would say Foreign Affairs is probably the biggest weak spotin the new Labour government. David Lammy is unimpressive as FM and Starmer isn't interested.
Hurrah. The less interest we take in interfering abroad the better. We are not world policeman any more.
There are options between doing nothing and being world policeman.
We're not a Great Power but we are still a power, simply by virtue of size, relative wealth, and global connections.
Yes. But we are not a big power in terms of "own big metal things that can kill lots of people if they piss us off". I don't disparage soft power, but you need hard power as well, and we don't haveenough of it.
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.
Why would he have been in the personal flat part of the building before?
The quote as stated (I am not watching it) was 'found his way around Downing Street', which is more than the personal flat.
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.
Downing Street is, contrary to impressions, huge, with a warren of rooms for different purposes. I’m not saying it’s top investigative journalism, but it’s not a completely dumb question.
I highly doubt the British public care though. What we want to know is what is Starmer planning to do, not if he has found the bogs yet. This was literally the first question of the press conference not some filler at the end.
New at Ten...top story tonight....Starmer admits toilets in #10 difficult to find.....10 mins in, Starmer agrees NHS is broken and states he will sort out the NHS mess by....he will also keep releasing prisoners for the moment as no space....
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
Starmer and Labour was all over the map until about a year ago.
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.
Trouble is then we end up with even more professional politicians who have never done a proper day's work in their lives.
What about all those professions where you have to do a certain number of days work a year to keep your licences/professional qualifications?
Unpaid volunteering.
MPs are paid around twice the median wage. If they can't afford to live on that it's not the role for them.
I moaned a lot about Alun Cairns but he was a diligent MP when he wasn't a Minister, although I think he probably (although he may not have- I can't remember) had a few of these once a month, a thousand pounds and hours consultancies. (Why would anyone offer some no mark politician a couple of grand a month for an hour unless they felt they were getting something in return?)
Geoffrey Cox on the other hand allegedly running his constituency from Antigua for several months in the year is a piss take.
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
But they do scrutinise who you are. Reform's problem is that their leading figures appear to be by and large wealthy southern businessmen. Nothing wrong with that but I'm not sure it is what those patriotic voters most concerned with immigration are looking for.
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.
Look at the polling. Johnson was popular during COVID and had a vaccine boost. It’s when Partygate starts coming out that his polling starts to slide, and basically the Tories’ polling never stopped sliding until maybe a week before the election.
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.
Interestingly in IOWE, when the Tory must have thought himself the outsider given the national polls and MRPs, candidates were asked at the hustings whether they would treat the MP role as their single and only job. The Tory was adamant that he would. Now that, perhaps unexpectedly, he’s elected, we watch developments with interest…
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
Starmer and Labour was all over the map until about a year ago.
Exactly. In fact we barely know their policies NOW and they're in government
Tories need to keep it simple - low migration, low tax, small state, zero Woke - and don't sweat the small stuff. But they WILL need concrete ideas as to how they achieve the above. They can't get away with airy promises of "immigration in the tens of thousands", not any more
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
Much of Europe’s weather is actually worse than ours right now. Good luck.
We are seeing tariffs and subsidies more and more undermining free trade. This is a consequence of the US deliberate sabotage of the WTO which really got going under Trump but has continued without a break under Biden. Last week 4 decisions were made against the US but all will be appealed to an appellate court which is not quorate because the US vetoes the appointment of new judges.
We're just hearing that Emma Raducanu has pulled out of the mixed doubles because of stiffness in her wrist. She was due to play alongside Andy Murray later today.
That means the former British number one has played his last match at the All England Club after he and brother Jamie Murray were knocked out of the men's doubles earlier this week.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So when he grifts cash from willing punters he can trouser the lot, less taxes? Luvvly jubbly!
Contrary to the PB Tory warnings I haven’t noticed Keir taking any money out of my bank account yet but I am in my overdraft already so maybe that’s why.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So when he grifts cash from willing punters he can trousers the lot, less taxes? Luvvly jubbly!
Makes you wonder what will happen to the "short" money.
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
Much of Europe’s weather is actually worse than ours right now. Good luck.
27-30C and sunny for the coming week. Just checked. That will certainly do me
We are seeing tariffs and subsidies more and more undermining free trade. This is a consequence of the US deliberate sabotage of the WTO which really got going under Trump but has continued without a break under Biden. Last week 4 decisions were made against the US but all will be appealed to an appellate court which is not quorate because the US vetoes the appointment of new judges.
China was exploiting the world trading system well before Trump. And it's now become patently clear that a lack of domestic manufacturing is a major security risk.
Good afternoon. Looks like there isn't a result in Inverness so far. They started counting at 10:30am.
Published: 11:33, 06 July 2024
There are concerns that the declaration of the winner of the last constituency in the UK – Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire – could be mired yet further in challenges with SNP lawyers present.
The recount process has just started with the Electoral Commission present after the result was delayed due to a “discrepancy” between the verified ballots and the total ballots.
Last night the SNP’s Drew Hendry conceded defeat with the Liberal Democrats Angus MacDonald expected to be the winner – it is believed he won by between 1500 and 2000 votes – we will hopefully find out today.
It is one of the biggest upsets in the election as Mr MacDonald looks to have won back Charles Kennedy’s constituency for the Lib Dems, securing victory in what were SNP stronghold areas.
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%).
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So he can’t be subject to the UKIP infighting and removed as leader.
Which is odd given that he’ll only not be the leader when he decides to walk away.
The big question is whether Reform now puts down roots, with members and organisation and eventually councillors, and so becomes a long lasting feature of our politics. Or whether their MPs ignore their constituents and rarely turn up except for a few media stunts, Farage eventually loses interest, and the whole thing falls apart, leaving millions of voters looking for the next best way to kick the system.
Farage has said he will “democratise” and “professionalise” the party. The former implies transitioning away from a company where he’s the majority shareholder.
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
Agreed. And they are the two things they *can't* fix independently of the harder problems of jobs, housing, and growth.
For Goodwin fans he's been on Any Questions on R4.
What a dreadful man.
Certainly it’s hard to believe that someone with such strident views could manage or commission an impartial poll. And we’ve just seen the polls he did commission turn to dust. One to ignore going forward, I think?
The Tories’ problem is that they have multiple false prophets like him circulating the smoking crater into which they just impacted.
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.
Coming all the way up here to laugh at Swinney seems a bit self indulgent.
Actually *talking* to the Scottish and Welsh Governments would be a great change from recent years.
So assuming that Drew Hendry does lose Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. That will be exactly 300 re-elected MPs, 335 new MPs and 15 returning MPs. The number of new MPs is a record, beating 1945 when there were 324 new MPs.
The retread MPs are listed here.
Stephen Gethins SNP Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP for North East Fife 2015-19
James Firth Lab Bury North MP for Bury North 2017-19
Mary Creagh Lab Coventry East MP for Wakefield 2005-19
Melanie Onn Lab Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes MP for Great Grimsby 2015-19
Jo Platt Lab Leigh and Atherton MP for Leigh 2017-19
Douglas Alexander Lab Lothian East MP for Paisley South 1997-2005, Paisley and Renfrewshire South 2005-15
Pamela Nash Lab Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke MP for Airdrie and Shotts 2010-15
Dan Norris Lab North East Somerset and Hanham MP for Wansdyke 1997-2010
Anna Turley Lab Redcar MP for Redcar 2015-19
Nicholas Dakin Lab Scunthorpe MP for Scunthorpe 2010-19
Andrew George LD St.Ives MP for St.Ives 1997-2015
Gareth Snell Lab Stoke-on-Trent Central MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central 2017-19
Heidi Alexander Lab Swindon South MP for Lewisham East 2010-18
Tessa Munt LD Wells and Mendip Hills MP for Wells 2010-15
Emma Reynolds Lab Wycombe MP for Wolverhampton North East 2010-19
We're just hearing that Emma Raducanu has pulled out of the mixed doubles because of stiffness in her wrist. She was due to play alongside Andy Murray later today.
That means the former British number one has played his last match at the All England Club after he and brother Jamie Murray were knocked out of the men's doubles earlier this week.
Didn't Sean T. (late of this parish) once write an article about certain things that lead to a stiff wrist?
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
But you are getting back to the basic problem post Brexit. The voters most concerned about a smaller state are not necessarily the ones concerned with lower immigration and anti-western culture politics.
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
Starmer and Labour was all over the map until about a year ago.
Exactly. In fact we barely know their policies NOW and they're in government
Tories need to keep it simple - low migration, low tax, small state, zero Woke - and don't sweat the small stuff. But they WILL need concrete ideas as to how they achieve the above. They can't get away with airy promises of "immigration in the tens of thousands", not any more
The simple stuff you mention is what they've been promoting for years, they have just failed to achieve it. They're going to have to wait for memories to fade. As for 'Zero Woke' that is the 'small stuff' compared to inflation, cost of living, housing, energy prices etc. and is difficult to define. Isn't being woke just another word for 'enlightened'.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So he can’t be subject to the UKIP infighting and removed as leader.
Which is odd given that he’ll only not be the leader when he decides to walk away.
The big question is whether Reform now puts down roots, with members and organisation and eventually councillors, and so becomes a long lasting feature of our politics. Or whether their MPs ignore their constituents and rarely turn up except for a few media stunts, Farage eventually loses interest, and the whole thing falls apart, leaving millions of voters looking for the next best way to kick the system.
Farage has said he will “democratise” and “professionalise” the party. The former implies transitioning away from a company where he’s the majority shareholder.
I wonder how much he's going to sell the non-voting stock for....
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
So when he grifts cash from willing punters he can trousers the lot, less taxes? Luvvly jubbly!
Makes you wonder what will happen to the "short" money.
Yes, let's all concentrate on eliminating petty grift and second jobs, and keep in place stuff like Tony Blair giving tens of millions of pounds worth of Government contracts to Lawrence Ellison's Oracle, with Lawrence coincidentally later becoming a huge bankroller of Tony Blair's foundation. All so nice and above board.
We are seeing tariffs and subsidies more and more undermining free trade. This is a consequence of the US deliberate sabotage of the WTO which really got going under Trump but has continued without a break under Biden. Last week 4 decisions were made against the US but all will be appealed to an appellate court which is not quorate because the US vetoes the appointment of new judges.
China was exploiting the world trading system well before Trump. And it's now become patently clear that a lack of domestic manufacturing is a major security risk.
Oh sure, and personally I have always taken a rather more mercantilist view of trade than a free market purist. Free trade worked for us when the industrial revolution gave us huge inherent advantages. Since WW2 not so much and our membership of the SM in the EU seemed to do very little for our manufacturing, even if our services benefited.
It is just the way the world is now working and another example, along with Russia's illegal invasion and the cruelty of both sides in Gaza, of the rule of law breaking down.
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.
Why would he have been in the personal flat part of the building before?
The quote as stated (I am not watching it) was 'found his way around Downing Street', which is more than the personal flat.
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.
Downing Street is, contrary to impressions, huge, with a warren of rooms for different purposes. I’m not saying it’s top investigative journalism, but it’s not a completely dumb question.
I highly doubt the British public care though. What we want to know is what is Starmer planning to do, not if he has found the bogs yet. This was literally the first question of the press conference not some filler at the end.
New at Ten...top story tonight....Starmer admits toilets in #10 difficult to find.....10 mins in, Starmer agrees NHS is broken and states he will sort out the NHS mess by....he will also keep releasing prisoners for the moment as no space....
He’s been telling us what he plans to do for several weeks in the campaign. As someone said upthread, he’s not going to turn around and announce that he’s going to do something completely different now.
The guy’s been Prime Minister for one day. I don’t see some softball questions from the media as being some dire failure of journalism.
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.
Which might mean that any MP with professional qualifications would have to do outside work for free or have their qualifications lapse.
No you've hit the nail on the head. Voluntary work to keep the CPD going. Didn't Dr Rosena manage that during COVID?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Apparently Reform is a company whose majority shareholder is a Mr N Farage.
No “apparently” needed.
As of 19 February 2024 Farage holds 8/15 shares of Reform UK Party Limited (CRN 11694875) i.e. 53%. It’s public information. However the shareholders agreement (if any) is not public so we don’t know all the specifics.
It’s the same corporate vehicle as the Brexit Party, it has just changed its name.
So assuming that Drew Hendry does lose Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. That will be exactly 300 re-elected MPs, 335 new MPs and 15 returning MPs. The number of new MPs is a record, beating 1945 when there were 324 new MPs.
The retread MPs are listed here.
Stephen Gethins SNP Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP for North East Fife 2015-19
James Firth Lab Bury North MP for Bury North 2017-19
Mary Creagh Lab Coventry East MP for Wakefield 2005-19
Melanie Onn Lab Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes MP for Great Grimsby 2015-19
Jo Platt Lab Leigh and Atherton MP for Leigh 2017-19
Douglas Alexander Lab Lothian East MP for Paisley South 1997-2005, Paisley and Renfrewshire South 2005-15
Pamela Nash Lab Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke MP for Airdrie and Shotts 2010-15
Dan Norris Lab North East Somerset and Hanham MP for Wansdyke 1997-2010
Anna Turley Lab Redcar MP for Redcar 2015-19
Nicholas Dakin Lab Scunthorpe MP for Scunthorpe 2010-19
Andrew George LD St.Ives MP for St.Ives 1997-2015
Gareth Snell Lab Stoke-on-Trent Central MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central 2017-19
Heidi Alexander Lab Swindon South MP for Lewisham East 2010-18
Tessa Munt LD Wells and Mendip Hills MP for Wells 2010-15
Emma Reynolds Lab Wycombe MP for Wolverhampton North East 2010-19
We are seeing tariffs and subsidies more and more undermining free trade. This is a consequence of the US deliberate sabotage of the WTO which really got going under Trump but has continued without a break under Biden. Last week 4 decisions were made against the US but all will be appealed to an appellate court which is not quorate because the US vetoes the appointment of new judges.
China was exploiting the world trading system well before Trump. And it's now become patently clear that a lack of domestic manufacturing is a major security risk.
Oh sure, and personally I have always taken a rather more mercantilist view of trade than a free market purist. Free trade worked for us when the industrial revolution gave us huge inherent advantages. Since WW2 not so much and our membership of the SM in the EU seemed to do very little for our manufacturing, even if our services benefited.
It is just the way the world is now working and another example, along with Russia's illegal invasion and the cruelty of both sides in Gaza, of the rule of law breaking down.
Yet, with energy costs crippling manufacturing, SKS's plan on the face of it appears to be doubling down on Net Zero and employing a Net Zero nutter to the Energy 'Security' role. And we all know that all that will do is export jobs and production capacity to the coal-burners.
For Goodwin fans he's been on Any Questions on R4.
What a dreadful man.
Certainly it’s hard to believe that someone with such strident views could manage or commission an impartial poll. And we’ve just seen the polls he did commission turn to dust. One to ignore going forward, I think?
The Tories’ problem is that they have multiple false prophets like him circulating the smoking crater into which they just impacted.
Didn't Goodwin change horses mid race? A reluctant Conservative who became a raging Reformer once Farage (rhymes with garage) threw his hat into the ring.
Comments
Quite apart from which, it isn't the price for power, given the numbers of people who voted for a nominally right wing party, even at the bitter fag end of a right-wing Government.
What about all those professions where you have to do a certain number of days work a year to keep your licences/professional qualifications?
But if you were young or poor, it didn't have the material effect that it did on young and poor people in the UK, with far more people travelling and holidaying within their own state/territory.
I think there was a bit of friendly competition with NZ too.
[PIC OF REFORM MPs]
https://x.com/Parody_PM/status/1809242426856370265
Faves so far:
“Take Twat” and
“A Flock of Seig Heils”…
I’m sure PBers can add to the gaiety of the nation…
Up in Ripon to sing in a concert tonight.
Local entertainment outside whilst we rehearse inside the cathedral.
Right now, there must be about 30 Labour MPs who were MPs in the last Parliament and have second jobs, so not that many to annoy.
Labour also suggested that if they do ban, there will be some flexibility for media work and even paid speeches (I'm guessing the speeches ban will be linked to them not being a way around lobbying payments).
What damaged them in the opinion polls were the stories about lockdown parties and the money grifting sleaze.
When a 'one rule for you, another rule for us' image sets in then its hard for a government to recover.
The Truss disaster made it look that they were both incompetent and reckless - after that they were given no credit for the things which they managed successfully.
Snowflake Patrol and Kraftberk.
The Diddy Men?
Last of the summer whine.
Let’s see some actual policy from Starmer’s government before we judge it a failure, or success.
But somehow when he starts speaking, I tune out absolutely immediately, despite wanting to listen.
Maybe it's just a need for some speech coaching. He can't do off the cuff - but reading a prepared speech and being told when to pause, when to rise and fall, he might be a lot better. Being in the Commons might help actually.
Beastly Boys
Liberal Democrats love delivering! I’ve delivered all day, I’ve delivered in the dark, I’ve delivered in the small hours. I’d recommend anyone to find a reason to deliver the streets around where you live, at least once. You really don’t know your local area until you’ve tried to deliver a leaflet to every home there, and you will be genuinely surprised at what you will learn.
Considering how disastrously the Tories were doing, it shows there's no future for Farage in this country.
Thank goodness!
What’s happening?
Being an MP should be a full time job. If Farage wants to do his GeeBeebies job instead of sitting in Parliament he should gift them his time. They need the money anyway.
Turkey had announced 40% tariffs on Chinese vehicles last month but seems to be reversing this. Now BYD is going to build an EV factory in Turkey.
https://x.com/kyleichan/status/1809573893952172397
But I agree that the Tory party should ignore all this piffling or duplicitous "advice" from the left, to tack to the cenrre, to become the Lib Dems but even wetter, it's all bollocks
Basic conservative principles will win the next election. Much lower immigration, lower taxes, smaller state, Woke rolled back, boats stopped
That's it. That's the recipe. It will be welcomed by most. The tricky bit is convincing the voters that you have actual concrete policies that will achieve these things (not talk about them and then do the opposite), and you need a leader who looks tough enough to push this through. Forget about the wet centrist Dads
Mr Lydon may be on board the Reform train nowadays.
Which is odd given that he’ll only not be the leader when he decides to walk away.
The big question is whether Reform now puts down roots, with members and organisation and eventually councillors, and so becomes a long lasting feature of our politics. Or whether their MPs ignore their constituents and rarely turn up except for a few media stunts, Farage eventually loses interest, and the whole thing falls apart, leaving millions of voters looking for the next best way to kick the system.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MOZubzNO6c - "Hippies with Guns: The Culture", SFWDW
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyt0bZms5zU - "The Cornerstone of Johnny Reb: Checkmate Lincolnites", ASF
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u6u9AUdFpc - "Brazil's Last 5 Presidents Explained", AD
It's going to be a loong weekendThe retread MPs are listed here.
In any election, for all your strategy and tactics, in order to carry out your campaign, you have three key resources:
Money, people, and time.
Money is always limited, especially for us. You do what you can to raise more, but the more targets you have, the more it's spread out.
People are often the resource we focus on the most: volunteers are the heart of all campaigns. We assiduously cultivated more and more, but with five seats to fight in Oxfordshire (versus the one seat we've historically fought), even doubling or trebling our numbers would see us spread more thinly than ever.
Time was the one resource we knew we had and could use well. So we worked all our targets (and held seat) assiduously for years. And it's the resource that most acts cumulatively, building upon itself more and more, so when we got to the acid test, we were pushing on doors that may or may not have been open, but they were definitely unlocked.
New at Ten...top story tonight....Starmer admits toilets in #10 difficult to find.....10 mins in, Starmer agrees NHS is broken and states he will sort out the NHS mess by....he will also keep releasing prisoners for the moment as no space....
The joy of Opposition is that no-one scrutinises your policies too carefully. So fuck any contradiction
But if and when the Tories do regain power, this time they REALLY have to deliver, especially on migration and tax
MPs are paid around twice the median wage. If they can't afford to live on that it's not the role for them.
I moaned a lot about Alun Cairns but he was a diligent MP when he wasn't a Minister, although I think he probably (although he may not have- I can't remember) had a few of these once a month, a thousand pounds and hours consultancies. (Why would anyone offer some no mark politician a couple of grand a month for an hour unless they felt they were getting something in return?)
Geoffrey Cox on the other hand allegedly running his constituency from Antigua for several months in the year is a piss take.
Tories need to keep it simple - low migration, low tax, small state, zero Woke - and don't sweat the small stuff. But they WILL need concrete ideas as to how they achieve the above. They can't get away with airy promises of "immigration in the tens of thousands", not any more
That means the former British number one has played his last match at the All England Club after he and brother Jamie Murray were knocked out of the men's doubles earlier this week.
There are concerns that the declaration of the winner of the last constituency in the UK – Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire – could be mired yet further in challenges with SNP lawyers present.
The recount process has just started with the Electoral Commission present after the result was delayed due to a “discrepancy” between the verified ballots and the total ballots.
Last night the SNP’s Drew Hendry conceded defeat with the Liberal Democrats Angus MacDonald expected to be the winner – it is believed he won by between 1500 and 2000 votes – we will hopefully find out today.
It is one of the biggest upsets in the election as Mr MacDonald looks to have won back Charles Kennedy’s constituency for the Lib Dems, securing victory in what were SNP stronghold areas.
https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/could-there-be-a-challenge-to-the-inverness-skye-and-west-r-355014/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iFyVLRnJG_7HD1BrN6BQMzU_n2Vl-BjJEIz5H3qq6XA/edit?gid=0#gid=0
The Tories’ problem is that they have multiple false prophets like him circulating the smoking crater into which they just impacted.
As for 'Zero Woke' that is the 'small stuff' compared to inflation, cost of living, housing, energy prices etc. and is difficult to define. Isn't being woke just another word for 'enlightened'.
It is just the way the world is now working and another example, along with Russia's illegal invasion and the cruelty of both sides in Gaza, of the rule of law breaking down.
The guy’s been Prime Minister for one day. I don’t see some softball questions from the media as being some dire failure of journalism.
As of 19 February 2024 Farage holds 8/15 shares of Reform UK Party Limited (CRN 11694875) i.e. 53%. It’s public information. However the shareholders agreement (if any) is not public so we don’t know all the specifics.
It’s the same corporate vehicle as the Brexit Party, it has just changed its name.