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London Rising – The Pentagon and the Election – politicalbetting.com
London Rising – The Pentagon and the Election – politicalbetting.com
What happened in London at the General Election?
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London Rising – The Pentagon and the Election – politicalbetting.com
What happened in London at the General Election?
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Would one factor in that muted swing be that the Tories had a less than stellar result in London in 2019 so they hadn't as far to fall as elsewhere?
The days of building conventional tube tunnels that the trains just fit inside are long over for similar safety reasons.
Whether or not the driver is human.
You need continuous side walkways and regular emergency exit shafts. Both of which are incompatible with hyperloop as the first makes the pressure differentials impossible and both make it far too expensive.
For long underground sections you also need a service tunnel linked regularly to the running tunnels by cross passsges.
These safety features were comprehensively validated in the channel tunnel fire where all were safely evacuated on both the train that caught fire and on other trains brought to a stand behind it.
Hyperloop is not a particularly new idea though.
https://lisahistory.net/wordpress/2020/12/victorian-high-tech-the-pneumatic-railway/
If musk had had any sense on this one he would have promulgated it as a goods only transport concept, not passenger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMn_UqAsl4w
For PBers who need more Dominic Cummings in their lives.
The question is will the middle class Hindu vote be quite so keen when Sunak is gone, or whether it is permanently moving to the latter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCKNlj1uDyc
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/western-economy-on-the-edge-of-the-abyss/
The Conservative success was very much a fringe of London thing. Apart from Chingford (which was a freak, for all it counts), do any of the Conservative seats really see themselves as London? The Conservative offer (love cars, love green belt, love massive capital gains on house prices, love society not changing) plays pretty well in Zone 6.
As for next time, a lot depends on how the Con/Ref split plays next time. And that in turn depends on decisions taken by leading figures in those two parties. Good luck predicting that.
Revealed: Newly elected Reform MP James McMurdock was once jailed for attacking an ex-girlfriend outside a nightclub - as victim's mother slams 'monster' who 'should not be representing people'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13628999/Newly-elected-Reform-MP-James-McMurdock-jailed-attacking-ex-girlfriend-outside-nightclub-victims-mother-slams-monster-not-representing-people.html
The MP himself described the incident as 'the biggest regret of my life'.
In a statement, he said: 'While I absolutely deny the horrific details in this tale, there is one truth in it that I cannot, nor will not deny or hide from.
'A generous person might call it a teenage indiscretion, but I do not expect everyone to be so kind.
'Nearly 20 years ago, at 19 years of age, at the end of a night out together, we argued and I pushed her.
'She fell over and she was hurt. Despite being 38 now and having lived a whole life again I still feel deeply ashamed of that moment and apologetic."...
"When asked if Reform UK was aware that McMurdock had a conviction that resulted in a jail sentence before he was adopted as a prospective parliamentary candidate, a Reform UK spokesman replied: 'Yes. Reform UK was aware of James McMurdock's previous conviction and jail sentence.
The spokesman went on to say that reporting the attack and McMurdock's prison sentence was a breach of his privacy.
They added that Reform UK 'believes strongly that people can change their lives.'
'Mr McMurdock absolutely rejects allegations that he either kicked, stamped or punched the victim, though he accepts that he pushed her, she fell and was injured"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/12/civil-servants-gaslit-government-14-years-labour-keir-starmer?CMP=fb_cif
It reinforces the view that the civil service is not impartial.
It's staffed by youngish Met graduates and their views will reflect that demographic.
I'm also intrigued by their claim that reporting on a criminal conviction is a breach of privacy. Would they take that attitude if it was Rayner? Did they take that attitude over Layla Moran?
That being said without knowing more details of the case from reliable sources (so not Reform or the Mail comments section) it's hard to judge how serious it was.
A more pertinent question might be, did Standard Chartered know about it when they hired him?
Surely the pro-Hamas independents will be a thing of the past next time out?
Which, in turn, will hinge on the actions of the Iranian government in their direction of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Iran is entering a new period of instability and crisis of course, with the electorate just having messed with the rulers' preferred candidate just as Khamenei seems set to pop his clogs and his succession plans crashed into a mountain. But that could easily make things worse in the ME as potential candidates jockey to show how big their cocks are.
Articles such as the Guardian has published today, don’t exactly dispel that idea.
Have the DUP gone away?
I expect them in due course to win more seats and form one or more parties.
I think a lot of the green surge was people feeling confident Labour would win.
My guess would be that next time the election will look a lot closer.
Edit: and the conversion too, 14:13 ahead at the break.
A nice summary.
One question - what do you mean, @stodge , by "a profit of 14 points"?
Some of the "campaigning" which has been done by these independents has been truly appalling. I would say that it needs to stop but the best way to stop these things is expose them to the glare of publicity which has now happened.
I expect we will get byelections in a few of these. Local agitator wins a seat by saying down with
womenLabourIsrael. Wins. Is then shown up to be a useless arse, and all kinds of fun gets leaked.* Stodge put in 1 and got 14 back
* Stodge put in 1 and got 15 back
* Stodge put in 100 and got 114 back
* Other?
https://policies.google.com/faq
A feature of Brexit is that we can reverse this rule, so Mr McMurdock can have his history correctly documented
Roubles, millions of !
When I was on holiday in Instabul last year, there was a 100% spread on roubles at the local currency houses. They were buying them for X lira and selling them for 2X lira, when the “official” exchange rate was around the 2X mark.
In the sandpit they want nothing to do with them, so the Russians who moved here came with gold and bitcoin!
Firstly, his version of events ("I pushed her. She fell over and she was hurt") is not consistent with the story of two bouncers pulling him away, nor with the fact he received a custodial sentence. It does look as if he is, to put it mildly, playing down the incident.
Secondly, he'll have had other girlfriends in the years that followed. Maybe the incident was a wake-up call and he completely changed his personality from that day forwards. Or maybe not.
Mr. JohnL, inactivity and inertia are only stable if circumstances never ever change.
In the last election two years ago (2022) Labour won 31, Libdems 17, Tories 7 and Merton Park Residents 2 (total seats 57, 29 needed for majority
The only split wards with Labour were Abbey and Wandle, where Libdems won 2 and Labour 1.
In the Labour only wards.
Colliers Wood (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th
Cricket Green (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Figges Marsh (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Graveney (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Lavender Fields (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Longthornton (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Pollards Hill (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
Ravensbury(3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
St Helier (3) Labour Landslide Libdems 4th.
The landslides in those seats were vast. Labour typically won about 75% of the vote between the three candidates. Libdems 6% between their 3.
Those wards alone leave Labour just two short of a majority.
Labour also won two seats in Lower Morden. In this one the tories were a close second and Libdems were er.. fourth.
PS in Wimbledon, Village remains Tory and Hillside Tory/Lib Split.
Shabana Mahmood says new measures to ease overcrowding crisis is only way to ‘avert disaster’ in the jail system"
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/prison-early-release-plan-labour-starmer-67cnfc9k9
The stakes in their election are simply extraordinary for all of us.
Edit: There are no other Tory wards where they have all the seats.
From a Daily Mail article I ran across this morning, about one family and how far each generation was allowed to travel from home at the age of 8, in 1919, 1950, 1979 and 2007, in Sheffield. It can be argued to be a little simplistic, but the trend holds. When it's not on a rant or a hate campaign, this is what the Daily Mail can do very well.
It reminds me how small even Sheffield, and everything else here, is in geography.
I found it as a reference from a specialist article arguing that the phrase for design of walking and cycling infra should be "suitable for everyone from 8 to 80 and beyond” rather than "suitable for a sensible 12-year-old”, as the latter is exclusionary; I agree. One concept in that is making it safe for 8 year olds who will make more mistakes, to do so - I normally use language such as "fail safe, not fail dangerous" around that point.
At 8 in 1974, I was living a mile from where I am now, and happily went alone around 1-1.5 miles from home around my town, for school, swimming, biking, fishing, friends and so on. Main roads were less busy, but usually 40mph, so places for care. I could probably have gone further, but did not do so by my own inclination.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
The best you could hope for would be a Tory - Libdem - Merton Park Independents coalition with 30 seats to Labours 27.
But is there any evidence of the Civil Service being reluctant to implement policy in any of the other myriad departments of government? If so, I haven't seen it.
It will, however, be mid-term in a Labour Government, whereas 2022 was mid-term in a Tory one. It's not that unusual to see quite big swings on low turnouts in such elections, particularly if Lib Dems, Tories and Greens are fairly strategic in targeting.
This is not a recent phenomenon either.
Labour have rarely had a big majority in Merton but it is solid. Merton and Morden Labour party is also generally free of trots, momentumites and all the other -ites that plagued the inner London Constituency Labour Parties.
The only real change since the early 1990s in seats held is that the Libdems have eaten into Tory seats in the west of the borough.
No party should allow a candidate to stand for a seat if they’ve had a criminal conviction for a violent offense.
AIUI ROA 1974 or the 2014 updates relate to specific circumstances such as job applications, not the public reporting of public information such as the records of criminal courts.
It's complicated.
I think, unless Europe really steps up its efforts, Ukraine will fall and Putin will become more dangerous on the back of that success.
I think that the withdrawal of the US from international structures and law will seriously weaken and possibly destroy an already weakened international order.
I fear that the hyper aggressive trade policies will trigger a repeat of the damage to international trade that we saw in the 1930s.
The truth is we have relied on the US to maintain world order (in the main) since WW2. A lot of the assumptions and things we take for granted would be at risk.
Rugby is a great sport.
As a teacher I would have had to inform of all convictions whether spent or unspent. Isn't standing for parliament similar?
What is noteworthy is that he is now a ‘merchant banker’. Or was until a week ago.
So someone was prepared to give him a job post-prison.
Unusually I’m inclined to agree with Reform; he’s sorted out his life, although obviously I don’t think much of his politics.
"Under the ROA, when a conviction has become spent, it is as though, for most purposes, it has never occurred. You are not obliged to disclose a spent conviction, and you should not be prejudiced as a result of one. This means that in law, for a media organisation to report your spent conviction amounts to an untruth, meaning that they are open to accusations of defamation.
It is not a criminal offence to report a spent conviction, so the ROA does not impose a criminal penalty on journalists or media organisations who do so. As a result of the ROA, technically, anybody reading about the spent conviction shouldn’t use that information in a way that disadvantages you in any way. Of course, this is difficult to prove, and even if you could prove it, there is little you can do."
On that link, the basic principle is that sentences are public information and can be reported, and the only reply is around defamation etc, where the reporter's defences of public interest etc are rebuttable presumptions.
In the case of an MP from a 'tough on criminals' party, I'd say the relevance is clear.
So, it’s not complicated.
"we also know that, right now, Trump is almost certain to win an Electoral College landslide in November, for the simple reason that he doesn’t have a credible or capable opponent."
"Two weeks ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign is over. It still is. The attempt these last two weeks to insist that the parrot is not, in fact, dead is Monty Python material."
"Two weeks ago, I assumed it would be done by now. It truly is the only option available if the Democrats really do want to stop a Trump landslide. The question reverberating in my mind right now is therefore a simple one: Do they?"
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/wanted-an-american-starmer-099?r=37ywu&triedRedirect=true