Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
It’s not the Civil Service. It’s the Process State. Time for another header.
Short version - the Civil Service is a small part of (and often a victim) of a larger social structure.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
A more juicy outcome might be REF with enough seats to govern alone or with DUP while Con remain official opposition to Farage government and Labour, SNP and Lib-Dem battle it out for third party status
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
A more juicy outcome might be REF with enough seats to govern alone or with DUP while Con remain official opposition to Farage government and Labour, SNP and Lib-Dem battle it out for third party status
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Only the Fukkers will deliver that.
I hesitate to sit in Hartlepool 'Spoons and argue with Barry but who is going to clean said streets? Or work in the hospitals .
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Well in a speech in America Kemi was tacitly calling for Starmer's head because of his vicious racial attack on her.during his Pinewood snoozefest. (The MacDonalds vicious racial attack).
Starmer's McDonald's comment wasn't racist, but it was also a poor joke, and an insult. Not just to her, but everyone else who works at McDonalds.
His definition of 'work' may cause him issues in the future. He doesn't seem to respect people who do genuinely low-paid work in the private sector.
I’m confused. He said that if you work a few shifts at McDonald’s you don’t become working class.
If I worked a few shifts at McDonald’s, would I become working class?
I don’t think it was a very funny joke but I’m struggling to understand what the issue is here. And at any rate if Badenoch had said what you’d said, she’d have got more traction. But saying it was about racism just undermines her entire supposed belief system. I honestly expected more from her.
just starmer derangement syndrome
Goodness knows I am probably PB's biggest Starmer non-fan, but I think the joke was just a reasonably amusing bit of politics. I have no idea why Kemi has taken it the way she has, and still less idea why Tory supporters are flying into a rage about it.
It is disappointing seeing a big opponent of wokery seek refuge from the big nasty boy by indulging in woke victimhood. Conservatives, even black female ones, are never going to win woke top trumps against Labour - it doesn't work that way. We crush left wing paradigms on our wheels; we don't use them to try and curry some sympathy.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Only the Fukkers will deliver that.
I hesitate to sit in Hartlepool 'Spoons and argue with Barry but who is going to clean said streets? Or work in the hospitals .
Barry
But Barry doesn't want to and besides he's paid in all these years and never taken anything out and of course he deserves the chance to enjoy his early retirement while he's still healthy (continued page 67/68/69...)
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Only the Fukkers will deliver that.
I hesitate to sit in Hartlepool 'Spoons and argue with Barry but who is going to clean said streets? Or work in the hospitals .
Barry
But Barry doesn't want to and besides he's paid in all these years and never taken anything out and of course he deserves the chance to enjoy his early retirement while he's still healthy (continued page 67/68/69...)
Under the UnDicatorship of Malmesbury, Barry will be proud to do the work.
Otherwise he will be proud to do the work of building the Rockall Naval Base (capacity 8 large aircraft carriers). With a teaspoon. A small teaspoon.
On a serious note - the vast majority of such jobs are already done by native UKians. Care home workers are 80%, for example.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Only the Fukkers will deliver that.
I hesitate to sit in Hartlepool 'Spoons and argue with Barry but who is going to clean said streets? Or work in the hospitals .
Barry
But Barry doesn't want to and besides he's paid in all these years and never taken anything out and of course he deserves the chance to enjoy his early retirement while he's still healthy (continued page 67/68/69...)
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
What American experiment to bring in a load of successful outsiders? The qualifications to serve in Trump’s cabinet aren’t success. They’re appearing on Fox News and/or sex crimes.
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
His criticism was hardly criticism at all, it was very mild and measured, a I think we can and should do better...no wonder they thought Dominic Raab was a massive bully for asking them to spell shit correctly.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
Is there also a Santa Cruz de Stepmompox?
“Doctor, I have a… condition. I’ve just been on holiday in Colombia and I got a bit drunk with some girls, they seemed so friendly…”
If immigration came down to say 200,000 a year is that enough to demonstrate progress?
Absolutely not. Barry, 63, from Hartlepool who looks like a shaven pated Eric von Stroheim clad in head to foot Adidas wants net negative immigration and he wants to see and feel the difference on the litter strewn streets of the festering crap hole in which he lives.
Only the Fukkers will deliver that.
I hesitate to sit in Hartlepool 'Spoons and argue with Barry but who is going to clean said streets? Or work in the hospitals .
Barry
But Barry doesn't want to and besides he's paid in all these years and never taken anything out and of course he deserves the chance to enjoy his early retirement while he's still healthy (continued page 67/68/69...)
Under the UnDicatorship of Malmesbury, Barry will be proud to do the work.
Otherwise he will be proud to do the work of building the Rockall Naval Base (capacity 8 large aircraft carriers). With a teaspoon. A small teaspoon.
On a serious note - the vast majority of such jobs are already done by native UKians. Care home workers are 80%, for example.
That would certainly give the Mail an interesting challenge. Support or oppose?
A bit like when separate studies show substance X both causing and curing cancer.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
He isn't going to have to do anything. Bidenomics (massively subsidising US industry, on-shoring manufacturing, forcing everyone else to raise their Corporation Tax) happened at the expense of everyone else, and we didn't respond in kind, we politely aquiesced and ignored it like a Great Aunt's fart. We don't compete with America.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
It’s not the Civil Service. It’s the Process State. Time for another header.
Short version - the Civil Service is a small part of (and often a victim) of a larger social structure.
WHERE IS THE BLOB ARTICLE? WHERE IS THE BLOB ARTICLE? YOU PROMISED ME A BLOB ARTICLE! WHERE IS THE BLOB ARTICLE?
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
If he wants to become more popular, I would recommend actually doing things that make people’s lives better.
Even if it means pain in the short term.
Have a vision. Turn that into a plan. Sell the plan to the electorate. That is how Thatcher kept on winning elections. And Blair as well.
They don't seem to get this at all. Listening to ministers wibbling on about the reset last week, it was all about targets and aspirations. Interviewers tried fairly doggedly to elicit how they intended to get there, and got absolutely nothing in return.
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Well in a speech in America Kemi was tacitly calling for Starmer's head because of his vicious racial attack on her.during his Pinewood snoozefest. (The MacDonalds vicious racial attack).
Starmer's McDonald's comment wasn't racist, but it was also a poor joke, and an insult. Not just to her, but everyone else who works at McDonalds.
His definition of 'work' may cause him issues in the future. He doesn't seem to respect people who do genuinely low-paid work in the private sector.
Starmer's point was the absurd assertion by Badenoch that working a few days in MaccieDs made her working class. What is this ludicrous rekindled British obsession with class? If you follow the "joke" through it doesn't demean anyone but Badenoch. She implies he only made such a "joke" because she is black.
If Badenoch is mortally offended and believes Starmer's comment was racially motivated she had every right to demand his resignation. She is the one who feels racially offended, not you.
As a matter of interest, where does the 'working a few days' in McD's come from?
Reporting has suggested a fortnight. Irrespective of days worked, remember Trump only worked in MaccieDs for five minutes and captured the zeitgeist, it is her assertion that raises an eyebrow The problem was she claimed working in MacDonalds made her working class which is arrant nonsense.
Her most recent point is Starmer is a racist for attacking her personally in any capacity. Entitled white man attacks black lady is her irrefutable point.
So these people who say "a few days" are making stuff up. Why do that, as her comment is so obviously stoopid?
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
Is Trump relatively more popular in the US than Farage is here?
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Well in a speech in America Kemi was tacitly calling for Starmer's head because of his vicious racial attack on her.during his Pinewood snoozefest. (The MacDonalds vicious racial attack).
Starmer's McDonald's comment wasn't racist, but it was also a poor joke, and an insult. Not just to her, but everyone else who works at McDonalds.
His definition of 'work' may cause him issues in the future. He doesn't seem to respect people who do genuinely low-paid work in the private sector.
I’m confused. He said that if you work a few shifts at McDonald’s you don’t become working class.
If I worked a few shifts at McDonald’s, would I become working class?
I don’t think it was a very funny joke but I’m struggling to understand what the issue is here. And at any rate if Badenoch had said what you’d said, she’d have got more traction. But saying it was about racism just undermines her entire supposed belief system. I honestly expected more from her.
just starmer derangement syndrome
Goodness knows I am probably PB's biggest Starmer non-fan, but I think the joke was just a reasonably amusing bit of politics. I have no idea why Kemi has taken it the way she has, and still less idea why Tory supporters are flying into a rage about it.
It is disappointing seeing a big opponent of wokery seek refuge from the big nasty boy by indulging in woke victimhood. Conservatives, even black female ones, are never going to win woke top trumps against Labour - it doesn't work that way. We crush left wing paradigms on our wheels; we don't use them to try and curry some sympathy.
There's also the curiously invisible number of Tories who objected to the essentially identical, but far more brutal attacks on Harris's McDonalds work history.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
In 2029 with better disposable income better housing provision, better NHS, better Transport infrastructure, net migration halved, the seeding of clouds over Calais ensuring permanent force 9 gales in the Channel... Why not
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
Is Trump relatively more popular in the US than Farage is here?
I've no idea, and in a way that's irrelevant, as we don't have a presidential system. We don't - or shouldn't - vote for a PM, in the same way the Yankians vote for a president.
I know there's polling on party leader popularity, but I don't know how recent that is, and also how loose or tight that correlation is with party vote.
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
In 2029 with better disposable income better housing provision, better NHS, better Transport infrastructure, net migration halved, the seeding of clouds over Calais ensuring permanent force 9 gales in the Channel... Why not
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
Given even on the FindOutNow poll last week Farage's party would only win around 90 seats, still well behind Labour and the Tories on between 200-250 seats each, it is hard to see how he would win most seats to enable him to become PM at the moment. For now Farage still looks more like Kingmaker in a hung parliament potentially than actual King
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
He isn't going to have to do anything. Bidenomics (massively subsidising US industry, on-shoring manufacturing, forcing everyone else to raise their Corporation Tax) happened at the expense of everyone else, and we didn't respond in kind, we politely aquiesced and ignored it like a Great Aunt's fart. We don't compete with America.
Biden didn't force us to raise CT; that worked in our favour. Your reflexive anti-Americanism surfacing again.
But you're right it demonstrates our complete lack of industrial strategy. I suppose you'd prefer it if the US just ceded manufacturing completely to China ?
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
IMO she's trying to play tactical not strategic, and purely positional, politics. And she's not very ept.
As I see it, the Cons need to get out of their hall of distorting fairground mirrors - I've no idea how long that will take.
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
What American experiment to bring in a load of successful outsiders? The qualifications to serve in Trump’s cabinet aren’t success. They’re appearing on Fox News and/or sex crimes.
It's certainly an experiment. It just hasn't actually started yet; so far it's just announcements.
Sounds potentially suspicious: "The cause of the explosion is not yet clear, but Dutch police said a car drove away "at very high speed" shortly after, and have appealed for witnesses."
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
So is this Eel Pie Island, Ile de la Cite, or St Helena?
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
No. Where's the race angle? Classist, maybe - 'Tory PM belittles working class jobs'.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
His criticism was hardly criticism at all, it was very mild and measured, a I think we can and should do better...no wonder they thought Dominic Raab was a massive bully for asking them to spell shit correctly.
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
Is Trump relatively more popular in the US than Farage is here?
Negative is almost 50%, but under FPTP, and with the splintered party politics prevailing, that 39% could quite easily be enough, were he to translate it into votes.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
Civil servants should just get on with their job, which is doing what elected government members tell them to do. I'm fed up with hearing their complaints.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
That wouldn't sort the problem, which was that WFA was like rain, in that
The rain it raineth every day Upon the Just and Unjust fella'
There are pensioners who pay Council Tax who didn't need the WFA; we have reasonable incomes and warm homes. There are pensioners who also pay Council Tax but have neither.
A short term solution would be to pay the WFA, but make it taxable. The tax on £250 wouldn't worry me. I realise there are some people.... Mrs C is one .... who are on the borders of paying tax who would notice it.
Oh and the verse ends.... But mostly upon the Just because The Unjust stealth the Just's umbrella!
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
No. Where's the race angle? Classist, maybe - 'Tory PM belittles working class jobs'.
The person saying it is white and the person it is being said about is black. That's enough for some people.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
He isn't going to have to do anything. Bidenomics (massively subsidising US industry, on-shoring manufacturing, forcing everyone else to raise their Corporation Tax) happened at the expense of everyone else, and we didn't respond in kind, we politely aquiesced and ignored it like a Great Aunt's fart. We don't compete with America.
Biden didn't force us to raise CT; that worked in our favour. Your reflexive anti-Americanism surfacing again.
But you're right it demonstrates our complete lack of industrial strategy. I suppose you'd prefer it if the US just ceded manufacturing completely to China ?
Democratic Presidencies since Obama have had a long term and very public campaign to force other nations to raise their Corporation Taxes - this isn't a secret. And in the aftermath of the minibudget, which let's not forget Biden personally condemned, the one policy that the Cabinet Office demanded that Truss reverse, in a letter warning her that the Government would go bust if she did not, was the CT rise, which was a tiny percentage of the cost of the budget (and long term, would probably have resulted in a net benefit). You can be too wilfully blind to join those dots if you wish - I am not.
Civil servants should just get on with their job, which is doing what elected government members tell them to do. I'm fed up with hearing their complaints.
Part of the problem here is that Labour don't seem to have a very clear idea of what they're doing.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
So is this Eel Pie Island, Ile de la Cite, or St Helena?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez:
“Mompox no existe. A veces soñamos con ella, pero no existe.”
“Mompox does not exist. Sometimes we dream of it, but it does not exist.”
I disagree with Gabo. Mompox is a dream that exists, - shimmering on the watery edge of reality, but it exists.
F1: just over an hour until qualifying and Ladbrokes don't have their 'to reach Q3' market up. Was quite interested in the Haas drivers for that, though I suspect the odds would be too tight.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
If the American experiment about to happen, of bringing a load of successful outsiders to shake up the whole system, ends up working, then Starmer is going to have to attempt similar reforms at home to avoid seeing investment flood into the US even more than it does already.
He isn't going to have to do anything. Bidenomics (massively subsidising US industry, on-shoring manufacturing, forcing everyone else to raise their Corporation Tax) happened at the expense of everyone else, and we didn't respond in kind, we politely aquiesced and ignored it like a Great Aunt's fart. We don't compete with America.
Biden didn't force us to raise CT; that worked in our favour. Your reflexive anti-Americanism surfacing again.
But you're right it demonstrates our complete lack of industrial strategy. I suppose you'd prefer it if the US just ceded manufacturing completely to China ?
Democratic Presidencies since Obama have had a long term and very public campaign to force other nations to raise their Corporation Taxes - this isn't a secret. And in the aftermath of the minibudget, which let's not forget Biden personally condemned, the one policy that the Cabinet Office demanded that Truss reverse, in a letter warning her that the Government would go bust if she did not, was the CT rise, which was a tiny percentage of the cost of the budget (and long term, would probably have resulted in a net benefit). You can be too wilfully blind to join those dots if you wish - I am not.
We have, and have had for some time, a higher CT rate than the US.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
So is this Eel Pie Island, Ile de la Cite, or St Helena?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez:
“Mompox no existe. A veces soñamos con ella, pero no existe.”
“Mompox does not exist. Sometimes we dream of it, but it does not exist.”
I disagree with Gabo. Mompox is a dream that exists, - shimmering on the watery edge of reality, but it exists.
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
No. Where's the race angle? Classist, maybe - 'Tory PM belittles working class jobs'.
Maybe she is saying she is being called a coconut. Pretending to be working class = pretending to be black, by doing the sort of job black people (and particularly immigrants) do. But I don't really know.
Protest organisers are now wrapping up proceedings. As they blast Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas, they urge demonstrators to pick up rubbish and not to forget their belongings. The crowd peacefully disperses on this oddly festive note.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
His criticism was hardly criticism at all, it was very mild and measured, a I think we can and should do better...no wonder they thought Dominic Raab was a massive bully for asking them to spell shit correctly.
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
Is Trump relatively more popular in the US than Farage is here?
Negative is almost 50%, but under FPTP, and with the splintered party politics prevailing, that 39% could quite easily be enough, were he to translate it into votes.
So while Farage's net rating would probably not be enough for him to become PM with AV under FPTP or even PR it could be enough to give him most seats or even a majority with the former
Civil servants are furious with Starmer for this attack on them, and feel they’ve kept show on road in difficult circumstances over recent years. “There is a mood that we should pull the plug on him” said one. It is no coincidence therefore that Starmer has just made a statement about how much he loves Whitehall. This feels another unforced error
You know what, the Tories really had a point on the Civil Service.
His criticism was hardly criticism at all, it was very mild and measured, a I think we can and should do better...no wonder they thought Dominic Raab was a massive bully for asking them to spell shit correctly.
I think though that I do accept my own biases in that I don’t really care if the PM is a great orator or is somebody I’d like to go to the pub with. So that puts me at a disadvantage in knowing what many think about him.
I want a competent PM who does the right thing for the country. So far, I'd say Starmer is on the lower side of competent, but he's steadied the boat and is becoming more competent. Until, perhaps, the next snafu. From what we have seen in the past, he is a good administrator.
But that only gets you so far. The country has many problems, and the 'best' solutions will often be hard to sell. Therefore a good PM will be able to sell policies, popular and unpopular. And sadly, that means being a good orator, and thinking they would be nice to meet in person.
That's why the pub test matters. It is why they need to be able to speak well, to convince people that they are correct.
Ideally, we would have a better PM than Starmer, sure. But the logic that saw him win internally in 2020 and nationally in July still holds. There's nobody out there who looks better (sorry, Kemi, sorry, Nigel) and he remains acceptable, under the circumstances.
No-one who looks better to me and you, perhaps. Many other voters feel differently, even about Farage. And no, I cannot see the appeal either.
Is Trump relatively more popular in the US than Farage is here?
Negative is almost 50%, but under FPTP, and with the splintered party politics prevailing, that 39% could quite easily be enough, were he to translate it into votes.
So while Farage's net rating would probably not be enough for him to become PM with AV under FPTP or even PR it could be enough to give him most seats or even a majority with the former
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently too and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right.
Truss was only removed as her budget was unpopular with the voters not just the financial markets.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
Yes, which means the population will vote for big tax rises on the rich and deportation of immigrants claiming welfare and using public services taken to its extreme ie a combination of far left and far right.
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
-The next GE is probably 4 and a half years away. -Starmer considered resigning after the Hartlepool by-election and was more or less written off. Three years later he wins an enormous majority. -If people feel the country is in a better place in 2029 than it is now, Labour win.
I am leaving Santa Cruz de Mompox. The city on the island in the river in the middle of watery nowhere. This makes me sad, not least because when you return to Mompox by water, as I did yesterday, it looks like this
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
Yes, which means the population will vote for big tax rises on the rich and deportation of immigrants claiming welfare and using public services taken to its extreme ie a combination of far left and far right.
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
There aren't enough rich willing to be taxed heavily enough.
There aren't enough poor immigrants willing to be deported.
The financial burden will be shared across everyone.
Which is why you will not be getting your state pension until you are 70.
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
No. Where's the race angle? Classist, maybe - 'Tory PM belittles working class jobs'.
Maybe she is saying she is being called a coconut. Pretending to be working class = pretending to be black, by doing the sort of job black people (and particularly immigrants) do. But I don't really know.
That’s satire apparently. After that court case with that imbecile who had the poster with Tories as coconuts at the bottom of the tree.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
Yes, which means the population will vote for big tax rises on the rich and deportation of immigrants claiming welfare and using public services taken to its extreme ie a combination of far left and far right.
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
Something like that is coming to Europe. Not just harsh migration policies but actual deportations, and en masse
Indeed it is already happening. - Sweden is paying legal migrants to leave and has achieved net emigration. This will be scaled up
An entirely avoidable tragedy caused by a huge, stupid and failed experiment
-The next GE is probably 4 and a half years away. -Starmer considered resigning after the Hartlepool by-election and was more or less written off. Three years later he wins an enormous majority. -If people feel the country is in a better place in 2029 than it is now, Labour win.
Absolutely.
If he weather's the storm of MSM bile over the next 12 months too,in the eyes of key floating voters he'll start to benefit from a combination of useful perceptions.
Strong not weak
Commited to tough it out
Actions not words
Stability
Above all, where are there better options.
He may be a 6 out of 10 but we know what he is
Who else is there?
Badenoch or her successor or successors successor
Farage... No way will enough vote to make him PM... He will be toxic by then even more than now.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
Yes, which means the population will vote for big tax rises on the rich and deportation of immigrants claiming welfare and using public services taken to its extreme ie a combination of far left and far right.
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
Something like that is coming to Europe. Not just harsh migration policies but actual deportations, and en masse
Indeed it is already happening. - Sweden is paying legal migrants to leave and has achieved net emigration. This will be scaled up
An entirely avoidable tragedy caused by a huge, stupid and failed experiment
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
After a term in office, Labour will be down from this year’s 34%; that’s almost a given. So 32% is right at the upper end of credible scores. Nevertheless it is possible that if the rest of the vote is more evenly split between Tories, Reform and LibDems than last time, they could retain their big majority.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
After a term in office, Labour will be down from this year’s 34%; that’s almost a given. So 32% is right at the upper end of credible scores. Nevertheless it is possible that if the rest of the vote is more evenly split between Tories, Reform and LibDems than last time, they could retain their big majority.
Unlikely given most Reform gains since the GE have now come from Labour not the Tories who are already down to their core vote
Whatever one thinks of Starmer's 'joke' (McDonaldsgate/007gate), Badenoch's response to it is just utterly bizarre, particularly: "And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign." Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
I don't think it's racist at all. But that doesn't mean a conservative prime minister wouldn't have been called racist for saying it...
No. Where's the race angle? Classist, maybe - 'Tory PM belittles working class jobs'.
Maybe she is saying she is being called a coconut. Pretending to be working class = pretending to be black, by doing the sort of job black people (and particularly immigrants) do. But I don't really know.
That’s satire apparently. After that court case with that imbecile who had the poster with Tories as coconuts at the bottom of the tree.
Badenoch has foot and mouth disease.
She feels compelled to bite back at any comments by opening her mouth.
That unchecked compulsive excessive disorder invariably means she puts her proverbial foot in it.
Nothing to do with her colour, religion, background, upbringing... She has a behavioural narcissistic personality.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
After a term in office, Labour will be down from this year’s 34%; that’s almost a given. So 32% is right at the upper end of credible scores. Nevertheless it is possible that if the rest of the vote is more evenly split between Tories, Reform and LibDems than last time, they could retain their big majority.
A party implementing LuckyGuy's policies would be lucky to get 10% in the polls. His views are a chasm away from those who voted Labour five months ago.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
After a term in office, Labour will be down from this year’s 34%; that’s almost a given. So 32% is right at the upper end of credible scores. Nevertheless it is possible that if the rest of the vote is more evenly split between Tories, Reform and LibDems than last time, they could retain their big majority.
Unlikely given most Reform gains since the GE have now come from Labour not the Tories who are already down to their core vote
That core vote is elderly and moving to the cemetary at three times the rate of that for the other parties. You seem remarkably relaxed about the prospect of your party - which has dominated British governance for two centuries - becoming just a crutch for Farage and his merry bunch of idiots.
It’s a mad pointless exercise predicting GEs four years out but that’s what we were here for on PB. Mad pointless exercises in prediction. My go is, GE 2028:
Result: a right wing coalition govt with the Tories as JUNIOR partners
Labour 32 Tories 20 Reformation 16 (post Farage) LD 15 Muskovites (new Farage) 10 Green 5 SNP 2
You think THIRTY TWO PERCENT of the electorate are going to schlep to a polling booth to put a cross by LABOUR?
After a term in office, Labour will be down from this year’s 34%; that’s almost a given. So 32% is right at the upper end of credible scores. Nevertheless it is possible that if the rest of the vote is more evenly split between Tories, Reform and LibDems than last time, they could retain their big majority.
Not hard to see the sort of informal LD and Labour carve up again and if the Greens could get rid of the gobshite from Bristol maybe they could realise an electoral pact is their best way to influence.
Swinney too is somewhat positive if dealing with a Labour Government.
At the risk of being proved wrong (any columnist’s worst nightmare), I predict that Starmer’s own personality will not get him to the end of this Parliament.
Then even less likely that Farage or Badenoch are next PM, and they both remain screaming lays
Why? A new leader isn't going to turn things around. They might be less of a toe curling embarrassment, but the damage is largely done.
The bet is next Prime Minister, not Prime Minister after the next election. Thus, if Starmer does not stay to contest the next election, the next Prime Minister will be a Labour MP.
I'd agree that the value in this market is on the Labour MPs.
Three main scenarios from here:
A. Labour continue to struggle, and push Starmer overboard before GE2029. Next PM is red.
B. Starmer stays on and loses in 2029. Next PM isn't red.
C. Starmer wins in 2028/9 and retires to muted appreciation a couple of years after that. Next PM is red.
I know Labour don't ditch leaders like the Conservatives do, but B doesn't seem that likely. (And the numbers sort of reflect that. Nigel or Kemi combined is under 50% chance, even with the mug punters boost.)
About right I think. Within those boundaries, and allowing for black swans, the next PM race is a 50 horse steeplechase in the mud, not a 6 runner 5 furlong on the flat. Whoever is the favourite should be at longish odds - something like 8/1 or longer. The next PM may be someone we have hardly heard of, it is just possible they are not even in the HoC at this moment. (Miliband D would be easily the best Labour candidate though he is now 59).
Of those outside parliament, Andy Burnham is far and away the most likely. He is generally thought to be doing a good job in Greater Manchester, is authentically Northern and has a lot of support. David Miliband has no infrastructure.
Don't you find Burnham to be one of the most annoying politicians anywhere in the UK? Labour need to be looking to the future. I doubt he will get a look in on account of the fact that he is the wrong gender but Darren Jones seems to have Blair's charisma and self assurance but without Blair's dreadful earnestness.
In May of this year Burnham won his 3rd term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, with 63% of the vote and won every constituency within it, so clearly has a lot of support.
I am not suggesting that he would be the best choice, but could step down as Mayor in 2028 at the end of this term and be back in Parliament. He is far and away the most likely successor outside parliament, and being outside of parliament does help him look like a new broom, not tainted by Starmer/Reeves.
His stuff on buses is very good. A public good - so everyone can benefit*, an investment - so boosts growth, and users are primarily from lower income deciles - so improves services for the kind of people Labour cares about most.
It's the kind of policy that brings people together, rather than chopping us up into taxpayers and claimants, public and private sector, white and non-white.
*Including indirectly by reducing congestion for commercial and private drivers
When you have a decent bus service in a sector not served by trains, the users start extending into the middle and upper deciles in urban areas, as is well shown by the Edinburgh commuter runs. They'd be even more reliable if it weren't for cars. I really dislike the idiots who persist in queuing for the bypass slip roads even when it's been announced the bypass is u/s, and blocking the radials for the rest of us.
Bus services require a critical mass of people to allow a frequent enough service that people will use it.
A regular 10 service every 10 minutes and people just turn up and go, anything beyond about 15 minutes results in people having to think about it and passes some potential customers to using their car.
Agree. Any bus service that requires consultation of a timetable is a failure, and missing your bus during commuting times should never leave you more than 10 minutes late for work.
That's why I advocate a big bang approach to buses - none of this piecemeal additional service here and there. Have the bravery to go all in on a fully comprehensive network.
Back when I lived in Wiltshire, a local taxi company owner proposed using Priuses to create a higher frequency - 4 per hour - bus service. On routes that had about 1 bus every 2 hours.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Will we see Reeves ditched at next reshuffle in an attempt to save Starmer. Let her take the blame for the first few months of technocratic nothing and failings?
It's a rough old trade.
But for who? And does that mean ditching policies?
I just can’t see how SKS becomes more popular if he does a U-turn now,
Whoever replaces her - and you are right it is really not obvious who that would be - will have to ditch the cut to WFA on day one. They also need to be far bolder. They have a massive majority - seize this opportunity to finally sort out local gov finance and council tax for example.
My gut feeling with the WFA, is they will tweak it next year or just cancel the cut as you said.
But I have to be honest, I accept it’s not popular but I find it hard to disagree with this policy. I mean, why were so many people getting it?
The mistake was in not getting rid of WFA for everyone.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
An easy, effective, easy to administer option would be a tweak to Council Tax to give every property where bill payer is a pensioner a discount on Council Tax. Could exempt higher level council tax bands
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
So you're suggesting lower council taxes for oldies even though oldies receive proportionally more of the council spending.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
As the population ages, inevitably the pendulum has to swing and non pensioners have to pay proportionately more.
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Everyone needs to contribute:
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich. Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor. Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
And find a political party willing to risk such a platform let alone be able to win many votes with it
It will be imposed by governments or the financial markets.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
No it won't, no government or financial market can impose for long what a majority of the population reject. Italy tried it briefly with a technocrat PM, ended up with a populist right landslide for Meloni.
Macron has tried it recently and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right
The population will get what the population can afford.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
Yes, which means the population will vote for big tax rises on the rich and deportation of immigrants claiming welfare and using public services taken to its extreme ie a combination of far left and far right.
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
Something like that is coming to Europe. Not just harsh migration policies but actual deportations, and en masse
Indeed it is already happening. - Sweden is paying legal migrants to leave and has achieved net emigration. This will be scaled up
An entirely avoidable tragedy caused by a huge, stupid and failed experiment
Plus Trump and Le Pen offering more of the same and Meloni and Salvini similar in Italy, as is Dutton in Australia and the AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain and Farage here and the Freedom Party topped the poll in Austria.
However growing hardline anti immigration sentiment is also counterbalanced by significant support for taxing the rich more and spending more on healthcare and core public services. I suspect the Democrats would have done better with Sanders in November than uber woke rich liberal elitist Harris for example. Corbyn for all his faults got a higher voteshare in 2017 than Starmer did in July and even in 2019 Corbyn polled higher than Starmer is now.
Melenchon too saw his block of leftists surprisingly get most seats in the recent French legislative elections in the second round even though Le Pen's party had won the first round
Comments
Caroline Farrow @CF_Farrow
Chocolate advent calendars for 67p in Sainsbury's. Who wants one?
https://x.com/CF_Farrow/status/1865364006115963288
Short version - the Civil Service is a small part of (and often a victim) of a larger social structure.
Lab/Con 49%
SPLORG 51%.
In the 2019 election Lab/Con were at over 75%. In 2024 over 57%. It is becoming a bit epoch making, and very interesting.
It is disappointing seeing a big opponent of wokery seek refuge from the big nasty boy by indulging in woke victimhood. Conservatives, even black female ones, are never going to win woke top trumps against Labour - it doesn't work that way. We crush left wing paradigms on our wheels; we don't use them to try and curry some sympathy.
By allowing those on pension credit to keep WFA it has reduced savings to miniscule levels (as more will now claim pension credit), created another financial cliff edge, discouraged people saving for their old age and still embittered ten million oldies.
The buses were empty, of course.
His theory was that if you start getting people onto a “bus” it would grow from there. Bigger vehicles at the popular times etc….
His side of it, was that it would subsidise his taxi business.
Rejected out of hand, of course.
Otherwise he will be proud to do the work of building the Rockall Naval Base (capacity 8 large aircraft carriers). With a teaspoon. A small teaspoon.
On a serious note - the vast majority of such jobs are already done by native UKians. Care home workers are 80%, for example.
The actual numbers are Lab 27, Con 25, Reform 21, Lib Dem 11.
Simple implementation
Government then covers Council shortfall with direct payment to Council
Better still administer longer term via Great British Energy who seek to get best rates with selective Energy Suppliers passed on and recommend recommend for all.
“Ah. Stepmompox”
A bit like when separate studies show substance X both causing and curing cancer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/videos/cre77xz485lo
WHERE IS THE BLOB ARTICLE?
YOU PROMISED ME A BLOB ARTICLE!
WHERE IS THE BLOB ARTICLE?
Listening to ministers wibbling on about the reset last week, it was all about targets and aspirations.
Interviewers tried fairly doggedly to elicit how they intended to get there, and got absolutely nothing in return.
If he has a plan, he's not sharing it.
This country suffers from intergenerational inequality and you want to make it worse ?
Tories 20
Reformation 16 (post Farage)
LD 15
Muskovites (new Farage) 10
Green 5
SNP 2
We do need a 30 year national plan to resolve this with cross party support.
If you don't accept this logic you'll need to explain how we fund NHS and Social Care increased funding needed for aging population
Prevention is cheaper and better than cure.
Maybe she really is going for the youth vote.
I know there's polling on party leader popularity, but I don't know how recent that is, and also how loose or tight that correlation is with party vote.
"And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign."
Woke as I am in my awareness of racial injustice etc., I just can't see where she's got the racial angle from. Bizarre.
Taxes need to be increased on property and the rich.
Services need to be cut on oldies and the poor.
Workers need to increase their productivity and have their state pensions delayed.
No exceptions.
Not oldies, not public sector workers, not the poor.
Everyone needs to lose out and to be seen to be losing out.
Your reflexive anti-Americanism surfacing again.
But you're right it demonstrates our complete lack of industrial strategy.
I suppose you'd prefer it if the US just ceded manufacturing completely to China ?
As I see it, the Cons need to get out of their hall of distorting fairground mirrors - I've no idea how long that will take.
It just hasn't actually started yet; so far it's just announcements.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clykk717n1ko
Sounds potentially suspicious: "The cause of the explosion is not yet clear, but Dutch police said a car drove away "at very high speed" shortly after, and have appealed for witnesses."
A surprising 39% have a positive opinion of him.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
Negative is almost 50%, but under FPTP, and with the splintered party politics prevailing, that 39% could quite easily be enough, were he to translate it into votes.
The rain it raineth every day
Upon the Just and Unjust fella'
There are pensioners who pay Council Tax who didn't need the WFA; we have reasonable incomes and warm homes.
There are pensioners who also pay Council Tax but have neither.
A short term solution would be to pay the WFA, but make it taxable. The tax on £250 wouldn't worry me. I realise there are some people.... Mrs C is one .... who are on the borders of paying tax who would notice it.
Oh and the verse ends....
But mostly upon the Just because
The Unjust stealth the Just's umbrella!
Kemi was silly to bring it up though.
Labour 324, Tories 183, LDs 70, Reform 26, SNP 10, Greens 4
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=25&LAB=27&LIB=11&Reform=21&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
"Outgoing EU Commissioner for Justice had his homes raided by police this week and is suspected of laundering about 1 million euros.
He lead the EU's Justice Dept. for past 5 years; was tasked with monitoring law and order in EU countries..."
https://x.com/James7Holland/status/1865045626825609341
“Mompox no existe. A veces soñamos con ella, pero no existe.”
“Mompox does not exist. Sometimes we dream of it, but it does not exist.”
I disagree with Gabo. Mompox is a dream that exists, - shimmering on the watery edge of reality, but it exists.
"Join the dots"...
The numbers in the graphics are the previous data - add the delta to the number in the tweet and they match.
Not enough people grew up playing Countdown Numbers Games.
Protest organisers are now wrapping up proceedings.
As they blast Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas, they urge demonstrators to pick up rubbish and not to forget their belongings.
The crowd peacefully disperses on this oddly festive note.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/former-flight-director-who-reviewed-orion-heat-shield-data-says-there-was-no-dissent/
NASA has declared that the Orion hear shield is safe. They will change the entry profile and the composition slightly.
It is interesting to note that this is the third heat shield design now.
Oh, and the next flight will be manned. Which is also the first flight for the life support system.
But, like Rwanda, it’s been declared safe. So all good.
Some of it is already happening and other parts, for example increasing the state retirement age, will happen soon.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
That is better than Starmer on 26% positive and -27% net and Davey on 19% positive and -13% net.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Keir_Starmer
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Ed_Davey
Badenoch also has a lower positive rating than Farage on 23% but higher net on +2%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Kemi_Badenoch
So while Farage's net rating would probably not be enough for him to become PM with AV under FPTP or even PR it could be enough to give him most seats or even a majority with the former
Macron has tried it recently too and just seen a surge for Melenchon's block on far left and Le Pen's block on far right.
Truss was only removed as her budget was unpopular with the voters not just the financial markets.
When the limits of affordability are reached the only way some can get more is to take it from others.
https://www.ft.com/content/fa9dafe4-7d63-4ef0-970e-5e259feb8778
As overall the average voter is neither rich nor an immigrant
Chart of global deaths per year since 1950.
Two events really stand out…
https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1865101819795366264
-Starmer considered resigning after the Hartlepool by-election and was more or less written off. Three years later he wins an enormous majority.
-If people feel the country is in a better place in 2029 than it is now, Labour win.
There aren't enough poor immigrants willing to be deported.
The financial burden will be shared across everyone.
Which is why you will not be getting your state pension until you are 70.
Indeed it is already happening. - Sweden is paying legal migrants to leave and has achieved net
emigration. This will be scaled up
An entirely avoidable tragedy caused by a huge, stupid and failed experiment
‘He has come out an old man’: joy and grief as loved ones released from Assad prisons
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/07/syria-grief-mingles-with-joy-as-loved-ones-released-from-assad-prisons
If he weather's the storm of MSM bile over the next 12 months too,in the eyes of key floating voters he'll start to benefit from a combination of useful perceptions.
Strong not weak
Commited to tough it out
Actions not words
Stability
Above all, where are there better options.
He may be a 6 out of 10 but we know what he is
Who else is there?
Badenoch or her successor or successors successor
Farage... No way will enough vote to make him PM... He will be toxic by then even more than now.
She feels compelled to bite back at any comments by opening her mouth.
That unchecked compulsive excessive disorder invariably means she puts her proverbial foot in it.
Nothing to do with her colour, religion, background, upbringing... She has a behavioural narcissistic personality.
Elizabeth line staff member dies following assault
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7kkpmr4p0o
Swinney too is somewhat positive if dealing with a Labour Government.
However growing hardline anti immigration sentiment is also counterbalanced by significant support for taxing the rich more and spending more on healthcare and core public services. I suspect the Democrats would have done better with Sanders in November than uber woke rich liberal elitist Harris for example. Corbyn for all his faults got a higher voteshare in 2017 than Starmer did in July and even in 2019 Corbyn polled higher than Starmer is now.
Melenchon too saw his block of leftists surprisingly get most seats in the recent French legislative elections in the second round even though Le Pen's party had won the first round