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Everybody loves the Lib Dems (after a fashion) – politicalbetting.com
Everybody loves the Lib Dems (after a fashion) – politicalbetting.com
Overall, fewer than one in five Britons are consistently right-wing in their party preferences, i.e. rank the Conservatives and Reform UK ahead of every other party, compared to 40% who rank all major progressive parties ahead of them.https://t.co/ZlB0dOtvPz pic.twitter.com/cQQfMP022k
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Also as a Lib Dem it's nice to see us get a lot of second preferences, but I do wonder how much of that is a kind of natural fallout of most people having a simple "Lab - LD - Tory" left-to-right model of the parties.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
I love your thinking.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
The Lib Dems should change their branding from orange to vanilla.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
The problem is they are None of the Above voters so as Reform becomes mainstream they may well go elsewhere..
But I'm not sure as you that she wouldn't have ended up the nominee anyway.
It would have been a great betting market.
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw5ykyzdzezo
Wage growth at the lowest for 2 years. Ignoring the fact that inflation is now 2% and that real wage growth is accordingly 3.7%, an unusually high increase.
PB often has a disturbing tendency to forget those folk (and PBers to forget their own likely future).
As for buses, if Lothian Buses can have two wheelchair/buggy spaces and a quick-acting ramp ... But I forget. It interferes with the free market to have such socialist crap as municipal buses and disabled access. Apparently.
Of course some people have to have large and unwieldy chairs that take more time to board and leave a bus but my experience at least is very positive on buses.
Trains however are a disgrace.
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
That would depend on the terms of the merger, and Farage has a veto on whatever his company agrees to.
Unless you're suggesting it might detoxify Farage ? Which seems unlikely.
The mobile reception on the East Midlands mainline is shit too.
Most of the Democratic Party, and all of their many friends in the media, preferred to spend the last year taking about how wonderfully the Emperor was dressesd, until he turned up to last month’s debate and the whole World saw him very much naked.
For logistical reasons, they are doing the formal nomination via an online meeting in advance of their Convention, probably on August 1st, so those who want to see someone else nominated don’t have a lot of time on their hands.
So, 34% of 2024 Tory voters prefer Labour to Reform; and 25% of Reform voters prefer Labour to the Tories.
The Tories got 6,827,112 votes on 4th July; Reform got 4,117,221
34% of 6,827,112 = 2,321,218
25% of 4,117,221 = 1,029,305
2,321,218 + 1,029,305 = 3,350,523
6,827,112 + 4,117,221 - 3,350,523 = 7,593,810
Meanwhile, Labour got 9,704,655 votes on 4th July 2024.
9,704,655 + 3,350,523 = 13,055,178
On 4th July, the Tories got around 70% of the Labour vote. On the numbers above a single Tory/Reform ticket gets 58%.
Put another way, be careful what you wish for!!
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
I remember the maps that Charles Kennedy used to put out showing the Liberal Democrats would win a national landslide if everyone thought they could win locally.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
But that is one that has to be driven from standards and regulations, to take the drive for "lowest possible price" out of the equation where it undermines quality of life.
There's a philosophical problem there as well - in the UK disabled people are not "them who we do things to" (such as "getting them off the bus"); our values are that disabled people are a part of "us" and we design our society for everyone. That has been the perspective in law since approximately the 1980s. Technically it's an aspect of what is called the "medical model" or "social model" of disability.
See my other comment for more detail.
Tbats nothing. I have travelled in First Class Luxury on an Underground train from Moorgate to Earls Court (Fare £80 single)
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot - mobility aids are far more capable and we are all larger) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and 2023/4 appropriate guidance has not been put in place.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
Here's an account of the guy Doug Paulley who has been involved in some of these:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/30/doug-paulley-not-my-benefit-tackling-injustice
It's one of those reasons why replacing Biden with anyone but Harris is going to be utterly impossible...
She lost her seat the following year (to a LibDem, natch) - and her neanderthal attitude to veggies now looks to most people in affluent gastropubs as incomprehensible as smoking.
As far as we're concerned her party's now history. From holding ALL the county's parliamentary seats, the Tories have now lost any Oxfordshire representation in parliament, practically all her neighbours routinely now vote LibDem, while the County, and its rural Districts ( just a decade ago regarded by the media as so safe for the Tories elections were perpetually predictable) are run by the LibDems - and there's next to no Tory council seats in the county's one urban District.
All ultimately the result of the death, or age-related ineffectiveness, of the archetype Tory gibberish-churner. Now politically impotent and socially beyond the pale - because they're just out of touch with voters (and especially the business community) in modern rural Britain.
Argue about Reform if you like. But dragging the ""sandals" myth into the debate just exposes that you're as out of touch with the world of 2024 as that stupid Tory woman. And as doomed to political irrelevance
I know Leon probably hasn't surfaced yet but...
Ignoring of course that the election will be decided in the swing states .
Bonus point for ‘tendentious’ by the way, not seen that word for years.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Roman legions stationed in Britannia wore socks with their sandals.
(At this point I stop for taste reasons).
There is no good solution to Biden's deteriorating faculties.
https://x.com/natesilver538/status/1813778269977583930
“So they basically held an intervention with Biden, and it didn't work, so now they're leaking the details publicly.”
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
He's very very stubborn, and there's no mechanism to eject him.
Sometimes, the non-specialist writer with the discipline of a tight style guide is what you need.
(Having just realised that I haven't seen Horizon for a while, the BBC don't seem to have made new episodes for a couple of years now. What the heck is that about?)
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
And the result was?
Oh and I remember Lab doing a bar chart and only Lab can win here and a vote for the LDs is a wasted vote in a Euro election with PR!!! Unscrupulous?
https://pocketmags.com/magazine-articles/steam-on-the-circle-line-is-a-triumph
In principle it's no different to some selfish (*&^% blocking a Blue Badge parking space.
A bus driver can ask a disruptive passenger, such as "Karen" in this example, to leave the bus. Bus companies I am aware of already have this in their Conditions of Carriage. By getting on the bus passengers have agreed to be bound by them.
I have known cases where the driver said "this bus is not going anywhere until you clear the wheelchair space".
eg National Express:
"12. Passenger behaviour
12.1 Required behaviour and prohibited behaviour
(b) Prohibited behaviour: You must ensure that you do not:
(iv) Behave in a manner which causes discomfort, inconvenience, danger, damage or injury to any other person or to property on board any Coach or at any Station or to any Coach or Station;
2.3 Consequences of bad behaviour
If you fail to comply with this Condition 12, we shall be entitled to restrain you, remove you from any Coach or Station owned or managed by us, refuse you further carriage, cancel your Ticket without refund and take any other measures as we consider necessary, including to involve law enforcement authorities if we consider that there are any security or safety issues.
Furthermore, we reserve the right to refuse travel, either on a one-off or permanent basis, to anyone who has failed to comply with this Condition 12 or who we consider to be a nuisance or danger to our passengers, customers, drivers or National Express Representatives.
12.4 No liability to you for your bad behaviour
If we take any of the actions in consequence of your bad behaviour specified in this Condition 12 or you are refused travel in the circumstances specified in this Condition 12, we will not be liable to you for any loss, damage, injury, inconvenience or cost that you suffer or incur as a result."
https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/help/conditions-of-carriage
I think that we have to accept that the consequence of past immigration is more immigration in future and recalibrate our expectations accordingly.