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The scale of the Tory challenge (and why being a lawyer helps Jenrick) – politicalbetting.com
The scale of the Tory challenge (and why being a lawyer helps Jenrick) – politicalbetting.com
The Tories need to make a net gain of 205 seats at the next election to win a majority of 2.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wnxlxxwq2o
If you replayed the 1992-7 Parliament now, with Blair as leader of the opposition, the only reason he wouldn't make twice as many gains is that the Tories would run out of seats to lose.
So I think we're in a situation where historical prevents are much less useful than previously.
(And I definitely remember him being talked about as a Corbyn replacement.)
Lib Dems have pretty much aced that, and the Labour vote dovetails that pretty well.
On the other side, Reform and the Conservatives haven't. Hence the "if only we could come to a sordid deal understanding not to tread on each others' toes" crayoning on the electoral map.
But I struggle to see how that works, and gets communicated to voters, without losing whatever currently passes for the left of the Conservative party.
His gold post box is still in Hunter Square in Edinburgh. I pass it going to the office. Really quite gutted.
Incidentally, we didn't have successive single term governments in the 1970s, the only one since the war has been Heath, everyone else got at least 2, albeit one of the Parliaments being rather short.
But if you're not over the water, some of the failings of the deposed leadership splatter onto you.
But with so few MPs, it will be all hands to the pump. Can anyone dare to turn down a shadow cabinet role without looking awful?
Lord Chope of Upskirting-on-Solent
Otherwise you’re hardly over the water; just waiting next door.
Exclusive: Simon Wakefield has admitted responsibility for ‘misappropriating complimentary tickets for personal gain and falsifying records’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/10/19/mcc-head-of-ticketing-dismissed-for-gross-misconduct/
Also, from a mathematical point of view, there is a very fine line between the best and worst possible distribution of votes under FPTP, and the difference between the two is simply a matter of winning more votes overall.
His big NY rally, too close to the election to be much use for that, seems to be a fund raiser for yet more litigation if things go against him.
With the rain hammering against the windows, Sir Chris and this, I am seriously tempted just to go back to bed.
I note that the successful lawyers seem to be ex-lawyers
(Update: catching up. Yes, very sad news about Sir Chris Hoy. And he didn't show anything of it whilst commentating this weekend.)
Value every day you have folks. Life is cruel.
Don't neglect to take those tests when the NHS send them out, gentlemen.
(Though I note that Sir Chris is even now just under the age of 50, when the screening programme starts. At least he has some time, 2-4 years.)
Sir Chris told the newspaper: "As unnatural as it feels, this is nature.
"You know, we were all born and we all die, and this is just part of the process.
"You remind yourself, aren't I lucky that there is medicine I can take that will fend this off for as long as possible."
Sir Chris added: “Hand on heart, I’m pretty positive most of the time and I have genuine happiness. This is bigger than the Olympics. It’s bigger than anything. This is about appreciating life and finding joy.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4dr9xdxgro
BJO will no doubt be on later to explain how Corbyn was the best Labour LOTO ever.
My father was given a similar stage 4 diagnosis, the cancer having metatised to the bone and two to four years to live aged 73. He died aged 87 after a car accident. He was diagnosed at a similar time to Andy Ripley, who unfortunately didn't last quite so long.
1) Reconcile the divide in the right by merging with or destroying the reform party
2) have policies which can take centre or centre right votes off the Lib Dems.
Even the best leader in the world would struggle to do both of those but Jenrick and Badenoch will struggle to do one of them.
It also shows Attlee to be in a class of his own, with a legacy still abundantly around and argued about daily.
EthicsEssex.1) Huge numbers of seats they need to recover are Lab/Con (with Reform interloping) not LD/Con. A lot of Tory centrists voted Labour in the seats where LD are not relevant (I am an example). The Tories are not close to getting it back, even though Labour are doing their best to help them.
2) It is obvious that the Tories not only need Labour to do badly, but also to have a leader and inner circle who make the political weather and climate rather than try to guess what focus groups want and pretend to give it to them. The person who will do this has probably not yet even decided which Oxford college will get their PPE application, and IIRC this year's deadline has just passed.
The last such person went to Somerville if that's any help, but anyone thinking a repeat of that approach will be the right thing has not got the quality required.
There is the possibility, not of a formal Conservative Reform alliance, but a strategic focus of resources by each party on seats held by Labour/Lib Dem MPs (rather than by Reform or Conservative), rather as there seemed to be an understanding between Labour and the Lib Dems in the last election to divide Tory seats between them.
But even assuming this, it is a very tall order, and a minority Labour Government with Lib Dem support is more likely than a minority Conservative government with Reform support.
Indeed Electoral Calculus has an MRP poll which is already forecasting a Jenrick led Tory party would get a hung parliament, gaining 57 seats to get to 178 with the SNP up to 48, Reform up to 24 and Labour down to 311.
Starmer would need confidence and supply from the 58 forecast LDs to stay in power. Badenoch would gain seats too but against her by contrast Labour would still have a majority of 14 the poll forecasts.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_hypopoll_20241017.html
Being a lawyer certainly helped Starmer, Attlee and Blair and may help Jenrick, Thatcher as a chemist turned lawyer also took the Tories into government from opposition in 1979. Of other Leaders of the Opposition who won a general election in the chart, Heath and Cameron and Wilson did PPE. Churchill did not go to university but Sandhurst after Harrow but was effectively an amateur historian writing some wonderful historical tomes on the likes of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough
I care nothing at all about professional cycling, and indeed am left utterly cold by any professional sport. Still as a fellow human being, I wish him all the best and hope the diagnosis is wrong. Too bad Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un can't get his diagnosis instead.
"Mr Speaker, I welcome the Novelty Knit to his appropriate place as leader of the Conservative Party." It's worth my photo quota:
I wonder if that much different from the winner of the existing pair
Reflecting, I guess that Bear Grylls is perhaps the best candidate.
An experimental drug changed that and he celebrated his century a week ago.
Let's hope somebody is bold enough to try something similar with Sir Chris and it has a similarly happy outcome.
Speaking of Musk and dodgy practices, here's Mary Creagh on a landfill scandal that very much exercised @Tissue_Price while MP for the area:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpv2gdng4pwo
Her logic is ridiculous. I mean, paying her a salary has never been a good use of public money given she's terminally dimwitted, but that's not stopped her from taking it.
Labour may be despised for crashing the golden legacy but I doubt the Tories are that far behind them in terms of unpopularity.
Several states will try to not certify the election results this year, I am sure.
Of course they will struggle if they try sending fake electors since it's not one of their own counting this time (unless they succeed in getting the real ones to certify phony results, since the VP cannot reject certified electors).
But what will the Reform government do to change the status quo from this?
I'd go 1 then 2 as 2 will exacerbate the difficulties with 1 whilst you might get away with focusing on 1 without 2 being that engaged.
Oh, and block any legal action while it is going on.
Firstly to prevent this happening again ( OK, I know it is already happening again throughout the UK) don't bury gypsum/plasterboard. It is illegal but that doesn't seem to stop the practice, and secondly disbar convicted environmental criminals ( I used to be a colleague of this one) from operating any waste disposal or recovery facility. Thirdly, replace the EA/NRW/SEPA/NIEA with a more robust regulator (see the river pollution debacle). Perhaps Fred Carno's Army.
My fee, which is in the post to 10 Downing Street for saving the gazillions of pounds about to be wasted on an inquiry is a mere £1m (have I undersold myself?)
It might just work.
We cannot fight
We cannot fuck
What bleeding use are we?
Trump will pardon him if elected.
After campaigning against a deep state which arrested an American hero…
I note that she is phonetically the MP for South Chester and Teddiesbury.
More seriously, has there been in recent years an MP becoming leader of a major party who has been in the Commons for just a couple months? Perhaps that would have been someone 'parachuted in', if that has happened.
(The upthread suggestion of leader in 10 years sounds credible. But that's three terms for Mr Starmer, which some may not relish.)
(but remains less than 5% of my twitter followers)
The Conservative challenges are all about reuniting the right while avoiding seepage to the centre, finding a leader who is at least tolerable, developing some policies or at least a vision that resonates and hoping the electorate forgets the worst features of the last regime. Above all they need to hope that Labour's poor start isn't just teething troubles, it's how they are going to govern. That way forward would be the same if Labour had a majority of 1 or 600.
ᴊɪᴍ ᴅᴀᴠɪs @thatjimdavis.bsky.social - 21m
It's funny how 'vacuum' and 'fuck you' sound similar when spoken by a 3 year old. It's marginally less funny in Currys.
https://bsky.app/profile/thatjimdavis.bsky.social/post/3l6wlo3uivl2t
Cool biography -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Karno?wprov=sfla1
The difference now is it's immediately a much nicer place to be; my timeline isn't spammed with far-right accounts and the search function actually works.
The Parliamentary Party is not exactly overburdened with fresh talents. Meanwhile checking out the resumes of the 64 new Liberal Democrat MPs there is real experience and talent in a variety of fields and several who have the potential to be national figures.
The Tory brain drain,so obvious in their leadership campaign, applies across the party.