I was talking on Monday with a senior and well known member of the Conservative party who expressed the opinion that none of the six candidates (five now) were any use, and that he couldn't see any circumstances in which any of them would be Prime Minister .
I am not a Conservative voter or supporter, but it worries me that we have such a diminished main opposition party. Having a good and effective LOTO is an important part of our democracy
If I can try to remember back to what I felt about the last few Conservative PMs *before* they gained power:
Cameron: A good man, who was reversing the party's decline (after Howard's good work). I felt he would be a good PM.
May: I did not like aspects of her time as Home Secretary; then again, I can say that for virtually every HS. That role is somewhat of a poisoned chalice, and I viewed the fact she survived so long in that role as a positive sign of her abilities.
Johnson: Despite quite liking his character, I felt his time as MoL showed he would be a terrible PM. I was against him becoming PM from before he re-entered parliament.
Truss: She was barely on my radar before or during her PMship.
Sunak: He had an incredibly difficult task during Covid, and whatever he did could be criticised. But I could not see him being able to steady a ship that had already been sunk by his two predecessors.
The next one: I am Meh! about the lot. Not one I would want as PM; and I have no idea which might best be able to rebuild the party ready for their successor.
I think it's an impossible task they have - their core vote base is dying off and they then need to attach 2 very political diverse and probably mutually exclusive voters (reform / Lib Dem voters) to have any chance of picking up seats.
Worse the membership is going to select a right wing leader who is likely to be completely toxic to one of those potential voter groups and who will have never been opposition before so will not know how different the job being Leader of the Opposition is.
The Tories are already just 4% behind Labour on the latest poll. This tax raising, union massive pay rise awarding, middle class private school parent hammering, right to buy ending, immigration un controlling, pensioner pneumonia causing government is already one of the worst in my lifetime
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
Bah. That's nothing.
For pure athletic brilliance, you need to watch the Beer Mile championships. You run a four-lap mile, drinking a bottle of beer every lap of the course.
The current world-record time is four minutes, 28 seconds; for time running, that is under a four-minute mile.
If I can try to remember back to what I felt about the last few Conservative PMs *before* they gained power:
Cameron: A good man, who was reversing the party's decline (after Howard's good work). I felt he would be a good PM.
May: I did not like aspects of her time as Home Secretary; then again, I can say that for virtually every HS. That role is somewhat of a poisoned chalice, and I viewed the fact she survived so long in that role as a positive sign of her abilities.
Johnson: Despite quite liking his character, I felt his time as MoL showed he would be a terrible PM. I was against him becoming PM from before he re-entered parliament.
Truss: She was barely on my radar before or during her PMship.
Sunak: He had an incredibly difficult task during Covid, and whatever he did could be criticised. But I could not see him being able to steady a ship that had already been sunk by his two predecessors.
The next one: I am Meh! about the lot. Not one I would want as PM; and I have no idea which might best be able to rebuild the party ready for their successor.
One of the difficulties and challenges is that, I think, we as a general public have mostly unconsciously shifted from policy and politics to competence as what we want from government. There aren't really big policy divisions to find of the sort that have clear answers. (Both Brexit and boats/migration lead to confusion, not clear policy divides).
Policy is (slightly) interesting. Competence is not. It is crashingly dull. Nor is it easy to prove you have it from opposition benches, and since it actually relies on the millions who do the actual stuff arising from the trillion of state managed expenditure.
Nothing about any of the 5 candidates is inspiring WRT leadership and competence.
BTW, Rayner not great this morning; unable to give a single date or timeline for post Grenfell targets, nor even a date for when there would be any. But complaining about everyone else still footling 'after 7 years'. Notably she didn't want to agree that government/civil service itself, and its individuals, could be among those criminally accountable, though everyone else was in the possible frame.
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
I completely agree. Although I might call it "philosophical" rather than "structural" - they haven't done any thinking about what might be the right way forward in the long term; it's *all* micro-policy, talking points, wedges. The comment earlier about the "traditional Tory" approach to border control is a great example. It's the *current* knee jerk policy position, not part of a web of thinking about what it will mean to be a "successful" nation state in the next 100 years.
You could quite fairly make much the same criticism of Labour, though.
Yes, I think you absolutely can. I would perhaps argue that they are ahead of the Tories, though, in that they successfully fought off the extremists and grifters (unlike the Tories and the Republicans in the US). They are now going to fail in a largely boring and unspectacular way with intentions veering more towards the general good.
The Tories lost the party to the extremists and grifters, and need to *both* come up with a philosophy *and* stop trying to appease the unappeasable. This is a much more challenging job, and I don't think any of the current candidates are well placed to set us on that path.
(I don't have any idea what this path should be - or whether it would be remotely appealing to me; that's not really the point.)
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
The Tories would be better off looking at the under-50s and developing a prospectus for them rather than chasing the votes of the Boomers who tend to back Reform.
Reform do best with 45 to 60s, Tories do best with pensioners
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Don't you implicitly have to assume *some* figure, though? If you do nothing, that implicitly says "conventions have no effect on polling, there is no bounce effect", and when the polls do bounce after the convention your model will assume that is all genuine shift of voting intention and its predicted outcome will shift accordingly. If you model in some amount of bounce based on previous years, then your model is going to react less to the up and down in the polling post convention and its output prediction during that time period should be more accurate.
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Far better it from me to question the great Nate Silver but has it occurred to anyone that the lack of a convention bounce for Harris might just be because nobody is impressed by conventions anymore.
I wonder if it isn’t about the timing. She became the candidate quickly, and that saw a big polling boost for the Dems. Then the convention was not long after that, so it just felt like more of the same process, whereas usually there’s a big gap between candidacy secured and convention.
Could be, though before the convention people were arguing the opposite - plenty of people still unsure about new candidate Harris and the convention an opportunity to impress them or otherwise. Most people seem to think the convention went well.
Meanwhile, for our Scotch experts, are the Greens going to collapse the Scottish Assembly by voting against the budget
They don't have a budget. They're making it up as they go along:
Cole-Hamilton: The govt are plugging the budget hole with all remaining revenue from licenses to do off-shore wind. How will they plug the same hole next year? Minister: Entitled ranting about investment, which suggests that they intend to attract more billions in off-shore investment before they have to do next year's budget
I am all for investment, especially foreign investment. We absolutely need to bring money in to invest in these long-term strategic projects. But they're burning the cash to cover the cost of their incompetent wasteful spending on day to day stuff. Its idiotic.
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
I completely agree. Although I might call it "philosophical" rather than "structural" - they haven't done any thinking about what might be the right way forward in the long term; it's *all* micro-policy, talking points, wedges. The comment earlier about the "traditional Tory" approach to border control is a great example. It's the *current* knee jerk policy position, not part of a web of thinking about what it will mean to be a "successful" nation state in the next 100 years.
You could quite fairly make much the same criticism of Labour, though.
Labour are in power, so they need to do micro-policy detail. The Tories are in opposition. That’s a good time to get the big picture vision right.
This is performative tinkering, which doesn't actually address any of the urgent structural issues around the privatised monopolies.
It has me worried that it might be distraction in preparation for government giving the water companies what they want (ie lots of fresh capital from the public, with few strings attached).
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
I completely agree. Although I might call it "philosophical" rather than "structural" - they haven't done any thinking about what might be the right way forward in the long term; it's *all* micro-policy, talking points, wedges. The comment earlier about the "traditional Tory" approach to border control is a great example. It's the *current* knee jerk policy position, not part of a web of thinking about what it will mean to be a "successful" nation state in the next 100 years.
You could quite fairly make much the same criticism of Labour, though.
Yes. I do not think it is possible at the moment to write even two sides of A4 to describe accurately the distinct differences between the Labour and Tory big picture for what the UK should be, now or in X year's time.
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
The Tories would be better off looking at the under-50s and developing a prospectus for them rather than chasing the votes of the Boomers who tend to back Reform.
Reform do best with 45 to 60s, Tories do best with pensioners
If you're 45 now you'll be 50 or close to it at the time of the next GE. Chasing the votes of today's elderly is not a sustainable strategy. But I encourage the Tories to keep on doing it!
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Ranges from Bill Clinton's 16% in 1992 (Carter was the only other nominee to crack double figures - both were fairly unknown) down to Kerry's minus 1% in 2004.
(The numbers aren't exactly comparable between different elections, and the sources for the figures changes.)
Well I would prefer a model that didn't try to guess which way the polling average is going to change between now and the final eve-of-poll average. But the 538 model has included some kind of convention bounce adjustment since at least 2012, so it's nothing new.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
That's not Occam's razor; it's just a wild assed guess. Nate Silver is worse than I am at statistics, and I'm an ignoramus.
FWIW, what evidence there is (and it's pretty patchy) suggests that both conventions didn't have any great effect at all in terms of 'bounce'.
And if you look at the historical record (which again represents not a lot of data) convention bounces range from double figures to zero.
Incorporating an adjustment, for what you guess a convention bounce might be, into what's supposed to be a statistical model, is just garbage.
I am not statistician either but that is exactly what I thought. Harris was being held against a "conventional" Convention bounce that Nate had picked out of his arse and which had no basis.
That said, as I said yesterday, there is some evidence that Harris's charge has rather petered out and she is holding station rather than going away.
I have never been materially active in politics before, but this time I think civilization as we know it is on the line.
If we want to preserve freedom and a meritocracy in America, then Trump must win.
That’s the problem with meritocracy
It makes arsewipes like Musk, who happened to be in the right place at the right time and put all Daddy’s money on red, think they are uniquely talented and insightful
Or more simply, people who have "merit" in one area (entrepeneurialship) often have very little merit in other areas, such as politics, empathy, social skills. They assume that their "merit" is across all of life. Hence people like Musk and Theil favouring government by "high status males" over democracy. They cannot recognise that the tea lady has more "merit" than them in regard to caring for others.
"I finally realized where I had seen Tenet Media very prominently in the past few weeks. They were all over the DNC protests in Chicago. They generated tons and tons of very provocative protest video. Now we find out they were being covertly directed by the Kremlin and RT media. I am shocked I tell you ... completely shocked""
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Don't you implicitly have to assume *some* figure, though? If you do nothing, that implicitly says "conventions have no effect on polling, there is no bounce effect", and when the polls do bounce after the convention your model will assume that is all genuine shift of voting intention and its predicted outcome will shift accordingly. If you model in some amount of bounce based on previous years, then your model is going to react less to the up and down in the polling post convention and its output prediction during that time period should be more accurate.
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
I don't think the model should incorporate any prediction at all about the bounce. Silver's idea of rating pollsters and weighting his model accordingly was a decent one, with some statistical basis. Guessing a figure for convention bounce is just a guess.
Sunak wasn't that bad. It was the Party that was shite.
It needs to go off and clean itself up a bit. Come back when it can genuinely say it is better than Labour.
Is Jenrick the guy to lead them through this? Go ahead. Surprise me.
Iain Martin has a column in The Times today on 'Project Phoenix', which is the report by Michael Forsyth (remember him?) on how the party can 'rise from the ashes'
It's basically all about navel gazing, party structure, procedural changes, candidate selection, and steadfastly refuses to contemplate any of the policy disasters of the last decade.
The comments are not universally supportive...
Thats unfortunate naming as there is a book called the Phoenix project and anyone who has read the book will be going "uh oh"
Mr. Pagan, bizarrely, I think Project Phoenix was the name of a short story I wrote for a horror anthology a long time ago. It was actually pretty good, thanks largely to excellent editing suggestions. Not sure if I still have it or if it got killed when my computer died a couple of years ago.
I have never been materially active in politics before, but this time I think civilization as we know it is on the line.
If we want to preserve freedom and a meritocracy in America, then Trump must win.
Musk is an idiot. It would help Trump more to just continue making Twitter an echo chamber for far-right conspiracy theories. Musk openly coming out for Trump just devalues Twitter as an information source. He probably thinks his personal public endorsement is worth something like the narcissistic egomaniac he is, but is it a net benefit to Trump? Doubtful.
Also 'civilization as we know it is on the line' is a better issue for Harris than Trump.
If Trump is the defender of Western civilization, then Vlad will be in Paris three days later.
The French and German construction sectors continue in a malaise to match their political disfunction:
HCOB France Construction PMI
French construction downturn persists, with residential building activity plunging again
Housing sector continues to weigh the most on construction activity New orders fall rapidly and business sentiment remains pessimistic Input price inflation accelerates to eight-month high
Construction sector remains mired in a steep downturn midway through third quarter
Increased weakness in housing drives faster fall in total activity Job cuts deepen despite slower decline in new orders Input prices drop for fifth month running and at a faster rate
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Don't you implicitly have to assume *some* figure, though? If you do nothing, that implicitly says "conventions have no effect on polling, there is no bounce effect", and when the polls do bounce after the convention your model will assume that is all genuine shift of voting intention and its predicted outcome will shift accordingly. If you model in some amount of bounce based on previous years, then your model is going to react less to the up and down in the polling post convention and its output prediction during that time period should be more accurate.
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
I don't think the model should incorporate any prediction at all about the bounce. Silver's idea of rating pollsters and weighting his model accordingly was a decent one, with some statistical basis. Guessing a figure for convention bounce is just a guess.
It has the arguably perverse effect of lowering the predicted chances of a candidate that has no convention bounce, while a candidate that has a very big convention bounce will still get a fairly big boost in the model.
Better to just put an asterisk by the model's predictions where you think there is a reason to believe that there's some temporary effect that will be followed by some kind of reversion to mean, give your reasons, and allow people to make their own minds up.
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Musk = Taliban. New angle from you?
The resistance to the Soviet invasion that the CIA backed, ended up as the Northern Alliance. The enemies of the Taliban.
The Taliban were largely the creation of Pakistani Intelligence, who were worried that the post Soviet government in Afghanistan were too friendly with India. So they poured a lot of time and money into creating and promoting the Taliban as a coherent group.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If I can try to remember back to what I felt about the last few Conservative PMs *before* they gained power:
Cameron: A good man, who was reversing the party's decline (after Howard's good work). I felt he would be a good PM.
May: I did not like aspects of her time as Home Secretary; then again, I can say that for virtually every HS. That role is somewhat of a poisoned chalice, and I viewed the fact she survived so long in that role as a positive sign of her abilities.
Johnson: Despite quite liking his character, I felt his time as MoL showed he would be a terrible PM. I was against him becoming PM from before he re-entered parliament.
Truss: She was barely on my radar before or during her PMship.
Sunak: He had an incredibly difficult task during Covid, and whatever he did could be criticised. But I could not see him being able to steady a ship that had already been sunk by his two predecessors.
The next one: I am Meh! about the lot. Not one I would want as PM; and I have no idea which might best be able to rebuild the party ready for their successor.
I think it's an impossible task they have - their core vote base is dying off and they then need to attach 2 very political diverse and probably mutually exclusive voters (reform / Lib Dem voters) to have any chance of picking up seats.
Worse the membership is going to select a right wing leader who is likely to be completely toxic to one of those potential voter groups and who will have never been opposition before so will not know how different the job being Leader of the Opposition is.
The Tories are already just 4% behind Labour on the latest poll. This tax raising, union massive pay rise awarding, middle class private school parent hammering, right to buy ending, immigration un controlling, pensioner pneumonia causing government is already one of the worst in my lifetime
Post-Left Watch @PostLeftWatch George Galloway, former RT host: "In 21 years, Putin has completely transformed Russia. Russia is a glorious success story. I know the enemies don't want to hear that, but that requires them not to look at the footage, freely available, of what development is like in Russia."
The French and German construction sectors continue in a malaise to match their political disfunction:
HCOB France Construction PMI
French construction downturn persists, with residential building activity plunging again
Housing sector continues to weigh the most on construction activity New orders fall rapidly and business sentiment remains pessimistic Input price inflation accelerates to eight-month high
Construction sector remains mired in a steep downturn midway through third quarter
Increased weakness in housing drives faster fall in total activity Job cuts deepen despite slower decline in new orders Input prices drop for fifth month running and at a faster rate
This is good. However the new homes being built do not even do enough to meet the additional demand from annual net migration, let alone resolve the crisis already in place.
I have not yet heard this new government address this, any more than the last one did.
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
I suspect Duplantis could medal in the decathlon with a couple of months training and break the world record with 2 years training. He should be winning, or close to, the three jumps and the 100m, no reason he couldnt be strong at the hurdles or 400m either.
However, Tim Pool, a gullible American, says he didn't know it was the Kremlin who suddenly started paying him $100,000 per episode of his show.
A man that incurious could easily be a British government minister responsible for not asking questions about the Post Office or high rise flats, let alone how goods get to and from the continent.
Post-Left Watch @PostLeftWatch George Galloway, former RT host: "In 21 years, Putin has completely transformed Russia. Russia is a glorious success story. I know the enemies don't want to hear that, but that requires them not to look at the footage, freely available, of what development is like in Russia."
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
True. Though this particular accountant seemed to be more lamenting that it meant she had some work to do when she would have preferred to go for a haircut!
No Tory MP among the 20 backbenchers selected in the draw to introduce Private Members Bills. Did they not enter? There are four LibDems on the list and one TUV, the rest are Labour.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Don't you implicitly have to assume *some* figure, though? If you do nothing, that implicitly says "conventions have no effect on polling, there is no bounce effect", and when the polls do bounce after the convention your model will assume that is all genuine shift of voting intention and its predicted outcome will shift accordingly. If you model in some amount of bounce based on previous years, then your model is going to react less to the up and down in the polling post convention and its output prediction during that time period should be more accurate.
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
I don't think the model should incorporate any prediction at all about the bounce. Silver's idea of rating pollsters and weighting his model accordingly was a decent one, with some statistical basis. Guessing a figure for convention bounce is just a guess.
It has the arguably perverse effect of lowering the predicted chances of a candidate that has no convention bounce, while a candidate that has a very big convention bounce will still get a fairly big boost in the model.
Better to just put an asterisk by the model's predictions where you think there is a reason to believe that there's some temporary effect that will be followed by some kind of reversion to mean, give your reasons, and allow people to make their own minds up.
Only 4 weeks from Bidenfall to convention. Presumably convention bounce results simply from increased attention (because it's always a bounce whereas it would sometimes be negative if it reflected actual performance). Attention was on KH anyway, so there's good reason to expect a bounce to be muted
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
I suspect Duplantis could medal in the decathlon with a couple of months training and break the world record with 2 years training. He should be winning, or close to, the three jumps and the 100m, no reason he couldnt be strong at the hurdles or 400m either.
It is a shame we shall never find out as there is no reason for Duplantis to switch from the pole vault given his stack of gold medals and world records, other than boredom.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
You're not wrong that it was started by a household appliance, you are considerably wrong in thinking that is a primary cause of a raging inferno in a tower block that was supposed to comply with building regs and be subdivided into small blocks with fireproof boundaries. There will always be small fires, dropped cigarette, shorting electrical appliance etc, they shouldn't result in a raging inferno. There's a very good Radio 4 podcast on Grenfell.
Thanks for the heads-up on the podcast.
I'm thinking around a header I'm putting together for the weekend, and the report goes very wide into all kind of things - so I'm thinking similarly.
"There will always be ... X" is never a reason to ignore anything imo. That's what they used to say about electrical kit within reach of a bath, trailing kettle wires in reach of toddlers, cooker off switches at the back so you had to reach over the pan fire to turn it off, electrical sockets near sinks, electric shocks before earth leakage trips were required, and all the rest.
Of the 7 or 8 fires I have seen quoted as precedent, all of them are in Social Housing blocks (HA or Council, including Worcester Park 2020), and all of them were started by your list of causes (electrical appliances or wiring, one candle on top of a TV, and one dropped cigarette).
I think both need to be addressed.
One point is that Council / HA housing is not regulated anything like as thoroughly as the Private Sector; they get to have a "Code of Practice" rather than prescribed legislation. For example, a Private LL is required to have a full professional electrical inspection every 5 years; a Council is merely required to "make sure it is safe" *. The difference is especially stark in my experience between University Halls of Residence and sometimes identical Private accommodation.
A second point is that by paying attention to "infernos" we ignore the far higher bar on the pareto chart, which is deaths in "small fires". It is as I see it the same as the effect that huge attention is garnered by rail or air crashes, but there is a conspiracy of silence about the 20 or 50 times as many people killed by crashes on our roads.
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
I suspect Duplantis could medal in the decathlon with a couple of months training and break the world record with 2 years training. He should be winning, or close to, the three jumps and the 100m, no reason he couldnt be strong at the hurdles or 400m either.
It is a shame we shall never find out as there is no reason for Duplantis to switch from the pole vault given his stack of gold medals and world records, other than boredom.
It must be kind of tempting for him to find out. Obviously much harder work but might want a new challenge. Would also make a great Netflix documentary for the sport to follow his training.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Post-Left Watch @PostLeftWatch George Galloway, former RT host: "In 21 years, Putin has completely transformed Russia. Russia is a glorious success story. I know the enemies don't want to hear that, but that requires them not to look at the footage, freely available, of what development is like in Russia."
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
You're not wrong that it was started by a household appliance, you are considerably wrong in thinking that is a primary cause of a raging inferno in a tower block that was supposed to comply with building regs and be subdivided into small blocks with fireproof boundaries. There will always be small fires, dropped cigarette, shorting electrical appliance etc, they shouldn't result in a raging inferno. There's a very good Radio 4 podcast on Grenfell.
Thanks for the heads-up on the podcast.
I'm thinking around a header I'm putting together for the weekend, and the report goes very wide into all kind of things - so I'm thinking similarly.
"There will always be ... X" is never a reason to ignore anything imo. That's what they used to say about electrical kit within reach of a bath, trailing kettle wires in reach of toddlers, cooker off switches at the back so you had to reach over the pan fire to turn it off, electrical sockets near sinks, electric shocks before earth leakage trips were required, and all the rest.
Of the 7 or 8 fires I have seen quoted as precedent, all of them are in Social Housing blocks (HA or Council, including Worcester Park 2020), and all of them were started by your list of causes (electrical appliances or wiring, one candle on top of a TV, and one dropped cigarette).
I think both need to be addressed.
One point is that Council / HA housing is not regulated anything like as thoroughly as the Private Sector; they get to have a "Code of Practice" rather than prescribed legislation. For example, a Private LL is required to have a full professional electrical inspection every 5 years; a Council is merely required to "make sure it is safe" *. The difference is especially stark in my experience between University Halls of Residence and sometimes identical Private accommodation.
A second point is that by paying attention to "infernos" we ignore the far higher bar on the pareto chart, which is deaths in "small fires". It is as I see it the same as the effect that huge attention is garnered by rail or air crashes, but there is a conspiracy of silence about the 20 or 50 times as many people killed by crashes on our roads.
Hardly a conspiracy of silence, deaths in car accidents are often on the news, but complacency perhaps, given that our roads are among the safest, even for cyclists! Safer even than much-vaunted cycling paradise, NL.
ETA looking around parked cars finds a tremendous number of dents and scratches so if I were minister for road safety, I'd investigate what is causing all these low-level incidents in case it is the same cause for deaths, plus or minus a good helping of luck.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
The illuminated sigh is to help you find it when you are confused by smoke and may eg have only just been woken up.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
I suspect Duplantis could medal in the decathlon with a couple of months training and break the world record with 2 years training. He should be winning, or close to, the three jumps and the 100m, no reason he couldnt be strong at the hurdles or 400m either.
It is a shame we shall never find out as there is no reason for Duplantis to switch from the pole vault given his stack of gold medals and world records, other than boredom.
Apparently he gets $100,000 every time he breaks the World Record, but only once per meet, which is why he does it 1cm at a time.
Some people reckon he could clear another 30cm, or $3M
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
The illuminated sigh is to help you find it when you are confused by smoke and may eg have only just been woken up.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
My converted 3 story flat in Newcastle has an external fire escape
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
They're all weak - but then Starmer is terrible and has an appallingly untalented cabinet. And they only have to beat the opposition, not the love child of Thatcher and Abe Lincoln
I'm not sure I care if Jenrick can build a good team and do the job.
He needs to not be solely obsessed with Rwanda/boats, though; that's important, and a big issue, but there will be huge opportunities to regain lots of DNV Tories and LD switchers on quasi-socialist economics.
I'd keep Hunt as Shadow Chancellor and go hard on Labour on tax & spend.
I think while in government the Rwanda policy only served to highlight how badly the government were failing on reducing those arrivals. Now that the Tories aren't in government they will need to work the boats angle hard to drive Labour voters to Reform and Reform voters back to the Tories. I think they also need an answer on winning back Lib Dem voters in the south of England but I'm not sure Jenrick would be well placed for it.
Are there really tonnes of Boris Johnson 'Get Brexit Done' 2019 fans who've gone over to the Lib Dems? It has never struck me as likely. Surely Lib Dem growth is mostly tactical Labour voters. And why go after them, when they represent a tiny number - Lib Dems underpolled Reform.
Because they hold 72 seats, most (but not all) of which had pretty low Reform totals. The Tories will inevitably win a lot of those back in due course. I don't see Reform displacing them as the main challengers in blue wall seats. But the Tories will certainly need to look competent for a bit first.
As to what they should do now. I think they should have a bit of fun. It's too early to start trying to elect a leader who looks like a PM in waiting. Have a go with Kemi Badenoch. She will entertain the base, give Labour some discomfort in PMQs, and keep the party in the headlines. I find her unappealing and antagonistic as a politician but that needn't matter yet, and I'm not the target audience.
What Conservatives can embrace now, which we've already seen on PB, is the joy of being in opposition. You can no longer be blamed for everything, that's someone else's problem. You can focus on policies and platforms that you really believe in, and you can really lay into the new government. It's a sort of release. It can be electorally disastrous - see both Corbyn and Swinson in 2019 - but quite cathartic. I would say they should lean into that for now. Do the whole triangulation and hugging of huskies later if they need to.
The Conservatives are likely to be called upon to govern very soon. I'm not saying this as some sort of Casino Royalesque bravado; I didn't even vote for them. SKS is genuinely a bit shit. He may also have fairly significant skeletons that may or may not have an impact on his already severely waning popularity.
But Labour have a Commons majority of 9,823. How on earth are they toppled outside war/plague/civil strife?
Curious maths and vote splitting got Labour where they are on a tiny % of the vote; similar forces could turn it the other way. FWIW I think next time will possibly depend on whether the nation veers in one of two ways, both possible:
To shore up the centre left mainstream, with Labour and LD being in fact unacknowledged allies (possible because English seats split up handily mostly either Con v Lab or Con v LD and not LD v Lab).
Or to look to a some form of Toryreform party (currently of course splitting votes) under the name Conservative, offering a really different, though thought out and costed (ie not Truss) alternative.
I want neither of these, but I'm a One Nation Tory.
It's a bit early to speculate, but I think it is certain the next election will be a cracker psephologically. It might even offer real alternatives policywise too.
A One Nation Tory who voted, um, Labour.
Yes. My guess is there were about 1-2 million of us. Maybe more. I have voted Tory for nearly 50 years. The Tory vote went from 14 m (2019) to just under 7 m (2024). And we were right.
No, you weren't. You made a fucking stupid decision and enabled a socialist.
I will never let you forget it.
Thanks. Lear puts it better:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.
I don't mind floating voters deciding to vote Labour. I can understand centrists deciding differently.
But what really grates my goat is people who have the temerity to claim to be loyal lifelong Tories who, when the chips are down, actually voter Labour without a flicker.
No one owes a political party loyalty. Politicians certainly don't display any.
Why would people who claim to value economic competence have voted for the last Conservative govt? Highest tax take, failing public services and low productivity/growth. Austerity, fraud and a month and a half of Mark Littlewood's most vivid economic wet dream.
Because however bad Sunak was overall, Labour are going to be far worse.
People aren't really thinking about Sunak. He was a do-nothing stop-gap-PM who didn't even back himself to improve things in the time available, calling an early election instead. Labour will be compared against the Tory record since 2010 which is not exactly glorious.
In fact, they're not really thinking about the Tories at all. I'd be amazed if the general public knew anything about the swings and roundabouts of this election.
When the time comes and Labour's decisions are no longer given the benefit of the doubt and people head to the ballot box, seeking to give Labour a bit of a "second term" kick [most will assume Labour will get a second term, after a whopping majority like that regardless of the nuance] they are perhaps more likely to vote LD as the traditional vehicle of protest, then they are to return to the Tory fold.
The Tories' best chance of recovery is if Labour do OK, and the two party hegemony holds up.
I think the Tories need Reform to disappear, which given Farage's track record with political parties is not a hopeless expectation. If it doesn't they are somewhat stuck in the current situation favourable to Labour IMO. There aren't enough far right voters (for now and thank goodness) to form a majority over sensible voters, but an alliance, merger etc is problematic because Conservatives at the end of day are mostly sensible while Reform voters are not.
I think the Conservative problem is structural rather than purely political. Adjusting policy positions won't solve it for them.
The Tories would be better off looking at the under-50s and developing a prospectus for them rather than chasing the votes of the Boomers who tend to back Reform.
Reform do best with 45 to 60s, Tories do best with pensioners
If you're 45 now you'll be 50 or close to it at the time of the next GE. Chasing the votes of today's elderly is not a sustainable strategy. But I encourage the Tories to keep on doing it!
The median age of the average voter is now 50, if the Tories won most voters over 50 but Labour won most voters under 50 at the next GE it would be a hung parliament most likely
As Badenoch and Patel could appeal to ex Tory Reform voters, Tugendhat to ex Tory LD voters and Cleverly and Stride to ex Tory Labour voters. Yet only Jenrick potentially to all of them
Or none of them...
If Jenrick is the answer, WTF was the question..?
I have no idea (well I have a bit and his logic is not unreasonable) if @hyufd is right in his assessment of which candidates attract whom from other parties, but let's assume he is right then all the other candidates fail. At least with Jenrick (and @hyufd does say 'potentially' not 'definitely') then it is either success or crash and burn so it is probably worth the gamble for the Tories rather than the alternative which is stagnating.
Of course as a LD I have no interest in the outcome of that gamble. Honestly I don't.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
The illuminated sigh is to help you find it when you are confused by smoke and may eg have only just been woken up.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
That's right on the doors. On the route, there really is only one way, with no long corridors to wander down by mistake. Open your flat's front door, go down the stairs which are just there, and when you run out of stairs, that is the only exit.
I think basically we have been caught up in a regulation designed for large blocks with long corridors, some leading away from exits.
One thing there is not much guidance on, shades of Grenfell, is when to leave and when to stay in your own flat which should be isolated from any fire.
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
The illuminated sigh is to help you find it when you are confused by smoke and may eg have only just been woken up.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
My converted 3 story flat in Newcastle has an external fire escape
Hopefully not Russian style (just an open window!)
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Nate Silver now works for Polymarket, which in turn is part owned by Theil, so may not be as objective as he was historically.
Maybe but at least he explains what is going on in his model:
tldr:
- The model assumes a convention bounce that will fade. This means if Harris maintains her current polling lead she will soon be favorite again in the model. - Harris got a roughly 1% lower than 'expected' convention bounce - it's plausible to explain this by the timing of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Any number of assumptions about what happened after the convention are 'plausible'. Incorporating them on the fly into what's supposed to be a statistical model isn't at all plausible.
Where on earth does he say he's incorporated it into his model? It's his guess as to why Harris's average lead was 4.7% before RFK dropped out and 3.5% after
I was incorrect in suggesting that he incorporated it on the fly. But it makes no sense to assume any figure at all for a convention bounce in a model. They are as variable and unpredictable as any given poll.
Don't you implicitly have to assume *some* figure, though? If you do nothing, that implicitly says "conventions have no effect on polling, there is no bounce effect", and when the polls do bounce after the convention your model will assume that is all genuine shift of voting intention and its predicted outcome will shift accordingly. If you model in some amount of bounce based on previous years, then your model is going to react less to the up and down in the polling post convention and its output prediction during that time period should be more accurate.
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
I don't think the model should incorporate any prediction at all about the bounce. Silver's idea of rating pollsters and weighting his model accordingly was a decent one, with some statistical basis. Guessing a figure for convention bounce is just a guess.
It has the arguably perverse effect of lowering the predicted chances of a candidate that has no convention bounce, while a candidate that has a very big convention bounce will still get a fairly big boost in the model.
Better to just put an asterisk by the model's predictions where you think there is a reason to believe that there's some temporary effect that will be followed by some kind of reversion to mean, give your reasons, and allow people to make their own minds up.
Only 4 weeks from Bidenfall to convention. Presumably convention bounce results simply from increased attention (because it's always a bounce whereas it would sometimes be negative if it reflected actual performance). Attention was on KH anyway, so there's good reason to expect a bounce to be muted
Yes, she got a bounce when she became 'it' just before the convention. It's harder to get a bounce on a bounce.
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Musk = Taliban. New angle from you?
Our hypocrisy on many of these issues is world clas. Cf our use of drones to slot anyone we dislike around the world and our shrieks about Salisbury
OT. Thanks to whoever recomended the TRUSS book. A perfect listen while you walk. It's as good a denunciation of selfish right wing ideology as you'll find but funny at the same time. It's comforting to know that those you thought of as shits turned out to be just that and also some of those you didn't like Kwarteng were probably not.
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Musk = Taliban. New angle from you?
Our hypocrisy on many of these issues is world clas. Cf our use of drones to slot anyone we dislike around the world and our shrieks about Salisbury
I think some of the issues around Salisbury is that its fine (not really) if you want to kill your political opponents but not using nerve agents in such a way as to potentially murder hundreds of innocents.
Although of course there is some thought that Salisbury was more about Porton Down than the Skripals, but thats another story.
My concern about it is that it uses the "final" polling of both 538 and RCP. What has happened historically is that some pollsters have moved quite sharply from an "extreme" position to consensus as the election day approaches. The result of that is that I think that RCP is understating Harris's lead at the moment. It also doesn't mention if any of the pollsters made adjustments to reflect their error or inhouse bias so that comparing like with like is not accurate.
Having said that it is surprising and instructive that the more sophisticated 538 model proved less accurate than the simple RCP average. It is also clearly the case (subject to those adjustments) that Harris is not enough ahead to win right now.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
What's the best of all these US poll aggregators/models, do we think?
Not a helpful response but I gave up on Nate *and* 538 after they kept predicting wins for Brazil in the soccerball champs. Maybe Nate just got lucky with Obama.
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
That's what IR35 is for - outside of a delivery drivers it's really hard to pretend someone is self employed when they are to all intents and purposes an employee..
Far too early to call the Conservative leadership election with any confidence. The four survivors have the not inconsiderable obstacle of the Party Conference to overcome and the reportage of each of their speeches will be significant.
Will anyone of them dare to offer a sober realistic assessment of the Party's prospects or will it all be about sounding angry and throwing as red meat as possible to the activists and indulging in as much Labour (and perhaps LD and Green) bashing as they can fit into their time? It will also be fascinating to see how each of the challengers deals with the elephant in the room - Farage and Reform.
Presumably it will quickly become clear who of the four runners are the "chosen" of the Mail, Express and Telegraph and from there it's on to another MP ballot to get to the final two.
The MPs are choosing someone to lead THEM first and foremost, the rest of the party can drag along behind, after all, if you stayed "loyal" to the brand last time, you'll always be loyal to whatever leader is in place.
I suspect the reasoning is more along the lines of trying to ensure LR votes don't go to Le Pen in the second round of any contest. IF the second round is between Le Pen and a centrist candidate endorsed by LR, that candidate will probably win. If the run off is between Le Pen and a Melenchon-style candidate, it's quite possible LR votes will go to Le Pen.
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Musk = Taliban. New angle from you?
Our hypocrisy on many of these issues is world clas. Cf our use of drones to slot anyone we dislike around the world and our shrieks about Salisbury
Yep you are right, but you did this the other day and @rcs1000 pulled you up on it with the left/right bias of twitter. Just because we do stuff in regimes we dislike does not mean we can't criticise people on our side for providing support to Russia (replace with any other regime we think is abhorrent).
Or are you saying that it is ok to give people a free pass for promoting Russia propaganda and not calling them out because we do the same in reverse. We do it because we think they are wrong. They think we are.
On that basis a murderer (the IRA say) in court could claim it is alright because some time in the past the British Government assassinated someone. It isn't. That logic is flawed.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
You're not wrong that it was started by a household appliance, you are considerably wrong in thinking that is a primary cause of a raging inferno in a tower block that was supposed to comply with building regs and be subdivided into small blocks with fireproof boundaries. There will always be small fires, dropped cigarette, shorting electrical appliance etc, they shouldn't result in a raging inferno. There's a very good Radio 4 podcast on Grenfell.
Thanks for the heads-up on the podcast.
I'm thinking around a header I'm putting together for the weekend, and the report goes very wide into all kind of things - so I'm thinking similarly.
"There will always be ... X" is never a reason to ignore anything imo. That's what they used to say about electrical kit within reach of a bath, trailing kettle wires in reach of toddlers, cooker off switches at the back so you had to reach over the pan fire to turn it off, electrical sockets near sinks, electric shocks before earth leakage trips were required, and all the rest.
Of the 7 or 8 fires I have seen quoted as precedent, all of them are in Social Housing blocks (HA or Council, including Worcester Park 2020), and all of them were started by your list of causes (electrical appliances or wiring, one candle on top of a TV, and one dropped cigarette).
I think both need to be addressed.
One point is that Council / HA housing is not regulated anything like as thoroughly as the Private Sector; they get to have a "Code of Practice" rather than prescribed legislation. For example, a Private LL is required to have a full professional electrical inspection every 5 years; a Council is merely required to "make sure it is safe" *. The difference is especially stark in my experience between University Halls of Residence and sometimes identical Private accommodation.
A second point is that by paying attention to "infernos" we ignore the far higher bar on the pareto chart, which is deaths in "small fires". It is as I see it the same as the effect that huge attention is garnered by rail or air crashes, but there is a conspiracy of silence about the 20 or 50 times as many people killed by crashes on our roads.
Hardly a conspiracy of silence, deaths in car accidents are often on the news, but complacency perhaps, given that our roads are among the safest, even for cyclists! Safer even than much-vaunted cycling paradise, NL.
ETA looking around parked cars finds a tremendous number of dents and scratches so if I were minister for road safety, I'd investigate what is causing all these low-level incidents in case it is the same cause for deaths, plus or minus a good helping of luck.
The minor dents and scratches are due to cars being bigger than they used to be (most are now genuine 5-seaters) and roads and car park spaces no wider than before.
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
It is the area where we are furthest behind our European peers though, as it is used to fund more generous pensions and social security in countries where private pensions are less pervasive.
In Germany the equivalent rate is around 19%. In the Netherlands 18%. France's at least 30% and as high as 40% depending on facts. In Italy employers pay about 30% whereas individuals pay only 10%.
I'm not suggesting we use France or Italy as our benchmark, but it does show that UK employer contributions could rise quite a lot and still be substantially below our biggest European peers, including the "multinational friendly" Netherlands.
ETA other countries have much more employment-like regimes for the self employed. They do of course still have grey economy activity as a result. But to give an example, my neighbour in France uses a cleaner who works with about 10 different households, and each of them registers her and pays tax and social security contributions on her behalf. Simple to do, but it means her hourly rate of €13.50 becomes about €20 when grossed up. But she also gets to deduct those costs she pays against her own tax liability. Hence far less gig economy in France.
This idea that Labour "must" be in for two terms because they won a large majority is false.
That large majority was achieved on a low vote on a low turnout and was largely a function of a split and dispersed vote amongst their opponents, which was concentrated where it mattered to eject the previous administration. In one parliament, the electorate overturned a majority of 80 in 2019 for the Conservatives to one of 172 in 2024 for Labour. And the latter is arguably the weaker one.
Seat totals are a function of voter behaviour and no longer have to be "chipped" at over several cycles to move, with voters giving new PMs the benefit of the doubt and needing to forget the memories of the last. All that has changed, and it's more transactional.
If voters want Labour out and the Tories in (big if) then they will arrange themselves to do it, but that will require very poor performance from the former and very good leadership from the latter.
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
You're not wrong that it was started by a household appliance, you are considerably wrong in thinking that is a primary cause of a raging inferno in a tower block that was supposed to comply with building regs and be subdivided into small blocks with fireproof boundaries. There will always be small fires, dropped cigarette, shorting electrical appliance etc, they shouldn't result in a raging inferno. There's a very good Radio 4 podcast on Grenfell.
Thanks for the heads-up on the podcast.
I'm thinking around a header I'm putting together for the weekend, and the report goes very wide into all kind of things - so I'm thinking similarly.
"There will always be ... X" is never a reason to ignore anything imo. That's what they used to say about electrical kit within reach of a bath, trailing kettle wires in reach of toddlers, cooker off switches at the back so you had to reach over the pan fire to turn it off, electrical sockets near sinks, electric shocks before earth leakage trips were required, and all the rest.
Of the 7 or 8 fires I have seen quoted as precedent, all of them are in Social Housing blocks (HA or Council, including Worcester Park 2020), and all of them were started by your list of causes (electrical appliances or wiring, one candle on top of a TV, and one dropped cigarette).
I think both need to be addressed.
One point is that Council / HA housing is not regulated anything like as thoroughly as the Private Sector; they get to have a "Code of Practice" rather than prescribed legislation. For example, a Private LL is required to have a full professional electrical inspection every 5 years; a Council is merely required to "make sure it is safe" *. The difference is especially stark in my experience between University Halls of Residence and sometimes identical Private accommodation.
A second point is that by paying attention to "infernos" we ignore the far higher bar on the pareto chart, which is deaths in "small fires". It is as I see it the same as the effect that huge attention is garnered by rail or air crashes, but there is a conspiracy of silence about the 20 or 50 times as many people killed by crashes on our roads.
Hardly a conspiracy of silence, deaths in car accidents are often on the news, but complacency perhaps, given that our roads are among the safest, even for cyclists! Safer even than much-vaunted cycling paradise, NL.
ETA looking around parked cars finds a tremendous number of dents and scratches so if I were minister for road safety, I'd investigate what is causing all these low-level incidents in case it is the same cause for deaths, plus or minus a good helping of luck.
I'd call it an implicit conspiracy of silence about causes and responsibility, and a conspiracy of delusion.
It is in both the language and the reporting. Once you are triggered to spot eg "a car was in collision with a lamp post", "a car hit a pedestrian", "a Land Rover went through the wall of a house", "a pedestrian on a Zebra crossing was in collision with a van", "a car lost control" and so on, you see it everywhere. Vehicles suddenly get some weird agency for themselves, and the controlling human being is ignored. It's cultural and it's specific.
Comparing to cycling for a minute, how often have you seen "a bicycle/scooter collided with a grandmother"?
On reporting, causes are ignored. Here's one where a young woman was driving fast along country lanes at January at 0C in thick fog, and rolled her car for 50m and left it against a tree, leaving her hair grip lodged in her head. But the coverage is all about "don't wear hair grips when driving" - nothing at all about "don't drive like a reckless f*cking idiot".
The 19-year-old said the car skidded, hit a tree and flipped for 50m (164ft), coming to a stop on its roof. ... "I want to advise people to take out their hair claw clips before driving because I'm worried it could happen to someone else.
"I was really lucky, but I don't want anyone else to take the risk," she added.
However, Tim Pool, a gullible American, says he didn't know it was the Kremlin who suddenly started paying him $100,000 per episode of his show.
A man that incurious could easily be a British government minister responsible for not asking questions about the Post Office or high rise flats, let alone how goods get to and from the continent.
The real victim here is the Russian government. Tim P. saw them coming and did them up the bugle by getting them to pay a fortune for sporadic right-wing drivel of no particular gravity, originality or insight.
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
That "strengthening domestic demand" helped by the end of a protracted period of political uncertainty it would seem following the July election. Another benefit of a change of Government.
I'm slightly concerned by strong wage growth as overtime that can refuel inflation and if we do get interest rate cuts we could get a short-lived consumer boomlet (no doubt welcome for the Exchequer in terms of VAT receipts).
Olympic pole vault champion Armand Duplantis beat 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm in a 100m exhibition race in Zurich.
Sweden's Duplantis clocked 10.37 seconds after leading out of the blocks and was able to stare down his friend as he crossed the line.
Norwegian Warholm finished in 10.47 seconds, with both athletes recording personal bests.
I suspect Duplantis could medal in the decathlon with a couple of months training and break the world record with 2 years training. He should be winning, or close to, the three jumps and the 100m, no reason he couldnt be strong at the hurdles or 400m either.
You've got to be strong (Shot, javelin), fast (100m, 400m, 110 hurdles, long jump), able to jump (Watch him off the top of the pole) (Long jump, high jump, 110 hurdles) and I'd imagine a decent straight thrower (Javelin, shot) (The pole isn't thrown but obviously it's a hand action) to be able to compete at the vault. Bit less carry over to the discuss but I imagine he'd be able to do that and less except superb general fitness to the 1500 - but the regular decathletes all hate that one anyway .
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
The 5k free employment allowance is quite helpful for very small business and makes it less than that if you are only employing a couple of people. Costs taxpayer about £3bn. Could be a target, hope not. If they halved it would anyone bar small business owners care or notice?
I was talking on Monday with a senior and well known member of the Conservative party who expressed the opinion that none of the six candidates (five now) were any use, and that he couldn't see any circumstances in which any of them would be Prime Minister .
I am not a Conservative voter or supporter, but it worries me that we have such a diminished main opposition party. Having a good and effective LOTO is an important part of our democracy
The most effective LOTO available might have been a certain B Johnson, if he hadn't already been PM.
The French and German construction sectors continue in a malaise to match their political disfunction:
HCOB France Construction PMI
French construction downturn persists, with residential building activity plunging again
Housing sector continues to weigh the most on construction activity New orders fall rapidly and business sentiment remains pessimistic Input price inflation accelerates to eight-month high
Construction sector remains mired in a steep downturn midway through third quarter
Increased weakness in housing drives faster fall in total activity Job cuts deepen despite slower decline in new orders Input prices drop for fifth month running and at a faster rate
This is good. However the new homes being built do not even do enough to meet the additional demand from annual net migration, let alone resolve the crisis already in place.
I have not yet heard this new government address this, any more than the last one did.
They won't, because the only plausible path to addressing it involves getting net migration down to ~zero (incidentally, this still means about 500k people come every year, assuming the rate of emigration is unchanged - it's not zero immigration by any means). They want immigration because the government numbers are driven by GPD and GDP growth, rather than GDP/capita - immigration grows GDP and shrinks GDP/capita.
It's actually even worse than that of course, because in terms of housing the chunk of GDP currently spent on building more homes is entirely an unfront cost of immigration, and doesn't accrue any benefit to people already here.
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
More accurately, Brexit is making sod all difference to our economic performance as some of us predicted.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
It is the area where we are furthest behind our European peers though, as it is used to fund more generous pensions and social security in countries where private pensions are less pervasive.
In Germany the equivalent rate is around 19%. In the Netherlands 18%. France's at least 30% and as high as 40% depending on facts. In Italy employers pay about 30% whereas individuals pay only 10%.
I'm not suggesting we use France or Italy as our benchmark, but it does show that UK employer contributions could rise quite a lot and still be substantially below our biggest European peers, including the "multinational friendly" Netherlands.
ETA other countries have much more employment-like regimes for the self employed. They do of course still have grey economy activity as a result. But to give an example, my neighbour in France uses a cleaner who works with about 10 different households, and each of them registers her and pays tax and social security contributions on her behalf. Simple to do, but it means her hourly rate of €13.50 becomes about €20 when grossed up. But she also gets to deduct those costs she pays against her own tax liability. Hence far less gig economy in France.
Extend employers NIC to apply to payments to workers as well as employees?
"Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already? Ross Clark
Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.
What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report – thereby holding up possible criminal cases – is itself a scandal. As ever with our drawn-out public inquiries many of the guilty parties will no longer be around to face the music, at least not in the roles they held."
1 - AIUI (am I wrong?) it was started by a household appliance. I don't see that it has addressed for safety of such - but I have not read all 1700 pages.
We have had the inspectors round. My small, three storey block has to install firedoors on each flat (good, I suppose) and illuminated fire exit signs despite there being only one possible route out, and some other stuff.
The illuminated sigh is to help you find it when you are confused by smoke and may eg have only just been woken up.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
That's right on the doors. On the route, there really is only one way, with no long corridors to wander down by mistake. Open your flat's front door, go down the stairs which are just there, and when you run out of stairs, that is the only exit.
I think basically we have been caught up in a regulation designed for large blocks with long corridors, some leading away from exits.
One thing there is not much guidance on, shades of Grenfell, is when to leave and when to stay in your own flat which should be isolated from any fire.
Remember that smoke or toxic from the "cul-de-sac" flats would interfere with exit from the others, and since smoke is C02 and particulates and water vapour and more noxious things it could roll down the stairs too.
So your firedoors may have intumescent seals. (That is not a blow up sex doll for aquatic mammals).
This idea that Labour "must" be in for two terms because they won a large majority is false.
That large majority was achieved on a low vote on a low turnout and was largely a function of a split and dispersed vote amongst their opponents, which was concentrated where it mattered to eject the previous administration. In one parliament, the electorate overturned a majority of 80 in 2019 for the Conservatives to one of 172 in 2024 for Labour. And the latter is arguably the weaker one.
Seat totals are a function of voter behaviour and no longer have to be "chipped" at over several cycles to move, with voters giving new PMs the benefit of the doubt and needing to forget the memories of the last. All that has changed, and it's more transactional.
If voters want Labour out and the Tories in (big if) then they will arrange themselves to do it, but that will require very poor performance from the former and very good leadership from the latter.
Nothing is a given.
I think it's quite possible Labour will be only a one-term government. But that means 5 years, which is a long time. A lot of people have become so used to the volatility of the last Tory term - 3 PMs, multiple CoEs, crisis upon crisis, that I suspect there's a subconscious expectation of the same this time. 2024-2019 is much more like 2010-2015. (Well, let's hope we don't have another divisive referendum or new Russian invasion or global pandemic).
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
More accurately, Brexit is making sod all difference to our economic performance as some of us predicted.
I can assure you we'd be doing better with the counterfactual of being in the EU. I can tell you one group doing very well out of Brexit are EU based accountancy firms.
Of course, there is no way the CIA would ever fund internal enemies of regimes it dislikes, like, say, the early Taliban fighting the USSR. No way the west would be that hypocritical
Musk = Taliban. New angle from you?
Our hypocrisy on many of these issues is world clas. Cf our use of drones to slot anyone we dislike around the world and our shrieks about Salisbury
This passage from a website called the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe is an interesting one:
Authoritarian regimes use the designation of foreign agent to stigmatize and discredit organizations and individuals and to give the government the right to involve itself not only in an organization’s finances, but sometimes also in its activities. These laws usually involve onerous reporting requirements and noncompliance can result in steep fines, closure of an organization, or jail. Governments falsely claim that their laws are similar to transparency or lobbying laws in the United States and other democratic countries, which have been put in place to make hidden foreign influence more transparent and address propaganda and malign foreign influence.
So any laws on our side are put in place to make hidden foreign influence more transparent and address malign propaganda, but any laws on their side are to stigmatise and discredit (innocent) organisations and individuals. The hypocrisy is so flagrant as to be insulting.
Anecdata: Year 5 school mums at drop off this morning complaining about the VAT on private school fees policy for the effect it will have on getting our respective state-educated children into their first choice school. General agreement that policy is done purely out of spite and that will mainly harm those in state schools. I'm slightly flabbergasted at the ease with which people in right-on suburban Manchester are now criticising Labour policy (and not just for not being left-wing enough). Also, one of the mums, who is an accountant, slightly peeved at all the work she suddenly has on her plate trying to liquidate people's assets before CGT is increased. ("what did they think the Labour Party would do?", she said, wearily).
Scaremongering about CGT is very much in an accountant's interest, of course. Friend of mine's firm has whipped their clients into a terrified frenzy, something they can resolve with faux concern and some "reasonable" fees.
If they keep it up this month the government might end up with enough tax revenue that it won't need to raise the rate.
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
Yes Employer's NI a real possibility, will raise lots of tax even if increased only from 13.8% to 15%. Don't forget there is no cap on Employer's NI. LAB have made no commitment not to increase EMPLOYER'S NI. They can justify it as 'we bailed you out with Furlough, now time to pay some of it back'.
It's 13.8% already ! Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
It is the area where we are furthest behind our European peers though, as it is used to fund more generous pensions and social security in countries where private pensions are less pervasive.
In Germany the equivalent rate is around 19%. In the Netherlands 18%. France's at least 30% and as high as 40% depending on facts. In Italy employers pay about 30% whereas individuals pay only 10%.
I'm not suggesting we use France or Italy as our benchmark, but it does show that UK employer contributions could rise quite a lot and still be substantially below our biggest European peers, including the "multinational friendly" Netherlands.
ETA other countries have much more employment-like regimes for the self employed. They do of course still have grey economy activity as a result. But to give an example, my neighbour in France uses a cleaner who works with about 10 different households, and each of them registers her and pays tax and social security contributions on her behalf. Simple to do, but it means her hourly rate of €13.50 becomes about €20 when grossed up. But she also gets to deduct those costs she pays against her own tax liability. Hence far less gig economy in France.
Extend employers NIC to apply to payments to workers as well as employees?
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
More accurately, Brexit is making sod all difference to our economic performance as some of us predicted.
I can assure you we'd be doing better with the counterfactual of being in the EU. I can tell you one group doing very well out of Brexit are EU based accountancy firms.
No you can’t make that assurance. No one can because there are now too many confounding variables. If we’d stayed in the EU who would have governed us the last 8 years? Maybe corbyn would have won and we’d now be like Venezuela
No Tory MP among the 20 backbenchers selected in the draw to introduce Private Members Bills. Did they not enter? There are four LibDems on the list and one TUV, the rest are Labour.
It would not surprise me to discover that they were too busy with internal matters to have remembered to do so.
Nate Silver on Harris leading the polls but Trump being favorite in their forecast (and the RFK effect):
"(1) Harris is slightly underperforming the model’s benchmark for a convention bounce. Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC — but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention. The model’s baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model’s logic, she’s gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That’s not a game-changing difference, but it’s enough to show up in the bottom line.
(2) Kennedy dropping out of the race. We initially expected this to hurt Harris by 0.5 points or less, given that RFK Jr. drew more Trump voters than Harris voters but only slightly more. However, it’s plausible that the impact is larger with RFK having not just dropped out but endorsed Trump.
Given the timing of Kennedy’s announcement, this factor is all but impossible to disentangle from the convention bounce or lack thereof. Our model run on Friday, August 23 — the day just after Harris’s acceptance speech and the day that Kennedy dropped out, but before we switched over to the RFK-less version of the model — showed Harris ahead by 4.7 points in our national average. That suggested she was on her way to a typical convention bump of 2 or 2.5 points — or possibly more, given that the impact of the convention probably hadn’t yet been fully realized in the polling.
Now, our polling averages are designed to be very aggressive after big events like conventions, and maybe 4.7 points was an overestimate since it was drawn from relatively few polls. Occam’s Razor, though, is that Harris — who gave an effective speech — was on her way to a typical but not extraordinary convention bounce, and then Kennedy’s dropout/endorsement ate into those gains. I somewhat regret the framing of my story from Aug. 24, which warned that the model could be running a “little hot” on Harris because the impact of RFK hadn’t really been factored in yet, but had a headline that emphasized how there hadn’t been much change yet. If I had to do it over again, I’d instead headline the story with something that underscored the need for a wait-and-see approach.
(3) Comparatively poor polling for Harris in Pennsylvania, which is disproportionately important given Pennsylvania’s likelihood of being the pivotal state. As a result, the Electoral College forecast has swung more than the popular vote forecast."
Comments
I am not a Conservative voter or supporter, but it worries me that we have such a diminished main opposition party. Having a good and effective LOTO is an important part of our democracy
For pure athletic brilliance, you need to watch the Beer Mile championships. You run a four-lap mile, drinking a bottle of beer every lap of the course.
The current world-record time is four minutes, 28 seconds; for time running, that is under a four-minute mile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs-AlyzmU8&t=950s
Policy is (slightly) interesting. Competence is not. It is crashingly dull. Nor is it easy to prove you have it from opposition benches, and since it actually relies on the millions who do the actual stuff arising from the trillion of state managed expenditure.
Nothing about any of the 5 candidates is inspiring WRT leadership and competence.
BTW, Rayner not great this morning; unable to give a single date or timeline for post Grenfell targets, nor even a date for when there would be any. But complaining about everyone else still footling 'after 7 years'. Notably she didn't want to agree that government/civil service itself, and its individuals, could be among those criminally accountable, though everyone else was in the possible frame.
The Tories lost the party to the extremists and grifters, and need to *both* come up with a philosophy *and* stop trying to appease the unappeasable. This is a much more challenging job, and I don't think any of the current candidates are well placed to set us on that path.
(I don't have any idea what this path should be - or whether it would be remotely appealing to me; that's not really the point.)
Bounces are a lot smaller now than they were last century, but I think Silver's modelled estimate of 2 to 2.5% lasting about three weeks is a better prediction than "no bounce at all".
Cole-Hamilton: The govt are plugging the budget hole with all remaining revenue from licenses to do off-shore wind. How will they plug the same hole next year?
Minister: Entitled ranting about investment, which suggests that they intend to attract more billions in off-shore investment before they have to do next year's budget
https://x.com/agcolehamilton/status/1831568781685952696
I am all for investment, especially foreign investment. We absolutely need to bring money in to invest in these long-term strategic projects. But they're burning the cash to cover the cost of their incompetent wasteful spending on day to day stuff. Its idiotic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy5dwlwkwro
This is performative tinkering, which doesn't actually address any of the urgent structural issues around the privatised monopolies.
It has me worried that it might be distraction in preparation for government giving the water companies what they want (ie lots of fresh capital from the public, with few strings attached).
That said, as I said yesterday, there is some evidence that Harris's charge has rather petered out and she is holding station rather than going away.
https://x.com/SlickRockWeb/status/1831440291443646811
Guessing a figure for convention bounce is just a guess.
https://x.com/jaredlholt/status/1831432295871607214
Is there any other media job that pays $400,000 per month for recording four videos a week, or is it just doing "anti-woke" conservative clickbait
(From DOJ indictment involving Russian state media funneling millions to right-wing video mill Tenet Media)
https://justice.gov/opa/pr/two-rt-employees-indicted-covertly-funding-and-directing-us-company-published-thousands
HCOB France Construction PMI
French construction downturn persists, with residential building activity plunging again
Housing sector continues to weigh the most on construction activity
New orders fall rapidly and business sentiment remains pessimistic
Input price inflation accelerates to eight-month high
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/7509254dcc814a3dbe957121329705d8
HCOB Germany Construction PMI
Construction sector remains mired in a steep downturn midway through third quarter
Increased weakness in housing drives faster fall in total activity
Job cuts deepen despite slower decline in new orders
Input prices drop for fifth month running and at a faster rate
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/b0aaabf8c72e4da385c70b27b0aa241c
Compare with:
S&P Global UK Construction PMI
Solid output growth maintained across UK construction sector in August
Housing activity rises at quickest pace since September 2022
Robust upturn in total new orders
Business optimism remains relatively upbeat
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/0841df06b6ab468dbc6c9042e1083e1a
Better to just put an asterisk by the model's predictions where you think there is a reason to believe that there's some temporary effect that will be followed by some kind of reversion to mean, give your reasons, and allow people to make their own minds up.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1831538203763081284
The Taliban were largely the creation of Pakistani Intelligence, who were worried that the post Soviet government in Afghanistan were too friendly with India. So they poured a lot of time and money into creating and promoting the Taliban as a coherent group.
It all makes sense now.
I have not yet heard this new government address this, any more than the last one did.
A man that incurious could easily be a British government minister responsible for not asking questions about the Post Office or high rise flats, let alone how goods get to and from the continent.
https://x.com/BladeoftheS/status/1831420440646193205
Charlotte Owen is trending on TwiX but sfaict it is mainly people asking variants of the same questions: who is she and why is she there?
I do actually think there's a non-negligible chance the rate itself doesn't go up. Rather there will be a number of changes to reliefs.
Employers' NI a possibility. I actually think that's not a bad idea. We have close to full employment but low productivity. A "jobs tax" that doesn't directly hit the pockets of employees but makes hiring people a bit more expensive might encourage businesses to get off their arses and invest in capital and technology. back to the debates last night, for people wanting growth in productivity rather than labour force that's a good thing.
I'm thinking around a header I'm putting together for the weekend, and the report goes very wide into all kind of things - so I'm thinking similarly.
"There will always be ... X" is never a reason to ignore anything imo. That's what they used to say about electrical kit within reach of a bath, trailing kettle wires in reach of toddlers, cooker off switches at the back so you had to reach over the pan fire to turn it off, electrical sockets near sinks, electric shocks before earth leakage trips were required, and all the rest.
Of the 7 or 8 fires I have seen quoted as precedent, all of them are in Social Housing blocks (HA or Council, including Worcester Park 2020), and all of them were started by your list of causes (electrical appliances or wiring, one candle on top of a TV, and one dropped cigarette).
I think both need to be addressed.
One point is that Council / HA housing is not regulated anything like as thoroughly as the Private Sector; they get to have a "Code of Practice" rather than prescribed legislation. For example, a Private LL is required to have a full professional electrical inspection every 5 years; a Council is merely required to "make sure it is safe" *. The difference is especially stark in my experience between University Halls of Residence and sometimes identical Private accommodation.
A second point is that by paying attention to "infernos" we ignore the far higher bar on the pareto chart, which is deaths in "small fires". It is as I see it the same as the effect that huge attention is garnered by rail or air crashes, but there is a conspiracy of silence about the 20 or 50 times as many people killed by crashes on our roads.
* https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/electrical_safety_in_rented_homes#:~:text=Councils and housing associations do,problems when you report them
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
ETA looking around parked cars finds a tremendous number of dents and scratches so if I were minister for road safety, I'd investigate what is causing all these low-level incidents in case it is the same cause for deaths, plus or minus a good helping of luck.
It's also possibly to provide emergency lighting.
If it's 3 stories high there should probably be some escape provision from the second floor via a window or alternative route.
I'm surprised that there are not firedoors already (I am assuming that you mean the external door from each flat to the common parts). That will be so that the other flats have a sealed (half-hour protection level probably) exit route.
Some people reckon he could clear another 30cm, or $3M
Why would he give that up?
https://www.cityam.com/uk-set-to-be-the-standout-performer-among-major-economies/
Analysts at Panmure Liberum think the UK will be the “standout performer” among major economies in the months to come with firms set to benefit from strengthening domestic demand.
I tell you what, this notion that all the world's worst people are in Trump's corner is not far off being the literal truth.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/04/macron-prepares-to-name-french-prime-minister-elections/
What's the best of all these US poll aggregators/models, do we think?
Of course as a LD I have no interest in the outcome of that gamble. Honestly I don't.
I think basically we have been caught up in a regulation designed for large blocks with long corridors, some leading away from exits.
One thing there is not much guidance on, shades of Grenfell, is when to leave and when to stay in your own flat which should be isolated from any fire.
Would just increase the gap between taxes on working people and everyone else, would also encourage more low productivity self employed nonsense (Uber, Deliveroo and so on...) as I think that lot get away without paying it.
Although of course there is some thought that Salisbury was more about Porton Down than the Skripals, but thats another story.
My concern about it is that it uses the "final" polling of both 538 and RCP. What has happened historically is that some pollsters have moved quite sharply from an "extreme" position to consensus as the election day approaches. The result of that is that I think that RCP is understating Harris's lead at the moment. It also doesn't mention if any of the pollsters made adjustments to reflect their error or inhouse bias so that comparing like with like is not accurate.
Having said that it is surprising and instructive that the more sophisticated 538 model proved less accurate than the simple RCP average. It is also clearly the case (subject to those adjustments) that Harris is not enough ahead to win right now.
Far too early to call the Conservative leadership election with any confidence. The four survivors have the not inconsiderable obstacle of the Party Conference to overcome and the reportage of each of their speeches will be significant.
Will anyone of them dare to offer a sober realistic assessment of the Party's prospects or will it all be about sounding angry and throwing as red meat as possible to the activists and indulging in as much Labour (and perhaps LD and Green) bashing as they can fit into their time? It will also be fascinating to see how each of the challengers deals with the elephant in the room - Farage and Reform.
Presumably it will quickly become clear who of the four runners are the "chosen" of the Mail, Express and Telegraph and from there it's on to another MP ballot to get to the final two.
The MPs are choosing someone to lead THEM first and foremost, the rest of the party can drag along behind, after all, if you stayed "loyal" to the brand last time, you'll always be loyal to whatever leader is in place.
Or are you saying that it is ok to give people a free pass for promoting Russia propaganda and not calling them out because we do the same in reverse. We do it because we think they are wrong. They think we are.
On that basis a murderer (the IRA say) in court could claim it is alright because some time in the past the British Government assassinated someone. It isn't. That logic is flawed.
In Germany the equivalent rate is around 19%. In the Netherlands 18%. France's at least 30% and as high as 40% depending on facts. In Italy employers pay about 30% whereas individuals pay only 10%.
I'm not suggesting we use France or Italy as our benchmark, but it does show that UK employer contributions could rise quite a lot and still be substantially below our biggest European peers, including the "multinational friendly" Netherlands.
ETA other countries have much more employment-like regimes for the self employed. They do of course still have grey economy activity as a result. But to give an example, my neighbour in France uses a cleaner who works with about 10 different households, and each of them registers her and pays tax and social security contributions on her behalf. Simple to do, but it means her hourly rate of €13.50 becomes about €20 when grossed up. But she also gets to deduct those costs she pays against her own tax liability. Hence far less gig economy in France.
That large majority was achieved on a low vote on a low turnout and was largely a function of a split and dispersed vote amongst their opponents, which was concentrated where it mattered to eject the previous administration. In one parliament, the electorate overturned a majority of 80 in 2019 for the Conservatives to one of 172 in 2024 for Labour. And the latter is arguably the weaker one.
Seat totals are a function of voter behaviour and no longer have to be "chipped" at over several cycles to move, with voters giving new PMs the benefit of the doubt and needing to forget the memories of the last. All that has changed, and it's more transactional.
If voters want Labour out and the Tories in (big if) then they will arrange themselves to do it, but that will require very poor performance from the former and very good leadership from the latter.
Nothing is a given.
It is in both the language and the reporting. Once you are triggered to spot eg "a car was in collision with a lamp post", "a car hit a pedestrian", "a Land Rover went through the wall of a house", "a pedestrian on a Zebra crossing was in collision with a van", "a car lost control" and so on, you see it everywhere. Vehicles suddenly get some weird agency for themselves, and the controlling human being is ignored. It's cultural and it's specific.
Comparing to cycling for a minute, how often have you seen "a bicycle/scooter collided with a grandmother"?
On reporting, causes are ignored. Here's one where a young woman was driving fast along country lanes at January at 0C in thick fog, and rolled her car for 50m and left it against a tree, leaving her hair grip lodged in her head. But the coverage is all about "don't wear hair grips when driving" - nothing at all about "don't drive like a reckless f*cking idiot".
The 19-year-old said the car skidded, hit a tree and flipped for 50m (164ft), coming to a stop on its roof.
...
"I want to advise people to take out their hair claw clips before driving because I'm worried it could happen to someone else.
"I was really lucky, but I don't want anyone else to take the risk," she added.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64966149
https://www.cityam.com/growth-set-to-continue-as-confidence-in-the-economy-builds/
I'm slightly concerned by strong wage growth as overtime that can refuel inflation and if we do get interest rate cuts we could get a short-lived consumer boomlet (no doubt welcome for the Exchequer in terms of VAT receipts).
Bit less carry over to the discuss but I imagine he'd be able to do that and less except superb general fitness to the 1500 - but the regular decathletes all hate that one anyway
They want immigration because the government numbers are driven by GPD and GDP growth, rather than GDP/capita - immigration grows GDP and shrinks GDP/capita.
It's actually even worse than that of course, because in terms of housing the chunk of GDP currently spent on building more homes is entirely an unfront cost of immigration, and doesn't accrue any benefit to people already here.
So your firedoors may have intumescent seals. (That is not a blow up sex doll for aquatic mammals).
This passage from a website called the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe is an interesting one:
So any laws on our side are put in place to make hidden foreign influence more transparent and address malign propaganda, but any laws on their side are to stigmatise and discredit (innocent) organisations and individuals. The hypocrisy is so flagrant as to be insulting.
Bubka broke the world record for men's pole vault 35 times during his career.
He raised it from 5.81m to 6,14m between 1984 and 1994.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Bubka
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlnAFsMh44g