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This indicates a very low turnout general election in the future – politicalbetting.com
This indicates a very low turnout general election in the future – politicalbetting.com
NEW from @IpsosUK: Starmer preferred as PM to Badenoch by 30% to 19%.But 38% prefer neither or think it makes no difference.More here https://t.co/EKi7YYc6fD pic.twitter.com/A04vOd0wmb
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Like Englands win on sunday will be (of the autumn)
Reform are very serious about becoming very serious. Despite the usual "lets all point at the lunatics and fruitcakes" response from the mainstream, their organising is starting to look professional and they are picking up a very large number of members.
And I have to put a word in for my own LibDems. As so many people note, once we dig in we dig in deep. And with the big two in disarray the opportunity is there to keep the momentum going.
Once politicians lose their contact with reality they are finished. The Tories are on planet Zog, Labour are sailing off into the distance not having realised that they aren't taking the country with them. That creates a vacuum, and all kinds of things will get sucked in...
Reform's problem, and it is a big problem, is that they remain less a political party than an ego trip.
Can they replace him? If they can't, and before the next election at that, they could easily die away again as UKIP have.
Of course, they might potentially die away to be replaced with something even worse, but that's a different problem.
1) An attempt to balance regulation/duties with the cost of regulation/duties vs the goals of the regulation/duties.
2) A sensible, steady and continuous reform of the public sector to improve productivity. Based around investment in technology and process reform, using the best examples of this round the world.
3) If the government is going to invest in technology (pump priming) it needs to learn how to invest on a small scale across a range of technologies. Not bet on winners.
4) If the government is going to subsidise outcomes, the subsidy needs to be on the outcome. Not upfront money that often vaporises. So if you want vehicle battery production, say, offer a subsidy per watt/hour of mobile storage (not even betting on batteries exclusively) actually delivered in a vehicle. Scaled to the UK content of the storage.
5) Tackle the pyramids of contracting and outsourcing that make controlling public projects so very difficult and guarantee expense.
Which is imo becoming a habit of BBB.
This afternoon he's exploring a potential request for Elon Musk to testify to a Select Committee in the context of the extradition treaty, and whether Musk would be arrested under terrorism law at the border and required to furnish all his passwords on pain of prison. Musk is doing his "bit of a tit" thing and flapping about he will summon British MPs to the USA to something something, all in response to a tweet by a strange far right commentator called Ian Miles Cheong.
BBB is soon going to mean Binkety-Bankety-Bonkers.
Ref:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHv8SMnrb6w
Drumchapel & Anniesland (Glasgow) Council By-Election Result [1st Prefs]:
🌹 LAB: 34.3% (-3.8)
🎗️ SNP: 26.3% (-11.6)
➡️ RFM: 12.8% (New)
🙋 IND: 9.4% (+4.2)
🌍 GRN: 8.3% (+2.3)
🌳 CON: 5.8% (-3.7)
🔶 LDM: 2.9% (+1.3)
Labour HOLD - Elected Stage 7.
Changes w/ 2022.
Maryhill (Glasgow) Council By-Election Result [1st Prefs]:
🌹 LAB: 35.9% (+1.9)
🎗️ SNP: 29.2% (-12.9)
➡️ RFM: 12.7% (New)
🌍 GRN: 12.1% (-0.2)
🔷 ALBA: 4.2% (New)
🌳 CON: 3.2% (-5.0)
🔶 LDM: 2.7% (+0.3)
North East (Glasgow) Council By-Election Result [1st Prefs]:
🌹 LAB: 34.3% (-9.7)
🎗️ SNP: 32.2% (-10.4)
➡️ RFM: 18.3% (New)
🌳 CON: 5.4% (-3.3)
🌍 GRN: 4.2% (+1.2)
🧑🔧 TUSC: 3.7% (+2.5)
🔶 LDM: 2.0% (New)
Labour HOLD - Elected Stage 7.
Changes w/ 2022.
Clearly there are lots of flows and counterflows. But those figures only really make sense if there's a hefty SNP to Reform shift.
Which will be a problem for the SNP given how damaged they currently are and the time left before the next election.
However, Farage remains their star and he's aging. He probably has one more general election in him and they don't yet have a successor who can fill his brown-collared coat. That said, with no charisma on offer elsewhere, Reform will remain in the mix. There'll continue to be much to complain about and 'make it all stop' will remain a potent cry, however ineffective as a solution.
As a country we are pretty sick. We stopped investing - in skills, infrastructure or production capacity. We've got jobs which don't pay the bills AND need public subsidy. We've got a public sector which burns every greater amount of cash to suffer every deeper cuts in front line provision due to a chronic lack of cash.
You all know my position on much of this - we need to free capitalism so that we can return to borrow / invest / receive ROI / reinvest. Our problem is that we are Moonbase Alpha - blown adrift of the EU (sabotage), left to wander about in open space as the world seeks stability through alliances and blocks. Why invest on Moonbase Britain when there are better connected better invested economies out there? Ones who know their place in the world and where they will be in 10 years?
Starmer's opportunity was to do a Trump: Big Mandate, Big Ideas (the 5 missions), go big and bold out of the blocks before the opposition have time to do anything other than gibber. And (to quote Alastair Campbell) he's fucked it. We need to do an alignment deal with the EEA and quickly, another with NATO to lead the European-led block investing in defence, and a settlement with the various public sector rows so that cash is conditional on reform (deal now or be broken tomorrow). Do the big framework mission stuff now and then fit the retail politics into that.
An issue that is especially true for Reform, as it is literally owned by Farage. And all the booze and fags will not have been kind to his longevity.
Maryhill apart, there is a very modest swing from SNP->Slab, from the 34%-22& shares in 2022.
EDIT: on a 12% -19% turnout(!) most of of it could be former Tory.
BUT.........................
I change money from £s to euros four or five times a year. Usually £10,000 a time. I do it irrespective of the exchange rate that day. Today I've got the best rate for over 15 years.
Does that tell us anything about the economy?
Truly a magic money tree!
More seriously, the issue is that trade imbalances are caused by differences in household savings rates and consequent cross border capital flows. The more the US government attempts to shake up the international order, the more the US dollar becomes the safe haven currency, and the more money flows into the US.
This in turn causes trade deficits.
Basically, if you want to get rid of the US trade deficit, then you need to stop the US sucking up the world's savings. (And to do that, you need to make the US less attractive to invest in; or other places more attractive. One way to make the US less attractive is for US citizens to start doing the saving, driving down returns for foreigners.)
FWIW, a 10% across the board tariff would have a (smally) positive impact on the US trade deficit, because it would effectively act as a sales tax, and would therefore depress US consumption.
The real trick, though, is to get Germany and China to consume more. The problem is that the more the US government saber rattles, the more cautious and conservative people outside the US get, and the more they reduce spending. Which in turn leads to a stronger US dollar, and a bigger US trade deficit.
Also, are you sure about the 15 years part?
Labour may be trying its best to trash the UK economy, but we're still looking brighter than Western Europe.
The consequence of this model is that we have some of the most expensive child care in the world. We make it impossible to run a nursing home profitably at a rate that is even close to what the Councils can afford to pay. We significantly add to the cost of our energy supplies and the provision of financial services.
We simply cannot afford this anymore. We need to deregulate and to leave regulators a very pale shadow of their current form intervening in only the most extreme cases. We need to reduce the costs of providing basic services to what we can afford to pay for them. We absolutely need to get out of the mindset of adding yet more layers of regulation every time something goes wrong anywhere.
Turnout fell to just 59% in July from 67% in 2019 anyway
It's issue is that an obsession with behaving like a Swabian housewife has meant that the economy is massively over-dependent on external demand, in particular from the US and China.
The solution to Germany's problems is pretty simple, and is more or less the inverse of the solutions to the UK and the US's problems: it needs to implement policies that encourage spending and discourage saving. I would start with implementing mortgage interest tax relief myself - that would get house prices moving, increase the wealth effect, and mean German consumers get their credit cards out.
Aside. On Bluesky. I can confirm that running 2 accounts with the nice "switch between" facility will inevitably lead to posting the wrong thing in the other place
I even managed to switch accounts half way through a thread.
Streeting needs to hope there is not a need for a further election in Ilford North or his political career is over.
Interesting to reflect on turnouts as the story of local Council by-elections since July has been derisory turnouts but the core Conservative vote still turning out.
That vote in and of itself isn't growing but while it's not enough to win elections with 30-40% turnout it is enough when you get down to 15-25% and that's helping the Conservatives in some seats especially when facing the LDs or in other parts of the south.
In 1998, my recollection nationally was turnout in the low 30s. By contrast, in 2021, Surrey had a turnout of 39% in its election.
We also have to factor in Reform and anti-incumbency bias and that won't help the Conservatives who are defending majority control of 18 of the 21 County Councils as well as 7 of the 10 former County authorities which are now Unitaries (Cornwall, Wiltshire and Shropshire being examples).
A simple example - on the road I live on, many people have done a loft conversion. You are not supposed to raise the roofline above the others. I spent some extra money on getting the conversion I wanted without raising the roof line. The cowboy builders do it and the owners simply ignore the legal consequences.
A minor example, but it's part of the pattern. The way buildings being torn down before use, because of obviously defective construction. There will be tons (often literally) of paperwork saying that it's all tickety-boo. But there is no use or truth in any of it. Grenfell was documented and signed off as safe.
We have created an environment where the rule breakers/avoiders have an advantage over the rule followers. Someone who used cladding that wasn't made of firelighters would have had higher costs on the Grenfell job. But would have been underbid.
So the bad drives out the good.
Certainly in Jan 2020 it wasn't obvious what the future held for Labour or how the party system would play out but the voter volatility in 2019 combined with the fact that Brexit still wasn't then done should have made any confident prediction about the next ten years unwise. Johnson's character though: that was very well known and its internal contradictions were always going to bring him down at some point. He lies too much, promises too much and delivers too little besides fancy words.
It's like start ups that perennially lose money for years on the hope that eventually they will a) be big enough they will make money or (if they are doing the equivalent of selling £10 notes for £5) b) figure out a way to be profitable later.
What we don't know is how many candidates they will stand in May and where though we can probably be inituitive about this based on the GE results.
(I feel a need for a Cat or Little Miss picture.)
“Restaurant critic Jay Rayner has accused The Guardian of employing anti-Semites and its editor of lacking the courage to take them on – turning up the heat on the identity crisis gripping the Left-wing news organisation.
“In a message to friends on Facebook, Mr Rayner, who this week quit the paper’s sister Sunday title The Observer after 28 years, launched an excoriating attack on Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor, over her alleged failure to properly address anti-Semitism.”
Telegraph
££
But now Reform have a decent handful of MPs they are a more legitimate presence, adding support more locally (rather than building it locally and then getting MPs) becomes more viable as something supporters would be willing to try.
I never thought she would go on a BBC station.
Still, could be worse. It could be the travel writer.
She said:-
I have sent a letter of complaint this week to the Electoral Commission and Redbridge electoral services outlining serious irregularities on the night of the count on July 5th in Ilford North, raising questions regarding compliance with electoral law and guidance. I have retained Bindmans LLP and specialist King’s Counsel on this issue and have asked the Electoral Commission to examine the activities of Redbridge Council.
https://x.com/LeanneMohamad/status/1859919169002561772
https://www.the-londoner.co.uk/labour-bayo-alaba-evicted-tenant/
Another embarrassing story for Labour, and another with a link to Redbridge.
I doubt anyone else in Labour would be as capable.
Wicked! I is here in da North Ilford Ghetto, hangin' wid me bitches!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207yjrn7r6o
I've been assuming this will pass: is it possible it doesn't?
Shooting oneself in the foot comes to mind
If it does fail, it will be interesting to see how quickly it might come back in a new form - if support is as broad as claimed, I don't buy the idea it will take another 5 years.
Having just looked him up, he's executive of the International Fur Trade federation. Peculiar how lives turn out.
I suppose the difference is that for most of the last two decades I'd MUCH MUCH MUCH rather have their economic problems than ours.
"In the 2023 United Kingdom local elections Oaten stood unsuccessfully for the Liberal Democrats in the Severn Vale Ward of South Gloucestershire Council, receiving 1,435 votes."
That's a poor report, with a number of inaccuracies, and an inane commentary from the London Renters Union, which suggests that it is unacceptable for politicians who are LLs to take part in a Redbridge Council run scheme to provide accommodation for people who are homeless - barking.
He has given almost 12 months notice, and his reason is major refurbishment and sale (TBF his "I am considering refurb or sale" statement is insufficiently clear; the Council would be responsible for that under the scheme, I think.)
Example of Error:
Normally Alaba’s justification for the eviction (selling the property) would fall under the umbrella of a Section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction, a practice Labour is set to ban, with the changes expected to come into force next year. But her rolling “temporary accommodation” tenancy has less protections than a normal tenancy and allows private landlords to evict tenants by just choosing to end their contract with the council rather than having to file a Section 21 notice to the tenant.
The Redbridge scheme requires a normal AST type tenancy, which is a fixed period plus a rolling tenancy afterwards - requiring at least 2 months notice plus the tenants has a right to insist on Court enforcement should they wish, which adds 2-4 months more.
I think the "temporary accommodation" tenancy is a fairy story they have made up from the continuing rolling period of the AST, which is how the law has required these to be done for 3-4 decades. This IS a normal tenancy.
It could potentially be a License to Occupy, which is less secure, but the Redbridge scheme excludes these.
It may be embarrassing, however - depending whether Labour's communications are working before it goes national. They need to get beyond a "whinge later" strategy.