I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced ambitions to prioritise an area of the river in Teddington, south-west London, to make it safe and clean for swimming as part of a new 10-year strategy to reduce pollution in the river and encourage people to spend time in and around it.
*) Classic cock-up. *) A quick, cheap win: order the dumping of sewage, then stop it! Result - we've cleaned up the river! *) There was a short-term need to dump the sewage; this will be fixed in the next few years.
Take your pick!
4) the minister signed a piece of paper he found in his red box without properly reading and understanding it.
A temporary cap on interest rates on credit card rates.
I have no enthusiasm for Kamala Harris but Trump is just mad.
Probably at temporary as the temporary windfall tax we have on oil and gas companies.
Didn't we do something similar with payday lenders.
Yes. It’s a really difficult industry to regulate, because you have a high risk of delinquency but also many ‘unofficial’ sources of lending available to the poorest.
It wasn’t lending, it was usury.
The truly evil thing about the payday lenders was them letting the loans rollover.
So a customer took out a £1,000 loan for 12 months and after they first payment they would refinance the loan for another 12 months, so after 12 months the customer had paid back £1,800 but their debt was around £800.
Glad to see you agreeing with Trump.
Credit cards generally do not have usury rates of interest.
(One of my AMEX cards has an APR of 800% but that’s because of the fee.)
Edit - The Platinum Card has a competitive APR of 704% because of the annual fee of £650.
Does anyone anywhere actually accept American Express? Maybe it's only the kind of places I wouldn't want to be in the first place.
Really good hotels, bars, restaurants, sporting/gig venues.
The concierge services they offer are amazing.
The cut they want from the retailer is ridiculous.
Nah, it helps fund the excellent service they give me.
Just as long as you realise who ultimately pays that cut.
Eagles is just trolling, he gets paid six figures as a lawyer working for a bank and can have any credit card he wants.
It’s a serious problem at the other end of the market though, where millions of people can’t afford to replace a broken fridge without having to borrow money from somewhere, and with their own bank unlikely to want to give them any credit.
A temporary cap on interest rates on credit card rates.
I have no enthusiasm for Kamala Harris but Trump is just mad.
Probably at temporary as the temporary windfall tax we have on oil and gas companies.
Didn't we do something similar with payday lenders.
Yes. It’s a really difficult industry to regulate, because you have a high risk of delinquency but also many ‘unofficial’ sources of lending available to the poorest.
It wasn’t lending, it was usury.
The truly evil thing about the payday lenders was them letting the loans rollover.
So a customer took out a £1,000 loan for 12 months and after they first payment they would refinance the loan for another 12 months, so after 12 months the customer had paid back £1,800 but their debt was around £800.
Glad to see you agreeing with Trump.
Credit cards generally do not have usury rates of interest.
(One of my AMEX cards has an APR of 800% but that’s because of the fee.)
Edit - The Platinum Card has a competitive APR of 704% because of the annual fee of £650.
Does anyone anywhere actually accept American Express? Maybe it's only the kind of places I wouldn't want to be in the first place.
Really good hotels, bars, restaurants, sporting/gig venues.
The concierge services they offer are amazing.
The cut they want from the retailer is ridiculous.
It used to be *double* that of other cards. I think they have reduced it, but it is still at a premium.
Many, many years ago, when I was involved in retailing Amex offered a year at 0%, obviously as a tempter. So I gave it a go. We didn't have many sales. The next year renewal was, IIRC, upwards of 10% of sales, which for some items was more than my margin. So we stopped.
I took it for a time, made 3 sales a year, got bored and stopped. Blow me down, the afternoon after the morning I cancelled it I got a call from a chinless wonder sounding bloke on a London number pretending he wanted to spend mega bucks with me but me not taking amex was a deal breaker. Also they never really recovered in my mind from the ?Not The 9 O'clock News commercial: American Express? Certainly sir, and would you like to feel my tits?
I don't see why this is such a terrible idea, just because Trump. Everyone hates banks and loves debt forgiveness. It may also be a terrible idea but still a vote winner.
It is of note that the Populist Policy for the demagogues in the last years of the Roman Republic was a Debt Jubilee - all debts forgiven.
Some say that a chunk of support for Ceasarism was his steadfast refusal back this.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced ambitions to prioritise an area of the river in Teddington, south-west London, to make it safe and clean for swimming as part of a new 10-year strategy to reduce pollution in the river and encourage people to spend time in and around it.
*) Classic cock-up. *) A quick, cheap win: order the dumping of sewage, then stop it! Result - we've cleaned up the river! *) There was a short-term need to dump the sewage; this will be fixed in the next few years.
Take your pick!
4) the minister signed a piece of paper he found in his red box without properly reading and understanding it.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
A temporary cap on interest rates on credit card rates.
I have no enthusiasm for Kamala Harris but Trump is just mad.
Probably at temporary as the temporary windfall tax we have on oil and gas companies.
Didn't we do something similar with payday lenders.
Yes. It’s a really difficult industry to regulate, because you have a high risk of delinquency but also many ‘unofficial’ sources of lending available to the poorest.
It wasn’t lending, it was usury.
The truly evil thing about the payday lenders was them letting the loans rollover.
So a customer took out a £1,000 loan for 12 months and after they first payment they would refinance the loan for another 12 months, so after 12 months the customer had paid back £1,800 but their debt was around £800.
Glad to see you agreeing with Trump.
Credit cards generally do not have usury rates of interest.
(One of my AMEX cards has an APR of 800% but that’s because of the fee.)
Edit - The Platinum Card has a competitive APR of 704% because of the annual fee of £650.
Does anyone anywhere actually accept American Express? Maybe it's only the kind of places I wouldn't want to be in the first place.
Really good hotels, bars, restaurants, sporting/gig venues.
The concierge services they offer are amazing.
The cut they want from the retailer is ridiculous.
It used to be *double* that of other cards. I think they have reduced it, but it is still at a premium.
Many, many years ago, when I was involved in retailing Amex offered a year at 0%, obviously as a tempter. So I gave it a go. We didn't have many sales. The next year renewal was, IIRC, upwards of 10% of sales, which for some items was more than my margin. So we stopped.
I took it for a time, made 3 sales a year, got bored and stopped. Blow me down, the afternoon after the morning I cancelled it I got a call from a chinless wonder sounding bloke on a London number pretending he wanted to spend mega bucks with me but me not taking amex was a deal breaker. Also they never really recovered in my mind from the ?Not The 9 O'clock News commercial: American Express? Certainly sir, and would you like to feel my tits?
I don't see why this is such a terrible idea, just because Trump. Everyone hates banks and loves debt forgiveness. It may also be a terrible idea but still a vote winner.
It is of note that the Populist Policy for the demagogues in the last years of the Roman Republic was a Debt Jubilee - all debts forgiven.
Some say that a chunk of support for Ceasarism was his steadfast refusal back this.
Leviticus says you have to have one every 50 years. Scheduling them like that looks bad policy, presumably everyone maxes out their credit card in year 49 except they don't because everyone stops lending in year 48.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
Which was why Tim Walz was such a good pick for the VP slot - Joe Sixpack, Union Man.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Yep because you average Teamster is the equivalent of a Brexit voter - who believes that Trump / Brexit will solve their problems instead of creating additional ones.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Look at last night's rally. Trump has his mojo back. Ignore what he is saying but see how he works the crowd like a stand-up comic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Look at last night's rally. Trump has his mojo back. Ignore what he is saying but see how he works the crowd like a stand-up comic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
Plenty of stand-up comics have described Trump as one of them, in his timing and the way he speaks. He’s clearly studied the art of talking to a crowd.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
It had good characters (like Dad's army) that were generally incompetent but well meaning - Always then remembered with fondness. It was also bordering on farce at times which was not that usual then and so stood out
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Look at last night's rally. Trump has his mojo back. Ignore what he is saying but see how he works the crowd like a stand-up comic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
And people said that he was in the same state of decline as Biden...
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Did you see the documentary on TV the last 2 nights on the efforts by Trump to overturn the election. It was frightening. Lots of Republican officials interviewed who had enormous pressure put on them. Even more than I was aware of. I don't believe any of them would now vote for Trump in a million years. These were Trump supporters. They were incredulous. Death threats, huge numbers of people invading their homes or protesting outside with AR15s. The comments from several of them were along the lines of 'These are my people. These aren't Democrats' As if to say WTF. One of them lost it big time in a news conference at the time. He said my role was xxxx; nobody needs or should know who I am, yet this was happening to me.
The Pence team were also interviewed as was Barr.
Those who argue (and did argue here on PB) that it wasn't a near coup should watch it. The pressure on Pence and his team was huge. The pressure on the Arizona board that confirmed the electoral votes for Arizona was huge. The chair said he didn't know which way the vote was going until it happened.
Anyway my point is these Trump supporters in 2020 won't be voting for him in 2024. Whether that is a few tens of people or hundreds who were at the coalface or whether that has trickled down to thousands I haven't a clue.
It was very depressing to watch
PS The speaker of one Senate (A Trump supporter) had a call from Giuliani who said he had lots of evidence. He said fine, show it to me. He repeatedly asked for it. None appeared. At one meeting he asked for it and Giuliani didn't have it, but asked a colleague who went through her brief case and then said we must have left it at the hotel. It never materialised. They then showed film of his ranch being invaded and an armed standoff outside.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
I remember enjoying the show, although I can't remember much more than that about it! I was poking fun at a classic PB Tory attempt to Make Gordon Brittas Happen (as a moniker for Sir Keir).
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
It had good characters (like Dad's army) that were generally incompetent but well meaning - Always then remembered with fondness. It was also bordering on farce at times which was not that usual then and so stood out
I enjoyed it. Very much in the Fawlty Towers / Office tradition of the sitcom built around a pooterish middle aged male with an inflated sense of his own importance.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
It had good characters (like Dad's army) that were generally incompetent but well meaning - Always then remembered with fondness. It was also bordering on farce at times which was not that usual then and so stood out
I recognise the dark-blonde actress on our far left of the picture above, but can't name her. Who is she?
Edit: Julia St John I think. She's made quite a lot of stuff since.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
The polling says that's rubbish.
The Teamsters membership polling agrees with me. They went from Biden 65-35 Trump, to Harris 41-59 Trump, which is why they’re not endorsing a candidate.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Look at last night's rally. Trump has his mojo back. Ignore what he is saying but see how he works the crowd like a stand-up comic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
Plenty of stand-up comics have described Trump as one of them, in his timing and the way he speaks. He’s clearly studied the art of talking to a crowd.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
I remember enjoying the show, although I can't remember much more than that about it! I was poking fun at a classic PB Tory attempt to Make Gordon Brittas Happen (as a moniker for Sir Keir).
it was Julia st john I think playing the one competent character the deputy to Mr Brittas, Laura
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
The Teamsters have in the past endorsed George H.W. Bush, Reagan and Nixon - but subsequently Democrat.
Are we surprised old white non graduate men lean towards Trump ?
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
The polling says that's rubbish.
The Teamsters membership polling agrees with me. They went from Biden 65-35 Trump, to Harris 41-59 Trump, which is why they’re not endorsing a candidate.
I do think Biden had good old-union-white-guy vibes and Harris clearly doesn't but those numbers aren't comparable with each other. The first one is an in-person straw poll, the second one is an online survey.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
The Teamsters have in the past endorsed George H.W. Bush, Reagan and Nixon - but subsequently Democrat.
Are we surprised old white non graduate men lean towards Trump ?
And Trump was desperate for their endorsement, but didn't get it.
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
"You'll never guess what my dad did for a living..."
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
He didn't mention payday lenders. He said he would cap interest rates on credit cards to 10% but gave no further details. Trump actually set regulations allowed payday lenders to avoid state laws capping interest rates. This was repealed in 2021
The idea that he on the side of the average Joe is utterly risibile.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
The polling says that's rubbish.
The Teamsters membership polling agrees with me. They went from Biden 65-35 Trump, to Harris 41-59 Trump, which is why they’re not endorsing a candidate.
That's not really a reputable poll - and in any event, the Teamsters are not entirely representative of the average US union in their politics.
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
"You'll never guess what my dad did for a living..."
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
Ah, that's another person Starmer reminds me of - the energy/emotional vampire from "What We Do In The Shadows".
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
"You'll never guess what my dad did for a living..."
"If you are short of something to wear for tonight's dinner, my wife has wardrobes full of stuff you can borrow"
He answers saying he'll block imported food from entering the country "We allow a lot of farm product into our country. We're going have to be a little like other countries. We're not going to allow so much." https://x.com/Brendan_Duke/status/1836196410233962855
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Look at last night's rally. Trump has his mojo back. Ignore what he is saying but see how he works the crowd like a stand-up comic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
And people said that he was in the same state of decline as Biden...
He may well be. Biden had good days too, notably the State of the Union address at the start of the year.
But more than the mental side, is the question or issue of Trump's physical health. He's 78. He's the oldest nominated main-party candidate in the 236-year history of these sort of elections. You simply do not have much energy at that age. You might be able to summon some for a while but it'll take its toll, particularly if - like him - your overall shape isn't great to begin with.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Did you see the documentary on TV the last 2 nights on the efforts by Trump to overturn the election. It was frightening. Lots of Republican officials interviewed who had enormous pressure put on them. Even more than I was aware of. I don't believe any of them would now vote for Trump in a million years. These were Trump supporters. They were incredulous. Death threats, huge numbers of people invading their homes or protesting outside with AR15s. The comments from several of them were along the lines of 'These are my people. These aren't Democrats' As if to say WTF. One of them lost it big time in a news conference at the time. He said my role was xxxx; nobody needs or should know who I am, yet this was happening to me.
The Pence team were also interviewed as was Barr.
Those who argue (and did argue here on PB) that it wasn't a near coup should watch it. The pressure on Pence and his team was huge. The pressure on the Arizona board that confirmed the electoral votes for Arizona was huge. The chair said he didn't know which way the vote was going until it happened.
Anyway my point is these Trump supporters in 2020 won't be voting for him in 2024. Whether that is a few tens of people or hundreds who were at the coalface or whether that has trickled down to thousands I haven't a clue.
It was very depressing to watch
PS The speaker of one Senate (A Trump supporter) had a call from Giuliani who said he had lots of evidence. He said fine, show it to me. He repeatedly asked for it. None appeared. At one meeting he asked for it and Giuliani didn't have it, but asked a colleague who went through her brief case and then said we must have left it at the hotel. It never materialised. They then showed film of his ranch being invaded and an armed standoff outside.
All, and far more and far worse, to be repeated this November.
Trump's cult have been planning for four years to take this election by force.
God knows how America gets through those few days around 5th November.
We have 5 local by-elections today because of Labour councillors becoming MPs. They are in Cornwall, Hartlepool, Worthing, and a double in Westminster. We also have a Lab defence in Bromsgrove. There are also Con defences in Huntingdonshire and 2 in Stockton.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Yep because you average Teamster is the equivalent of a Brexit voter - who believes that Trump / Brexit will solve their problems instead of creating additional ones.
They endorsed Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2016, both against Trump.
At what point today do the “corrupt Sir Keir stayed in a mate’s flat” posts begin?
Is he still cosying up to the biggest fascist in Europe? As Vince Cable memorably said, The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Inspector Klouseau to The Great Dictator.
If you are referring to Georgia Meloni then I think we can give him a pass for cosying up to her, she’s hot and she buys her own clothes.
Tastes differ I guess but she looks like a constipated frog here.
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
Ah, that's another person Starmer reminds me of - the energy/emotional vampire from "What We Do In The Shadows".
Colin Robinson ? I can see it. Better hair, though.
Call it the anchoring effect or call it moving the Overton window, Liz Truss's great unwitting service to her party was resetting our expectations of how quickly a Premiership can implode.
You read it on Bluesky first: I've quit my job at the Guardian to start a new London local news outlet called @londoncentric.bsky.social .
It's something I've wanted to do for years but the strong reaction to the Evening Standard closing down made me realise it was time to act: londoncentric.media
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Yep because you average Teamster is the equivalent of a Brexit voter - who believes that Trump / Brexit will solve their problems instead of creating additional ones.
They endorsed Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2016, both against Trump.
But you have to take your membership with you and if the membership doesn't like the suggesting the leadership is just creating a big problem for itself.
On topic - Don't go so hard on US polling one way or the other unless you really know which polls to take notice of. The Selzer poll in Iowa is one. The Atlanta Journal in Georgia is another and it puts Trump 3% up there. That and a poll in Maine 2 are rather less good news for Harris supporters.
Harris is favourite and should be. If her supporters turn out then she wins - possibly by a wider margin than people think. However, there is an 'if' involved there and it gets bigger when you note the demographic nature of her support (female, young, non-white)
You read it on Bluesky first: I've quit my job at the Guardian to start a new London local news outlet called @londoncentric.bsky.social .
It's something I've wanted to do for years but the strong reaction to the Evening Standard closing down made me realise it was time to act: londoncentric.media
On topic - Don't go so hard on US polling one way or the other unless you really know which polls to take notice of. The Selzer poll in Iowa is one. The Atlanta Journal in Georgia is another and it puts Trump 3% up there. That and a poll in Maine 2 are rather less good news for Harris supporters.
Harris is favourite and should be. If her supporters turn out then she wins - possibly by a wider margin than people think. However, there is an 'if' involved there and it gets bigger when you note the demographic nature of her support (female, young, non-white)
If it does then it's worth 1 EV to Trump. Maine could do the same to help Harris.
A change WOULD definitely affect the election in either state as Harris winning ME-2 or Trump winning NE-2 would presage a healthy victory for either of them.
Adds yet another twist to my header the other day about contingent election.
If Nebraska falls into dispute over ECV then possible neither can get 270 as the guardian says and we are into the House deciding using state delegations.
Two advantages of the plain, no-fee UK AMEX credit card:
- 1% cashback on everything - They let you set up a direct debit to pay the entire balance each month, almost as if it's a chargecard. So you can guarantee no interest is charged.
I only use it in places I already know take it, though.
I've never heard of a credit card that doesn't allow you to do the second point, so not exactly a point of differentiation.
He knows he's being used as part of an internal leaking war and that the info he has will all be public soon anyway... what's the point!?
Can't we have some actual journalism about how well or badly the government is doing.
Did you complain when this happened to
1) The Thatcher governments 2) The Major government 3) The Blair Government 4) The Gordon Brown Government 5) The Cameron government 6-136) The recent Conservative Governments
?
This has always been how political journalism has been.
What is going on, is that Starmer is using Sue Gray as his personal wrecking ball. Bit like Dominic Cummings.
The Civil Service was expecting a return to Good Government (as they see it). Being undermined, run round and simply pushed out of their own jobs is bad enough. But Sue Gray was One of Them. And she should Know Better (as the system sees it).
In addition, some ministers are finding that chunks of their portfolio are being controlled by her. And they aren't liking that either.
Very much as expected. Just eternal dove Dinghra voting to reduce to 4.75.
Unanimous vote (Including Dinghra) on the following:
The Bank of England should reduce the stock of UK government bond purchases held for monetary policy purposes, and financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by £100 billion over the next 12 months, to a total of £558 billion.
I don't see Harris losing any of the states that Biden won in 2020.
I also expect her to win North Carolina.
And Florida iasn't yet out of reach.
I'd be extremely wary about making bullish predictions like that. There are certainly credible scenarios that lead to a Harris landslide (FWIW, I think Texas falls to her before Florida these days), but they're not the central case by any means.
Trump has enough form from 2016 and 2020 for engaging new / marginalised voters that didn't show up in earlier voting to make me sceptical about the accuracy of all US polling at the moment. The state polls in 2020 were particularly poor (which is thoroughly unhelpful when they're also so critical). They weren't much better in 2016. Plus there's the issue of him having sought to install officials running these elections who will do everything they can to deliver him the result administratively, if he doesn't win via the vote (and to bias the voting procedures to him too). Obviously, those are in places where Republicans have already won so in many cases not swing states - but in some they will be. That's a critical lesson he learned from 2020. Plus, of course, the Electoral College is currently biased to the Republicans in terms of national vote.
Trump still hasn't really found an effective attack line on Harris, or a one-word nickname that puts the necessary doubt in independents and marginal voters rather than his core - but that doesn't mean he won't, though time is rapidly running out.
Personally, I make the race extremely tight, with Trump marginal favourite, albeit that his ceiling is lower than Harris's, both in ECVs and vote totals.
All valid points, David, but for me overwhelmed by the strong sense of something on the turn and going off, something which has had its time, the 'something' being Donald Trump. If you feel this way the best time to say so - and to bet on it - is before it's fully reflected in the polls. Eg right now you can get decent prices (via the EC bands market on betfair) on a big Harris win. That's what I'm doing.
Fair enough if that's your judgement. All I'll say is that the normal rules don't apply to Trump. If they did, he'd have been out of the game for good in early 2016, well before the Republican nomination was decided. Harris does, IMO, have the opportunity to nail Trump as a laughing stock who's lost the plot and is losing his marbles but isn't hitting the target yet, as far as I can see. That's his true vulnerability (despite the fact it should be that his values and behaviour make him unfit for office).
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Yep because you average Teamster is the equivalent of a Brexit voter - who believes that Trump / Brexit will solve their problems instead of creating additional ones.
They endorsed Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2016, both against Trump.
But you have to take your membership with you and if the membership doesn't like the suggesting the leadership is just creating a big problem for itself.
Sure - and that's was my original point above: that there's a reason why for the first time this century, the Teamsters have not endorsed the Democrat.
He knows he's being used as part of an internal leaking war and that the info he has will all be public soon anyway... what's the point!?
Can't we have some actual journalism about how well or badly the government is doing.
It does provide context to his story but maybe not in the way he intended. So Chris Mason writes a story about what Sue Gray earns with a vague suggestion of something inappropriate. He then provides "context" in this article which he says it has nothing to do with the money; the story is some people in the Labour hierarchy don't like Sue Gray. In the spirit of disclosure he mentions his own salary which is £100K more than Sue Gray for a job that is vastly less senior and important.
He knows he's being used as part of an internal leaking war and that the info he has will all be public soon anyway... what's the point!?
Can't we have some actual journalism about how well or badly the government is doing.
Did you complain when this happened to
1) The Thatcher governments 2) The Major government 3) The Blair Government 4) The Gordon Brown Government 5) The Cameron government 6-136) The recent Conservative Governments
?
This has always been how political journalism has been.
What is going on, is that Starmer is using Sue Gray as his personal wrecking ball. Bit like Dominic Cummings.
The Civil Service was expecting a return to Good Government (as they see it). Being undermined, run round and simply pushed out of their own jobs is bad enough. But Sue Gray was One of Them. And she should Know Better (as the system sees it).
In addition, some ministers are finding that chunks of their portfolio are being controlled by her. And they aren't liking that either.
Far too young for the first 2! Yes, I did get annoyed at BBC, particularly LK, essentially just publishing articles quoting anonymous gossip clearly designed to further someone's agenda (often i suspect Cummings) and not doing her job to inform the public. It was particularly bad during covid, but also the endless confidence stories against Theresa May.
I don't mind the daily mail or the guardian doing it so much, but a public broadcaster should be trying to report news not pointless gossip.
This article is a bit out of date (June this year) - but I think it provides at some length a good explanation why you haven't heard all that much about economic policy detail from Harris.
The Death of “Deliverism” https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/ ...Whatever the causes, it turns out that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest. As social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and colleagues show, “Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, or unemployment, how many immigrants had moved into the county, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted the Trump election better than other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future.”
Other researchers have shown that counties that went to Trump were often “landscapes of despair,” characterized by more economic distress, poor health, low educational attainment, high alcohol and suicide mortality rates, and high divorce rates. States with the lowest life expectancies and education levels used to vote strongly for Democrats, but the past four decades have witnessed what Nobel laureate Angus Deaton called an “extraordinary realignment,” with those states now heavily favoring the Republican Party...
..The emotional alchemy of the authoritarian approach is so strong that it can override facts and material reality. Trump duped millions with his false claim to have brought back manufacturing jobs. (In reality, manufacturing jobs declined during his Administration.) By contrast, Biden’s success in reducing unemployment to the lowest level in 54 years goes virtually uncredited, with his approval rating hitting an all-time low of 36 percent this past May. In the same poll, an astounding 54 percent of Americans said that Trump handled the economy better than Biden has so far, compared to just 36 percent of Americans who felt the opposite was true. The MAGA extremist response succeeds because it speaks to a visceral sense of dissatisfaction and promises security, belonging, and recognition...
..importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people’s problems to succeed politically..
I was surprised at how low it is but then so many more are having to rent as they cannot afford to buy
I deleted the post as I combined 2 without thinking but it's one of those stats where you need to see both parts (% of owner occupied housing, % of owner occupiers with mortgages) to see the true scale of the issue and it is an issue
This article is a bit out of date (June this year) - but I think it provides at some length a good explanation why you haven't heard all that much about economic policy detail from Harris.
The Death of “Deliverism” https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/ ...Whatever the causes, it turns out that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest. As social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and colleagues show, “Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, or unemployment, how many immigrants had moved into the county, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted the Trump election better than other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future.”
Other researchers have shown that counties that went to Trump were often “landscapes of despair,” characterized by more economic distress, poor health, low educational attainment, high alcohol and suicide mortality rates, and high divorce rates. States with the lowest life expectancies and education levels used to vote strongly for Democrats, but the past four decades have witnessed what Nobel laureate Angus Deaton called an “extraordinary realignment,” with those states now heavily favoring the Republican Party...
..The emotional alchemy of the authoritarian approach is so strong that it can override facts and material reality. Trump duped millions with his false claim to have brought back manufacturing jobs. (In reality, manufacturing jobs declined during his Administration.) By contrast, Biden’s success in reducing unemployment to the lowest level in 54 years goes virtually uncredited, with his approval rating hitting an all-time low of 36 percent this past May. In the same poll, an astounding 54 percent of Americans said that Trump handled the economy better than Biden has so far, compared to just 36 percent of Americans who felt the opposite was true. The MAGA extremist response succeeds because it speaks to a visceral sense of dissatisfaction and promises security, belonging, and recognition...
..importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people’s problems to succeed politically..
And of course Trump's Tonto crawled his way out a “landscapes of despair" with help from his grandmother so providing a direct link to this world for the GOP team.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
One of my favourites, though it was best to have finished dinner before "Colin" started discussing his unpleasant medical conditions.
Two advantages of the plain, no-fee UK AMEX credit card:
- 1% cashback on everything - They let you set up a direct debit to pay the entire balance each month, almost as if it's a chargecard. So you can guarantee no interest is charged.
I only use it in places I already know take it, though.
Amex used to have this arrangement (maybe still does) where it will deal with any damage claims on car hire when you use its card to pay. It meant you didn't have to argue with rental companies about inflated repair bills or take out extortionate daily collision damage waivers
This article is a bit out of date (June this year) - but I think it provides at some length a good explanation why you haven't heard all that much about economic policy detail from Harris.
The Death of “Deliverism” https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/ ...Whatever the causes, it turns out that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest. As social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and colleagues show, “Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, or unemployment, how many immigrants had moved into the county, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted the Trump election better than other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future.”
Other researchers have shown that counties that went to Trump were often “landscapes of despair,” characterized by more economic distress, poor health, low educational attainment, high alcohol and suicide mortality rates, and high divorce rates. States with the lowest life expectancies and education levels used to vote strongly for Democrats, but the past four decades have witnessed what Nobel laureate Angus Deaton called an “extraordinary realignment,” with those states now heavily favoring the Republican Party...
..The emotional alchemy of the authoritarian approach is so strong that it can override facts and material reality. Trump duped millions with his false claim to have brought back manufacturing jobs. (In reality, manufacturing jobs declined during his Administration.) By contrast, Biden’s success in reducing unemployment to the lowest level in 54 years goes virtually uncredited, with his approval rating hitting an all-time low of 36 percent this past May. In the same poll, an astounding 54 percent of Americans said that Trump handled the economy better than Biden has so far, compared to just 36 percent of Americans who felt the opposite was true. The MAGA extremist response succeeds because it speaks to a visceral sense of dissatisfaction and promises security, belonging, and recognition...
..importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people’s problems to succeed politically..
Taking hundreds of words to say what Reagan said in eight: “Are you better off than four years ago?”
I was surprised at how low it is but then so many more are having to rent as they cannot afford to buy
I deleted the post as I combined 2 without thinking but it's one of those stats where you need to see both parts (% of owner occupied housing, % of owner occupiers with mortgages) to see the true scale of the issue and it is an issue
I agree as it does have an impact on housebuiders building unaffordable homes for sale which incidentally is evidenced in a local development with astronomic prices compared to market affordability
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
is it? I've never heard anyone mention the Brittas Empire for decades apart from on this site.
Sky continue their hatchet job on Starmer and his wife in every hourly bulletin via Sam Coates
"Sir Keir Starmer is in a "pressure" job and should be allowed to enjoy gifts and hospitality if it is declared correctly, a cabinet minister has told Sky News.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said anyone who is a prime minister "spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it" and if they are able to do something important to them "I don't think that's a problem".
...
He added the government's controversial decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners should not be “conflated” with the prime minister accepting freebies.
"I think to conflate the two issues and forget the fact that there are major issues facing the UK that can only be addressed because we've got a change of government wouldn't be right," he said."
How one longs for the sober competence of Sunak and his team.
Sky continue their hatchet job on Starmer and his wife in every hourly bulletin via Sam Coates
"Sir Keir Starmer is in a "pressure" job and should be allowed to enjoy gifts and hospitality if it is declared correctly, a cabinet minister has told Sky News.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said anyone who is a prime minister "spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it" and if they are able to do something important to them "I don't think that's a problem".
...
He added the government's controversial decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners should not be “conflated” with the prime minister accepting freebies.
"I think to conflate the two issues and forget the fact that there are major issues facing the UK that can only be addressed because we've got a change of government wouldn't be right," he said."
How one longs for the sober competence of Sunak and his team.
This is what happens when you have a cabinet with the highest percentage of state school educated plebs in living memory.
This article is a bit out of date (June this year) - but I think it provides at some length a good explanation why you haven't heard all that much about economic policy detail from Harris.
The Death of “Deliverism” https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/ ...Whatever the causes, it turns out that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest. As social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and colleagues show, “Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, or unemployment, how many immigrants had moved into the county, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted the Trump election better than other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future.”
Other researchers have shown that counties that went to Trump were often “landscapes of despair,” characterized by more economic distress, poor health, low educational attainment, high alcohol and suicide mortality rates, and high divorce rates. States with the lowest life expectancies and education levels used to vote strongly for Democrats, but the past four decades have witnessed what Nobel laureate Angus Deaton called an “extraordinary realignment,” with those states now heavily favoring the Republican Party...
..The emotional alchemy of the authoritarian approach is so strong that it can override facts and material reality. Trump duped millions with his false claim to have brought back manufacturing jobs. (In reality, manufacturing jobs declined during his Administration.) By contrast, Biden’s success in reducing unemployment to the lowest level in 54 years goes virtually uncredited, with his approval rating hitting an all-time low of 36 percent this past May. In the same poll, an astounding 54 percent of Americans said that Trump handled the economy better than Biden has so far, compared to just 36 percent of Americans who felt the opposite was true. The MAGA extremist response succeeds because it speaks to a visceral sense of dissatisfaction and promises security, belonging, and recognition...
..importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people’s problems to succeed politically..
Taking hundreds of words to say what Reagan said in eight: “Are you better off than four years ago?”
Two advantages of the plain, no-fee UK AMEX credit card:
- 1% cashback on everything - They let you set up a direct debit to pay the entire balance each month, almost as if it's a chargecard. So you can guarantee no interest is charged.
I only use it in places I already know take it, though.
Amex used to have this arrangement (maybe still does) where it will deal with any damage claims on car hire when you use its card to pay. It meant you didn't have to argue with rental companies about inflated repair bills or take out extortionate daily collision damage waivers
Top tip, you can get an annual policy covering you for all cdws on all the cars you hire. No longer the spectacular value they were but still better than what the car hire co wants
Doubtless this, one of his frequent interventions, will be billed by the BBC as "a rare intervention".
The whole interview with Rajan is worth a watch. Major is becoming a bit old mannish in not quite believing how tough the economic climate is with regard to government's power to spend and borrow, but without saying in what way and why they have got it wrong. And Rajan didn't follow it up, which is a misses chance.
But Major is very good on the whole. A bit blind of course to his own contribution to the EU disaster. But so are they all.
Sky continue their hatchet job on Starmer and his wife in every hourly bulletin via Sam Coates
"Sir Keir Starmer is in a "pressure" job and should be allowed to enjoy gifts and hospitality if it is declared correctly, a cabinet minister has told Sky News.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said anyone who is a prime minister "spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it" and if they are able to do something important to them "I don't think that's a problem".
...
He added the government's controversial decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners should not be “conflated” with the prime minister accepting freebies.
"I think to conflate the two issues and forget the fact that there are major issues facing the UK that can only be addressed because we've got a change of government wouldn't be right," he said."
How one longs for the sober competence of Sunak and his team.
Reynolds dropping nicely into the old Michael Gove role of being the minister sent out to defend the indefensible to a baying media.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
is it? I've never heard anyone mention the Brittas Empire for decades apart from on this site.
It's just because there is something of Gordon Brittas in Starmer.
I admit I loved the Brittas Empire - one of the better sit coms.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
It was ahead of its time.
"From now on, all high-caffeine energy drinks are to be banned from the leisure centre."
It certainly was ahead if its time. I don't want to deride it, because it was (as I remember) well scripted and acted, but it felt weirdly unfunny and, to me, unenjoyable - certainly cleverly done, but short on jokes and laughs and long on awkward. Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
is it? I've never heard anyone mention the Brittas Empire for decades apart from on this site.
It's just because there is something of Gordon Brittas in Starmer.
I admit I loved the Brittas Empire - one of the better sit coms.
Whoever was the first person to make that connection on here, deserves an award.
Chris Barrie is only a couple of years older than Starmer, I bet he’d do a great impression of him.
Two advantages of the plain, no-fee UK AMEX credit card:
- 1% cashback on everything - They let you set up a direct debit to pay the entire balance each month, almost as if it's a chargecard. So you can guarantee no interest is charged.
I only use it in places I already know take it, though.
Amex used to have this arrangement (maybe still does) where it will deal with any damage claims on car hire when you use its card to pay. It meant you didn't have to argue with rental companies about inflated repair bills or take out extortionate daily collision damage waivers
That hailstorm came out of nowhere. I was definitely not watching it on the radar for 2 hours beforehand.
Sorry about the 60 dents in the roof and the cracked windscreen. I'm sure they'll buff out.
Sometimes the daily collision waivers pay for themselves...
Comments
There's a reason the Teamsters aren't making an endorsement this time, which is that their members are pro-Trump.
Jim Accidentally Closes The City Farm | Yes Minister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYwNrqVmhlo
It’s a serious problem at the other end of the market though, where millions of people can’t afford to replace a broken fridge without having to borrow money from somewhere, and with their own bank unlikely to want to give them any credit.
Some say that a chunk of support for Ceasarism was his steadfast refusal back this.
Needlessly waspish post from you.
Kamala Harris, well, isn’t. She’s is seen as a West Coast Liberal, lawyer, former prosecutor etc. Very much one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything. His latest interjection on payday lending being yet another positive example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6-2Ig0WJU
Nowadays, that's pretty much all sitcoms.
Still, remarkable that a not-particularly-widely-watched sitcom from 30+ years ago has such cultural currency. The name Gordon Brittas is far more widely known than most sitcom characters from the 80s and 90s.
The Pence team were also interviewed as was Barr.
Those who argue (and did argue here on PB) that it wasn't a near coup should watch it. The pressure on Pence and his team was huge. The pressure on the Arizona board that confirmed the electoral votes for Arizona was huge. The chair said he didn't know which way the vote was going until it happened.
Anyway my point is these Trump supporters in 2020 won't be voting for him in 2024. Whether that is a few tens of people or hundreds who were at the coalface or whether that has trickled down to thousands I haven't a clue.
It was very depressing to watch
PS The speaker of one Senate (A Trump supporter) had a call from Giuliani who said he had lots of evidence. He said fine, show it to me. He repeatedly asked for it. None appeared. At one meeting he asked for it and Giuliani didn't have it, but asked a colleague who went through her brief case and then said we must have left it at the hotel. It never materialised. They then showed film of his ranch being invaded and an armed standoff outside.
Edit: Julia St John I think. She's made quite a lot of stuff since.
Sensationally tin eared from Business Secretary: PM accepting freebies is "part of the job"
In 1997 Blair decreed pre-election that ministers were not to be seen swanning off to whatever the big football thing was that summer.
Are we surprised old white non graduate men lean towards Trump ?
Captions invited.
‘I guess the founders of both our parties were socialists..’
Trump actually set regulations allowed payday lenders to avoid state laws capping interest rates.
This was repealed in 2021
The idea that he on the side of the average Joe is utterly risibile.
The first polling on the question I can quickly turn up shows Democrats have a very large lead on the question "who is best for union members" - 62% to 27%.
And in union member households, it's 71% to 17%.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/650147/democratic-party-seen-better-union-members.aspx
I posted something similar, a week or so back, which asked a similar question of Harris v Trump, and it showed something fairly similar.
William Hills offered 10/1 against Bill Clinton to win the presidency. He'd been pushed out in the betting as one of his romantic scandals blew up.
4/9 President GHW Bush
5/1 Bob Kerrey
10/1 Paul Thomas
10/1 Bill Clinton
12/1 Tom Harkin
16/1 Pat Buchanan
25/1 Jerry Brown
Republican 2/5
Democrats 7/4
Trump asked how he'll bring down grocery prices.
He answers saying he'll block imported food from entering the country "We allow a lot of farm product into our country. We're going have to be a little like other countries. We're not going to allow so much."
https://x.com/Brendan_Duke/status/1836196410233962855
But more than the mental side, is the question or issue of Trump's physical health. He's 78. He's the oldest nominated main-party candidate in the 236-year history of these sort of elections. You simply do not have much energy at that age. You might be able to summon some for a while but it'll take its toll, particularly if - like him - your overall shape isn't great to begin with.
But a good campaign team can manage that.
Trump's cult have been planning for four years to take this election by force.
God knows how America gets through those few days around 5th November.
"I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, un-Christian, and unconscionable."
https://x.com/BBCr4today/status/1836306028851302624
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6x635wpjxo
Better hair, though.
@jimwaterson.bsky.social
You read it on Bluesky first: I've quit my job at the Guardian to start a new London local news outlet called
@londoncentric.bsky.social
.
It's something I've wanted to do for years but the strong reaction to the Evening Standard closing down made me realise it was time to act: londoncentric.media
https://bsky.app/profile/jimwaterson.bsky.social/post/3l4gqs3rrxq2u
Nebraska may change its electoral system at the last second to help Trump win
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/19/nebraska-electoral-system-trump-win-election
RCP has her 2% ahead on average, 538 3%. The generic vote puts the Democrats 2% ahead.
Every election since 2000, other than 2008, has been a battle of attrition. Why should this one be different?
Harris is favourite and should be. If her supporters turn out then she wins - possibly by a wider margin than people think. However, there is an 'if' involved there and it gets bigger when you note the demographic nature of her support (female, young, non-white)
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/harris-trump-iowa-poll-wisconsin/index.html
FWIW, I have money on Harris winning N Carolina, but haven't touched Georgia.
A change WOULD definitely affect the election in either state as Harris winning ME-2 or Trump winning NE-2 would presage a healthy victory for either of them.
He knows he's being used as part of an internal leaking war and that the info he has will all be public soon anyway... what's the point!?
Can't we have some actual journalism about how well or badly the government is doing.
Adds yet another twist to my header the other day about contingent election.
If Nebraska falls into dispute over ECV then possible neither can get 270 as the guardian says and we are into the House deciding using state delegations.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/08/26/could-trump-be-made-president-by-the-house-of-representatives/
1) The Thatcher governments
2) The Major government
3) The Blair Government
4) The Gordon Brown Government
5) The Cameron government
6-136) The recent Conservative Governments
?
This has always been how political journalism has been.
What is going on, is that Starmer is using Sue Gray as his personal wrecking ball. Bit like Dominic Cummings.
The Civil Service was expecting a return to Good Government (as they see it). Being undermined, run round and simply pushed out of their own jobs is bad enough. But Sue Gray was One of Them. And she should Know Better (as the system sees it).
In addition, some ministers are finding that chunks of their portfolio are being controlled by her. And they aren't liking that either.
Unanimous vote (Including Dinghra) on the following:
The Bank of England should reduce the stock of UK government bond purchases held for monetary policy purposes, and financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by £100 billion over the next 12 months, to a total of £558 billion.
Not sure what that means for gilts and so forth ?
People are not picking up how he's on the slide. By the time they do the value in laying him will be gone.
Yes, I did get annoyed at BBC, particularly LK, essentially just publishing articles quoting anonymous gossip clearly designed to further someone's agenda (often i suspect Cummings) and not doing her job to inform the public. It was particularly bad during covid, but also the endless confidence stories against Theresa May.
I don't mind the daily mail or the guardian doing it so much, but a public broadcaster should be trying to report news not pointless gossip.
The Death of “Deliverism”
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/
...Whatever the causes, it turns out that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest. As social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and colleagues show, “Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, or unemployment, how many immigrants had moved into the county, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted the Trump election better than other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future.”
Other researchers have shown that counties that went to Trump were often “landscapes of despair,” characterized by more economic distress, poor health, low educational attainment, high alcohol and suicide mortality rates, and high divorce rates. States with the lowest life expectancies and education levels used to vote strongly for Democrats, but the past four decades have witnessed what Nobel laureate Angus Deaton called an “extraordinary realignment,” with those states now heavily favoring the Republican Party...
..The emotional alchemy of the authoritarian approach is so strong that it can override facts and material reality. Trump duped millions with his false claim to have brought back manufacturing jobs. (In reality, manufacturing jobs declined during his Administration.) By contrast, Biden’s success in reducing unemployment to the lowest level in 54 years goes virtually uncredited, with his approval rating hitting an all-time low of 36 percent this past May. In the same poll, an astounding 54 percent of Americans said that Trump handled the economy better than Biden has so far, compared to just 36 percent of Americans who felt the opposite was true. The MAGA extremist response succeeds because it speaks to a visceral sense of dissatisfaction and promises security, belonging, and recognition...
..importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people’s problems to succeed politically..
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said anyone who is a prime minister "spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it" and if they are able to do something important to them "I don't think that's a problem".
...
He added the government's controversial decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners should not be “conflated” with the prime minister accepting freebies.
"I think to conflate the two issues and forget the fact that there are major issues facing the UK that can only be addressed because we've got a change of government wouldn't be right," he said."
How one longs for the sober competence of Sunak and his team.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/11/06/class-warfare/
But Major is very good on the whole. A bit blind of course to his own contribution to the EU disaster. But so are they all.
I admit I loved the Brittas Empire - one of the better sit coms.
Chris Barrie is only a couple of years older than Starmer, I bet he’d do a great impression of him.
Sorry about the 60 dents in the roof and the cracked windscreen. I'm sure they'll buff out.
Sometimes the daily collision waivers pay for themselves...