"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.
The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."
AEP - Telegraph
Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.
Nope.
By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.
The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.
I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.
Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
This is the biggest lot of nonsense you will ever read.
"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."
Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Well, that was very much not Starmer’s position in the Commons.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?
Who said it was easy?
I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.
Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.
Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage? Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background? You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?
What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?
It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.
SO, for someone where I live that means per month: Rent 1600 Other bills 400 Food and groceries 800 Kids clothing activities etc 500 Car 250 Personal clothes etc x 2 200 Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?
Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.
Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference
This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.
The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.
Build, build, build.
Then build some more!
It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.
Scene : Malmesbury's Britain
Husband: Disaster! Wife: What? Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box! Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth? Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?
Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.
Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.
I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.
Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.
Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.
Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.
But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.
In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
So basically PR now benefits the Tories and Reform most as well as the Greens with the LDs little changed.
FPTP though massively benefits Labour now
FPTP benefits the winning party, rather than specifically Labour.
Not necessarily. There have been several elections in which the party benefitting was the one in second place - and a gross distortion is quite likely in an election where the vote shares for any of the pairs LibDem and Tory, LibDem and Labour, or Reform and Tory, or Reform and Labour, were very close
It benefit parties with more concentrated support rather than those with broader, but shallower appeal (the opposite of what we should want given only a choice between that or the opposite).
I don't disbelieve you, but I'm surprised by this and struggling to think of any examples (of the primary beneficiary of FPTP being the party with the second-most votes.) Have you got any examples?
I do agree with your other point about concentrated support e.g. Plaid Cymru.
1951 UK general election? Tories second on votes, but win a majority in the Commons.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.
The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."
AEP - Telegraph
Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.
Nope.
By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.
The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
It wouldn't matter if they were better at governing.
"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.
The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."
AEP - Telegraph
Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.
Nope.
By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.
The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.
I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.
Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.
I'm sure they know that too - witness them trying to stop the Ukrainians from hitting Russian refineries.
The conclusion I'd draw is that OPEC countries either preferred to see a Trump Presidency, or have a greater interest in high oil prices. Aren't Saudi Arabia running a huge budget deficit at the moment? Maybe they can't afford to drive the oil price down for a year or two?
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
No-one is defending because no-one is watching.
Quite. I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough. Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
Love Actually, presumably because it's about rich people ? Had it been more accurately titled "Luvvies, Actually", it probably would not have polled quite so high with them.
It depends where it is. Our peer nations each have several economic centres. Britain is uniquely skewed towards London. The last thing Britain needs, however many want it, is more development in the South-East.
If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?
Who said it was easy?
I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.
Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.
Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage? Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background? You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?
What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?
It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.
SO, for someone where I live that means per month: Rent 1600 Other bills 400 Food and groceries 800 Kids clothing activities etc 500 Car 250 Personal clothes etc x 2 200 Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?
Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.
Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference
This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.
The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.
Build, build, build.
Then build some more!
It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.
Scene : Malmesbury's Britain
Husband: Disaster! Wife: What? Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box! Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth? Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?
Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.
Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.
I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.
Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.
Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.
Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.
But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.
In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.
There are more houses being built where there is the greatest demand for houses, but not enough houses anywhere, and so prices still increasing most where there's the greatest demand.
That doesn't seem counterintuitive to me.
The housing market has been so dysfunctional for so long that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
Is it now fair to say that you have four governments that could effectively pull the plug on Putin's regime: China, India, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The first two could stop buying Russian oil, the third could flood the market and the fourth could fully arm Ukraine. But there's the rub. Do you really want to bring down Putin when you have him completely dependent on you?
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”
Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”
I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent
So basically PR now benefits the Tories and Reform most as well as the Greens with the LDs little changed.
FPTP though massively benefits Labour now
FPTP benefits the winning party, rather than specifically Labour.
Not necessarily. There have been several elections in which the party benefitting was the one in second place - and a gross distortion is quite likely in an election where the vote shares for any of the pairs LibDem and Tory, LibDem and Labour, or Reform and Tory, or Reform and Labour, were very close
It benefit parties with more concentrated support rather than those with broader, but shallower appeal (the opposite of what we should want given only a choice between that or the opposite).
I don't disbelieve you, but I'm surprised by this and struggling to think of any examples (of the primary beneficiary of FPTP being the party with the second-most votes.) Have you got any examples?
I do agree with your other point about concentrated support e.g. Plaid Cymru.
At least two GEs of the last century produced a winner, in terms of most seats, that was the second placed party in terms of number of votes. See for example 1951, Tory majority despite Labour winning with its highest ever vote total until then
This is the biggest lot of nonsense you will ever read.
"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."
Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.
I agree that they are overclaiming. They're saying that the only votes that directly affected the outcome are those that ensure the winner got 1 more than the 2nd placed candidate. I think, as you suggest, that the votes for that 2nd placed candidate were determinative too. It's the large number of votes for candidates coming 3rd, 4th etc. that show the problems with FPTP, and these were at at a record high.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
No-one is defending because no-one is watching.
That is a good point Mark. It’s so far away from the election, what’s happening today means little to it. PMQs is boring and pointless this parliament. I don’t think I’ll watch again either.
And the fact all of us watching and all of us not watching, expect Badenoch and possibly Starmer too, won’t be the leaders going into the 2029 election.
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
Just be grateful it is Leon who is predicting it, which should greatly relieve us all.
Age of consent is arbitrary and varies by country shocker. It is tough and extremely hard on him but not sure what the UK govt are expected to do about it beyond making some representation on his behalf, which will sometimes work and sometimes won't.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
I don't think they'll win but they have a good chance of being involved in the formation of the next government as long as they get at least 50 seats which seems possible.
"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.
The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."
AEP - Telegraph
Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.
Nope.
By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.
The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.
I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.
Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.
I'm sure they know that too - witness them trying to stop the Ukrainians from hitting Russian refineries.
The conclusion I'd draw is that OPEC countries either preferred to see a Trump Presidency, or have a greater interest in high oil prices. Aren't Saudi Arabia running a huge budget deficit at the moment? Maybe they can't afford to drive the oil price down for a year or two?
I suspect Bin Salman wants Trump back. You can argue that Biden made a principled stance over Khashoggi but it cost him politically.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
It's fairly normal for people to be critical in the early years of an administration, and moderate their criticism when it comes to a choice. I'm chair of my CLP; I wouldn't describe myself as wildly enthusiastic, but certainly better than the alternatives...
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
"Marcus Fakana, of Tottenham, “feels abandoned by the British government and Keir Starmer”, Detained in Dubai said."
I'm not sure Marcus has a leg to stand on here. He went to another country and broke one of its laws. If he wanted *that* sort of holiday he should have gone to Majorca. It's not as if Arab disapproval of this sort of thing is a secret. We might say the legal boundary for such activities should be 16 rather than 18. But the Emiratis take a different view.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
No-one is defending because no-one is watching.
Quite. I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough. Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.
Spot on Cookie when you mention it’s the strategy.
Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.
She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.
Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.
“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.
Anyhow, I am in correspondence with the ERS and pointed out that there must be a mistake in their modelling. They’ve gone away to look at it.
There is no list system ever devised that could deliver a party nearly 13% of the seats on just over 6% of the vote, so it is only a matter of time before the ERS wonks find whatever drag-and-drop error they have made with their spreadsheet……
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”
Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”
I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent
I'd say about 20% of pb also thinks Labour are doing ok. Contrary to what some people think, on the narrow position of approval or otherwise of the government, pb.com is pretty representative.
This is the biggest lot of nonsense you will ever read.
"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."
Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.
I agree that they are overclaiming. They're saying that the only votes that directly affected the outcome are those that ensure the winner got 1 more than the 2nd placed candidate. I think, as you suggest, that the votes for that 2nd placed candidate were determinative too. It's the large number of votes for candidates coming 3rd, 4th etc. that show the problems with FPTP, and these were at at a record high.
And this "problem" would persist e.g. in a list system where votes for parties which did not get anyone elected via the list would not affect the outcome.
If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?
Who said it was easy?
I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.
Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.
Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage? Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background? You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?
What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?
It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.
SO, for someone where I live that means per month: Rent 1600 Other bills 400 Food and groceries 800 Kids clothing activities etc 500 Car 250 Personal clothes etc x 2 200 Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?
Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.
Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference
This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.
The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.
Build, build, build.
Then build some more!
It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.
Scene : Malmesbury's Britain
Husband: Disaster! Wife: What? Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box! Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth? Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?
Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.
Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.
I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.
Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.
Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.
Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.
But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.
In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.
There are more houses being built where there is the greatest demand for houses, but not enough houses anywhere, and so prices still increasing most where there's the greatest demand.
That doesn't seem counterintuitive to me.
The housing market has been so dysfunctional for so long that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand.
That's true, particularly in Scotland. The underlying issue is that everyone wants to live in or around Edinburgh.
But it still doesn't explain why house prices are increasing so quickly even where there are more houses being built and the population (and the number of households) is falling. The only area this isn't happening is around Aberdeen.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.
Watching PMs Questions today was stunning, 6 questions from Badenoch on Immigration and played into the Labour and Reform narrative of "it went up under the Tories"etc. Not anything about the Farmers! Either they are so scared of Reform they have to go 100% on Immigration or they have not thought things through. Why not 3 on Immigration and say 3 on the Farming issue which of course the Lib Dems brought up and actually asked for the budget proposal to be scrapped. No doubt someone can advise me, I am baffled. Surely the way to counter Reform is to get back the lost voters who went Labour or Lib Dem and thereby have more than enough support to stop Reform in its tracks. Problem is the more they bang on about immigration the less likely that is to happen.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
Kemi B, like most Conservatives, is still at the "we were right all along, you will all come running back and begging us to be in charge again" bit of the defeat cycle. See the gloating here at every one of Starmer's many pratfalls.
Embodying that is what got KB the job, but it's also why she would struggle, even if she had more political talent than she does.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
I see what you did there "poll position".
Can't we just call the win for her every week because we all hate Starmer?
I'm amused by the notion private sector workers are going to be delighted to vote Labour given recent policies of flinging private sector taxpayers' cash at public sector workers and increasing taxes on the private sector while the public sector gets exempted.
Simple solution take a job in the public sector if you think it's well paid and easy money. I recommend a nursing assistant role on grade 2 (over 7000 vacancies )
It is fun how every 'public sector worker' becomes a nurse. And be glad of the private sector. That's the sole source of wages for the public sector.
Well, 34% of public sector workers are in the NHS, and nurses are the biggest group employed by the NHS, so a lot of public sector workers are nurses. I wondered if they constitute the modal public sector job, but I think they're only the second largest group overall. The commonest public sector worker is a teacher.
But there are plenty of teaching vacancies too, if you think working in the public sector is well paid and easy money.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.
I firmly disagree. Big Nige has sensed a real opportunity of becoming PM - or at least being part of a UK government. You have to remember he is cunning, clever and good at this: raw politics. You might despise him - sometimes I do - but it’s futile to deny that he is a deeply skilled politician. Miles better than Starmer and, sadly, Kemi (so far)
He knows he’s got a chance. But it’s one chance only: the ducks are lining up for 2028. Dismal Labour government, useless and tarnished Tory opposition, very angry voters (particularly angry about migration)
That’s the perfect set-up for Reform
However to seize the opportunity they need serious talent, serious people, serious money - and serious policies. He is getting that done
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
No-one is defending because no-one is watching.
Quite. I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough. Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.
Spot on Cookie when you mention it’s the strategy.
Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.
She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.
Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.
“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Then we come back to the story of the two men running from the marauding bear.
You don't have to outrun the bear, just the other guy. When push comes to shove, Starmer still wins that one.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
The problem she has is that she's clearly terrified of the drip drip drip to Reform, financially as well as bodies.
Let's not forget the Tory Party is broke!
So she goes full on Jenrick Braverman on immigration and basically allows Starmer to eviscerate her on her and Tory record over 14 years.
She should though ignore the one nation rump at her peril.
With Davey taking advantage today and some on the left of the Tory Party actually praising Starmer on the economy, law and order and Environment, it's not inconceivable that some on the centre of the Tory Party with a slim lead over LD or even Labour at last GE could decide they have 4 years to become a genuine LD face and jump shop.
Poor Kemi totally out of her gepth could soon drown on her own mediocrity
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
The 2010-2015 parliament lasted a full term. Theresa went early because she thought she'd win a landslide, Boris for similar reasons and because he needed to get his Brexit deal through parliament. The only one who called an election early in a bad position was Sunak and part of the reason for that was he didn't think he or Tory party could have lasted till November/December (the book Landslide talks about this).
If i read that correctly, that sounds like the Dubai parallel to what happens in the UK when a 16 year old and a still-15 year old have a legover at a party, whether tipsy or not, and the younger one's parents put in a police complaint out of outrage.
In legal definition I think it is sex with a minor.
It may be that mum did not cop how seriously it would be taken.
What has happened in the UK under the mess of laws / hysteria under early New Labour was if the 16 year old was prosecuted (or accepted a police caution) whilst the original version of the laws were in place around sex with minors was that there could be really long-term (effectively lifelong) implications because DBS records would be preserved.
I believe that now if the elder was still under 18, then the cautions are wiped from records at onset of adulthood under reforms to V&B regimes and related laws.
IIRC there were cases around, for example, a drunk youth pinching a policewoman's bottom. That is a serious matter, but an effective lifetime exclusion from caring professions (eg teacher, ambulance driver) was (imo) perhaps excessive as a consequence. But it's the sort of edge case and nuance that gets buried under tabloid outrage driving moral panic.
If this one just got a year in prison, in an ME legal system he may well have got off quite lightly. I'd suggest this may be daughter in shock at the punishment applied in the local legal system compared to her own values, and blaming mum.
If the local legal rules were followed, I don't see anything happening to change it.
Age of consent is arbitrary and varies by country shocker. It is tough and extremely hard on him but not sure what the UK govt are expected to do about it beyond making some representation on his behalf, which will sometimes work and sometimes won't.
The article doesn't go into details just talks about being jailed for a "holiday romance"
That is far more benign than having intimacy with an underage person.
I do not think there is much the govt could, or would, do in that situation aside from basic representations to ensure his treatment is okay while incarcerated.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
May 3rd 2029 is a very long way away, the pollsters questions could mean something very different to voters closer to the day. In the meantime for something now and next couple of years with a General Election focus, “who would make better PM” and “who do you trust with the economy” are the measures to follow - as it would be terrible for Labour to fall behind on those early on. Even when Milliband had big Labour leads, he didn’t on those measurements. Those two are the serious ones to follow, I hope people keep posting them on here.
However, it doesn’t mean we should give up on PB for 3.5 years, because the wonders of PB is all the things we learn and fun we have, because threads struggle to stay on topic and the site rarely discusses politics for long 🤣
"Marcus Fakana, of Tottenham, “feels abandoned by the British government and Keir Starmer”, Detained in Dubai said."
I'm not sure Marcus has a leg to stand on here. He went to another country and broke one of its laws. If he wanted *that* sort of holiday he should have gone to Majorca. It's not as if Arab disapproval of this sort of thing is a secret. We might say the legal boundary for such activities should be 16 rather than 18. But the Emiratis take a different view.
18 isn't even an unusual age of consent. It's that in nearly a dozen US states too.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
All it might take is a slowly growing number of MP defections from the Tories to Reform.
I'm not predicting that will happen, but it's not exactly difficult to see how it might. Such a trend could become self-reinforcing, and beyond a certain point, even loyal Tories would face a choice between voting Reform, and allowing Labour a second term.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
I see what you did there "poll position".
Can't we just call the win for her every week because we all hate Starmer?
I do not hate Starmer at all and please do not suggest I do
I judge him on his ability as a PM and on that he falls short and has in Reeves an inept Chancellor whose path to growth is to damage those who create growth
Indeed the next crisis for Starmer and Reeves is the 2.8% public sector pay award which is likely to be rejected by all the unions, but in truth is as much as the nation can afford and is where pension increases should be and not the triple lock until 2029, it is not affordable
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
The 2010-2015 parliament lasted a full term. Theresa went early because she thought she'd win a landslide, Boris for similar reasons and because he needed to get his Brexit deal through parliament. The only one who called an election early in a bad position was Sunak and part of the reason for that was he didn't think he or Tory party could have lasted till November/December (the book Landslide talks about this).
The 2010-15 parliament doesn’t count as it was under the Fixed Term Act. Go back in history and you’ll see I’m right, generally UK governments go early for a multitude of reasons - there must be some deep psychological law about not risking things “right to the end”
My guess is Starmer will be the same. He’ll find some reason to go early. But it is just a guess. 64.8% chance
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”
Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”
I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent
Moving in polite urban northern middle class circles as I do, most of the time, and consuming broadcast media, I have never really heard much criticism of Labour since the days of John Smith*. It wasn’t really done. It was apparently acceptable to criticise them on the issue of the second Gulf War, but aside from that, you rarely heard anything in potentially politically mixed circles. (My brother-in-law made a rather good and quite subtle joke about Gordon Brown in early 2010 at a family meal, but that’s all I can really remember). I’ve been astonished almost immediately since they came to power at the general election at people’s willingness, indeed keenness to slag them off. Even in the last days of Gordon Brown the last lot didn’t engender this sort of contempt.
Which isn't to say everyone hates them all the time. But they're getting a lot more stick, more openly, than any Labour Party I've ever known in the past.
*On reflection, apart from the peak years of Corbyn. This lot are being slagged off more than Corbyn - but of course Corbyn wasn't in government so not a fair comparison.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Major also went the full five years, so "almost never" is a bit of a stretch. It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.
This is the biggest lot of nonsense you will ever read.
"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."
Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.
I agree that they are overclaiming. They're saying that the only votes that directly affected the outcome are those that ensure the winner got 1 more than the 2nd placed candidate. I think, as you suggest, that the votes for that 2nd placed candidate were determinative too. It's the large number of votes for candidates coming 3rd, 4th etc. that show the problems with FPTP, and these were at at a record high.
And this "problem" would persist e.g. in a list system where votes for parties which did not get anyone elected via the list would not affect the outcome.
The problem would, however, be greatly reduced. If we look at the last list PR election in the UK, the 2019 Euro-elections, about 10.2% of votes were for parties that didn't get anyone elected. (Change UK got 3.3% and no MEPs. UKIP got 3.2%. Various other parties were below 1%.)
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Fed up of waiting for Germany to provide their longer-range missiles, Ukraine has manaufactured - and now used - their even-longer range home made Peklo ("Hell" in Ukrainian) missiles/drones.
Used to hit an oil facility in Bryansk. Which it seems was just a trial run - their range is more than enough to get to Moscow. Sorry, Assad, no rest for the wicked...
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”
Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”
I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent
Moving in polite urban northern middle class circles as I do, most of the time, and consuming broadcast media, I have never really heard much criticism of Labour since the days of John Smith*. It wasn’t really done. It was apparently acceptable to criticise them on the issue of the second Gulf War, but aside from that, you rarely heard anything in potentially politically mixed circles. (My brother-in-law made a rather good and quite subtle joke about Gordon Brown in early 2010 at a family meal, but that’s all I can really remember). I’ve been astonished almost immediately since they came to power at the general election at people’s willingness, indeed keenness to slag them off. Even in the last days of Gordon Brown the last lot didn’t engender this sort of contempt.
Which isn't to say everyone hates them all the time. But they're getting a lot more stick, more openly, than any Labour Party I've ever known in the past.
*On reflection, apart from the peak years of Corbyn. This lot are being slagged off more than Corbyn - but of course Corbyn wasn't in government so not a fair comparison.
That’s properly interesting. And matches my experience (which I thought might be too London-centric and bohemian)
People in general are just more pissed off and politically volatile. You can blame it on social media or you can look at basic facts - incomes have barely budged since 2008, mass migration is changing the country in ways people don’t like, a sequence of governments have been utterly shite. There is no longer any tolerance left
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.
I firmly disagree. Big Nige has sensed a real opportunity of becoming PM - or at least being part of a UK government. You have to remember he is cunning, clever and good at this: raw politics. You might despise him - sometimes I do - but it’s futile to deny that he is a deeply skilled politician. Miles better than Starmer and, sadly, Kemi (so far)
He knows he’s got a chance. But it’s one chance only: the ducks are lining up for 2028. Dismal Labour government, useless and tarnished Tory opposition, very angry voters (particularly angry about migration)
That’s the perfect set-up for Reform
However to seize the opportunity they need serious talent, serious people, serious money - and serious policies. He is getting that done
Yes. I never thought it would be possible but now I'm not so sure. Trump has just shown us that, in certain situations, rather odd politicians can garner votes from people who ordinarily (you would think) wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Maybe Nige can pull off the same trick. Still a scary thought though, as I'm sure Nigel will be a lot less cuddly, in numerous and unexpected ways, the moment he seizes power.
FPT: There are two more "isms" that should have been included in that list, Banfield's "amoral familism" and tribalism. (The latter is the most common, world wide -- in my opinion.)
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
Then we come back to the story of the two men running from the marauding bear.
You don't have to outrun the bear, just the other guy. When push comes to shove, Starmer still wins that one.
In enough constituencies to affect his majority, Starmer has to outrun Farage.
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
I see what you did there "poll position".
Can't we just call the win for her every week because we all hate Starmer?
I do not hate Starmer at all and please do not suggest I do
I judge him on his ability as a PM and on that he falls short and has in Reeves an inept Chancellor whose path to growth is to damage those who create growth
Indeed the next crisis for Starmer and Reeves is the 2.8% public sector pay award which is likely to be rejected by all the unions, but in truth is as much as the nation can afford and is where pension increases should be and not the triple lock until 2029, it is not affordable
Point of information:
It's not an award yet, it's the government sending their recommendation to the pay review bodies. Other organisations, including unions, will do the same. Later on, the pay review body will come to a conclusion, which the government can accept or reject.
A union that wasn't moaning at this stage wouldn't be doing its job, but if the government accepts whatever is recommended, I doubt there will be any strikes.
FPT: There are two more "isms" that should have been included in that list, Banfield's "amoral familism" and tribalism. (The latter is the most common, world wide -- in my opinion.)
Fed up of waiting for Germany to provide their longer-range missiles, Ukraine has manaufactured - and now used - their even-longer range home made Peklo ("Hell" in Ukrainian) missiles/drones.
Used to hit an oil facility in Bryansk. Which it seems was just a trial run - their range is more than enough to get to Moscow. Sorry, Assad, no rest for the wicked...
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.
I firmly disagree. Big Nige has sensed a real opportunity of becoming PM - or at least being part of a UK government. You have to remember he is cunning, clever and good at this: raw politics. You might despise him - sometimes I do - but it’s futile to deny that he is a deeply skilled politician. Miles better than Starmer and, sadly, Kemi (so far)
He knows he’s got a chance. But it’s one chance only: the ducks are lining up for 2028. Dismal Labour government, useless and tarnished Tory opposition, very angry voters (particularly angry about migration)
That’s the perfect set-up for Reform
However to seize the opportunity they need serious talent, serious people, serious money - and serious policies. He is getting that done
Yes. I never thought it would be possible but now I'm not so sure. Trump has just shown us that, in certain situations, rather odd politicians can garner votes from people who ordinarily (you would think) wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Maybe Nige can pull off the same trick. Still a scary thought though, as I'm sure Nigel will be a lot less cuddly, in numerous and unexpected ways, the moment he seizes power.
The US has a very strong two-party system, which helped Trump into power. The UK (increasingly) has a multi-party system. A Republican not keen on Trump will still probably vote Trump. A Tory not keen on Sunak or a Labourite not keen on Starmer is more likely to go Reform UK, LibDem or Green.
So I think Farage faces a different challenge to Trump. Indeed, this is clear in the fact that Farage leads a "minor" party vs. Trump who won the Republican nomination.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.
Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Major also went the full five years, so "almost never" is a bit of a stretch. It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.
Start Date; Dissolution Date; Duration (Years and Days)
"Marcus Fakana, of Tottenham, “feels abandoned by the British government and Keir Starmer”, Detained in Dubai said."
I'm not sure Marcus has a leg to stand on here. He went to another country and broke one of its laws. If he wanted *that* sort of holiday he should have gone to Majorca. It's not as if Arab disapproval of this sort of thing is a secret. We might say the legal boundary for such activities should be 16 rather than 18. But the Emiratis take a different view.
18 isn't even an unusual age of consent. It's that in nearly a dozen US states too.
Technically sex outside heterosexual marriage is illegal in Dubai, even if their police and courts focus on under 18 sex, sex in public and LGBT sex
He's given £15m to various causes, including £8m+ to his own charitable trust.
It looks to me like the Dubai one - not a leg to stand on, depending a little on timing and court determinations around "reckless disposal of assets" or similar.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.
If only Rishi could have let Starmer have a go for six months - THEN called the election...
Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’
Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’
It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
No-one is defending because no-one is watching.
Quite. I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough. Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.
Spot on Cookie when you mention it’s the strategy.
Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.
She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.
Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.
“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.
Let’s see if it even gets a mention on WATO
Which it didn’t. And WATO listeners are only those who are watching.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Major also went the full five years, so "almost never" is a bit of a stretch. It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.
Start Date; Dissolution Date; Duration (Years and Days)
05/07/1945-03/02/1950; 4 years, 210 days
23/02/1950-05/10/1951; 1 year, 225 days
25/10/1951-06/05/1955; 3 years, 194 days
26/05/1955-18/09/1959; 4 years, 114 days
08/10/1959-25/09/1964; 4 years, 353 days
15/10/1964-10/03/1966; 1 year, 146 days
31/03/1966;-29/05/1970; 4 years, 59 days
18/06/1970-08/02/1974; 3 years, 235 days
28/02/1974-20/09/1974; 6 months, 23 days
10/10/1974-08/04/1979; 4 years, 181 days
03/05/1979-13/05/1983; 4 years, 10 days
09/06/1983-18/05/1987; 4 years, 343 days
11/06/1987-16/03/1992; 4 years, 279 days
09/04/1992-08/04/1997; 5 years, 0 days
01/05/1997-14/05/2001; 4 years, 13 days
07/06/2001-11/04/2005; 3 years, 338 days
05/05/2005-12/04/2010; 4 years, 337 days
06/05/2010-30/03/2015; 4 years, 328 days
07/05/2015-03/05/2017; 1 year, 362 days
08/06/11/2017-06/11/2019; 2 years, 151 days
Looking at my own data, if it’s right, and if we define “going the full term” as closer than, say, two months - eight weeks - of the legal maximum term, it looks like only 3 parliaments out of 21 since the war have gone “full term”. 2010 doesn’t count coz of the FTPA
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.
If only Rishi could have let Starmer have a go for six months - THEN called the election...
No.
This isn’t a question of “I had the choice between the meat and the fish; I chose the meat and now wish I had chosen the fish”.
At worst, it’s “the fish has been terrible in this place for years, so I am ordering the meat. Now it’s arrived, I am wondering how much better it is?”
The Health Secretary Statement is making a statement on Puberty Blockers on in the Commons.
An indefinite ban is being imposed.
'These should never have been used until after enough evidence being available' sounds like a potential large incoming compensation bill, if the NHS or NHS staff were involved.
Clear sign that the Markets see UK as stable under a Labour Government with credible fiscal and economic plans over the next 5 to 10 years and a large majority.
Contrast with fragility In France and Germany and the post Truss meltdown.
The fact Starmer seeks cooperation not conflict with EU on all major Global issues noted with positivity and confidence too.
The millions from the UK travelling to the Ski slopes and South European beaches in the coming weeks have plenty to thank Starmer and Reeves for.
The Health Secretary Statement is making a statement on Puberty Blockers on in the Commons.
An indefinite ban is being imposed.
'These should never have been used until after enough evidence being available' sounds like a potential large incoming compensation bill, if the NHS or NHS staff were involved.
I'd be interested to know how they'd manage a double-blind trial to establish 'evidence'.
The Health Secretary Statement is making a statement on Puberty Blockers on in the Commons.
An indefinite ban is being imposed.
'These should never have been used until after enough evidence being available' sounds like a potential large incoming compensation bill, if the NHS or NHS staff were involved.
The massed waves of regretful detransitioners we were promised by the GCs don’t seem to have appeared, despite multiple law firms trolling for clients in the press. A small number of cases seems probable though?
(To put numbers on these: IIRC the press was claimed that there were 1000s of regretful post teenage detransitioners out there. So far there seem to be 10s, maybe? Happy to be proven wrong, as usual.)
Given the comment above, I’ve gone and watched today’s PMQs.
I think Kemi’s problem is going to be that, even on her points where she might have a case, she doesn’t come across very well. In a debate there’s no good scoring a point on the facts, if you do so in a way that doesn’t impress the audience.
When it comes to campaigning out in the country, that’s going to be a serious handicap.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
Indeed so
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.
I firmly disagree. Big Nige has sensed a real opportunity of becoming PM - or at least being part of a UK government. You have to remember he is cunning, clever and good at this: raw politics. You might despise him - sometimes I do - but it’s futile to deny that he is a deeply skilled politician. Miles better than Starmer and, sadly, Kemi (so far)
He knows he’s got a chance. But it’s one chance only: the ducks are lining up for 2028. Dismal Labour government, useless and tarnished Tory opposition, very angry voters (particularly angry about migration)
That’s the perfect set-up for Reform
However to seize the opportunity they need serious talent, serious people, serious money - and serious policies. He is getting that done
Yes. I never thought it would be possible but now I'm not so sure. Trump has just shown us that, in certain situations, rather odd politicians can garner votes from people who ordinarily (you would think) wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Maybe Nige can pull off the same trick. Still a scary thought though, as I'm sure Nigel will be a lot less cuddly, in numerous and unexpected ways, the moment he seizes power.
Perhaps the only cure for right wing populism is to sully them with government.
Interesting article by John Redwood on how to grow the economy. Tip to Rachel: learn from Joe Biden. Not sure what to make of the Vulcan. Obviously bright but possessed of a tin ear.
"It is a pity Rachel Reeve did not look across the Atlantic, to a Democratic president much to her liking, and copy some of his better ideas. During his four years in office Joe Biden allowed more oil and gas drilling – on top of the 50 per cent increase under Donald Trump – permitting more cheaper energy to be made available to American business.
"He had a strong onshoring policy for more industrial investment, again building on Trump’s successful push for more home-based industry. Like his predecessor, Biden used tariffs and bans against China where he thought they were competing unfairly or undermining American national security interests."
I have said the same about Biden's aggressive economic policies - which also included getting biddable countries to increase Corporation Tax. Oddly, PB's Biden defenders (of which there are many) take the rather dickless stance that that's OK for the gaffer but we shouldn't do the same in case we offend someone. Or something.
Given the comment above, I’ve gone and watched today’s PMQs.
I think Kemi’s problem is going to be that, even on her points where she might have a case, she doesn’t come across very well. In a debate there’s no good scoring a point on the facts, if you do so in a way that doesn’t impress the audience.
When it comes to campaigning out in the country, that’s going to be a serious handicap.
I’ve got a feeling the Tories will bin her. It’s a shame. I like her. I wished her well. But the early signs aren’t great. She’s got maybe 18-20 months to shape up
One advantage the Tories have is that everyone knows they are brutal with leaders. It won’t be a shock or particularly damaging if they defenestrate Kemi
Fed up of waiting for Germany to provide their longer-range missiles, Ukraine has manaufactured - and now used - their even-longer range home made Peklo ("Hell" in Ukrainian) missiles/drones.
Used to hit an oil facility in Bryansk. Which it seems was just a trial run - their range is more than enough to get to Moscow. Sorry, Assad, no rest for the wicked...
Comments
There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.
But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.
The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.
She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?
And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.
His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.
He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.
"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."
Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.
And that's before the migration issue comes into play.
However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.
In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.
And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.
Labour voters' favourite Christmas film is Elf.
Tory: Love Actually.
Green: Muppet Christmas Carol.
Reform: Scrooged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9Kc9Wz_z8&t=1690s
I still have no desire to see it.
The conclusion I'd draw is that OPEC countries either preferred to see a Trump Presidency, or have a greater interest in high oil prices. Aren't Saudi Arabia running a huge budget deficit at the moment? Maybe they can't afford to drive the oil price down for a year or two?
I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough.
Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.
If she does this, actually does it rather than just spouting about it, then good.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/rayner-will-clear-green-belt-area-the-size-of-surrey-for-homes/ar-AA1vF1oe?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=d21d8dafd1e448ae8ff2c9ae711fd5b2&ei=18
Had it been more accurately titled "Luvvies, Actually", it probably would not have polled quite so high with them.
US gives $20bn to Ukraine funded by seized Russian assets
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c047zrzr2xro
Must be more to this than meets the eye.
The girl's mother made a complaint and that was that for the young lad.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/londoner-18-sentenced-to-a-year-in-dubai-prison-over-holiday-romance-with-17-year-old-girl/ar-AA1vEWVR?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=2b1db61995894b42d7510ef35d01fa81&ei=12
That doesn't seem counterintuitive to me.
The housing market has been so dysfunctional for so long that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand.
She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want
Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”
I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent
And the fact all of us watching and all of us not watching, expect Badenoch and possibly Starmer too, won’t be the leaders going into the 2029 election.
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028
However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”
I'm not sure Marcus has a leg to stand on here. He went to another country and broke one of its laws. If he wanted *that* sort of holiday he should have gone to Majorca. It's not as if Arab disapproval of this sort of thing is a secret.
We might say the legal boundary for such activities should be 16 rather than 18. But the Emiratis take a different view.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/dale-vince-green-tycoon-labour-millions-divorce-payout-ex/ (£££)
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.
She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.
Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.
“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.
There is no list system ever devised that could deliver a party nearly 13% of the seats on just over 6% of the vote, so it is only a matter of time before the ERS wonks find whatever drag-and-drop error they have made with their spreadsheet……
But it still doesn't explain why house prices are increasing so quickly even where there are more houses being built and the population (and the number of households) is falling. The only area this isn't happening is around Aberdeen.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
No doubt someone can advise me, I am baffled. Surely the way to counter Reform is to get back the lost voters who went Labour or Lib Dem and thereby have more than enough support to stop Reform in its tracks. Problem is the more they bang on about immigration the less likely that is to happen.
Embodying that is what got KB the job, but it's also why she would struggle, even if she had more political talent than she does.
Can't we just call the win for her every week because we all hate Starmer?
But there are plenty of teaching vacancies too, if you think working in the public sector is well paid and easy money.
He knows he’s got a chance. But it’s one chance only: the ducks are lining up for 2028. Dismal Labour government, useless and tarnished Tory opposition, very angry voters (particularly angry about migration)
That’s the perfect set-up for Reform
However to seize the opportunity they need serious talent, serious people, serious money - and serious policies. He is getting that done
You don't have to outrun the bear, just the other guy. When push comes to shove, Starmer still wins that one.
Let's not forget the Tory Party is broke!
So she goes full on Jenrick Braverman on immigration and basically allows Starmer to eviscerate her on her and Tory record over 14 years.
She should though ignore the one nation rump at her peril.
With Davey taking advantage today and some on the left of the Tory Party actually praising Starmer on the economy, law and order and Environment, it's not inconceivable that some on the centre of the Tory Party with a slim lead over LD or even Labour at last GE could decide they have 4 years to become a genuine LD face and jump shop.
Poor Kemi totally out of her gepth could soon drown on her own mediocrity
The only one who called an election early in a bad position was Sunak and part of the reason for that was he didn't think he or Tory party could have lasted till November/December (the book Landslide talks about this).
In legal definition I think it is sex with a minor.
It may be that mum did not cop how seriously it would be taken.
What has happened in the UK under the mess of laws / hysteria under early New Labour was if the 16 year old was prosecuted (or accepted a police caution) whilst the original version of the laws were in place around sex with minors was that there could be really long-term (effectively lifelong) implications because DBS records would be preserved.
I believe that now if the elder was still under 18, then the cautions are wiped from records at onset of adulthood under reforms to V&B regimes and related laws.
IIRC there were cases around, for example, a drunk youth pinching a policewoman's bottom. That is a serious matter, but an effective lifetime exclusion from caring professions (eg teacher, ambulance driver) was (imo) perhaps excessive as a consequence. But it's the sort of edge case and nuance that gets buried under tabloid outrage driving moral panic.
If this one just got a year in prison, in an ME legal system he may well have got off quite lightly. I'd suggest this may be daughter in shock at the punishment applied in the local legal system compared to her own values, and blaming mum.
If the local legal rules were followed, I don't see anything happening to change it.
That is far more benign than having intimacy with an underage person.
I do not think there is much the govt could, or would, do in that situation aside from basic representations to ensure his treatment is okay while incarcerated.
However, it doesn’t mean we should give up on PB for 3.5 years, because the wonders of PB is all the things we learn and fun we have, because threads struggle to stay on topic and the site rarely discusses politics for long 🤣
I'm not predicting that will happen, but it's not exactly difficult to see how it might. Such a trend could become self-reinforcing, and beyond a certain point, even loyal Tories would face a choice between voting Reform, and allowing Labour a second term.
I judge him on his ability as a PM and on that he falls short and has in Reeves an inept Chancellor whose path to growth is to damage those who create growth
Indeed the next crisis for Starmer and Reeves is the 2.8% public sector pay award which is likely to be rejected by all the unions, but in truth is as much as the nation can afford and is where pension increases should be and not the triple lock until 2029, it is not affordable
My guess is Starmer will be the same. He’ll find some reason to go early. But it is just a guess. 64.8% chance
Which isn't to say everyone hates them all the time. But they're getting a lot more stick, more openly, than any Labour Party I've ever known in the past.
*On reflection, apart from the peak years of Corbyn. This lot are being slagged off more than Corbyn - but of course Corbyn wasn't in government so not a fair comparison.
It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.
Used to hit an oil facility in Bryansk. Which it seems was just a trial run - their range is more than enough to get to Moscow. Sorry, Assad, no rest for the wicked...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRvv1PHM3qw
People in general are just more pissed off and politically volatile. You can blame it on social media or you can look at basic facts - incomes have barely budged since 2008, mass migration is changing the country in ways people don’t like, a sequence of governments have been utterly shite. There is no longer any tolerance left
Hmmm....
It's not an award yet, it's the government sending their recommendation to the pay review bodies. Other organisations, including unions, will do the same. Later on, the pay review body will come to a conclusion, which the government can accept or reject.
A union that wasn't moaning at this stage wouldn't be doing its job, but if the government accepts whatever is recommended, I doubt there will be any strikes.
So I think Farage faces a different challenge to Trump. Indeed, this is clear in the fact that Farage leads a "minor" party vs. Trump who won the Republican nomination.
05/07/1945-03/02/1950; 4 years, 210 days
23/02/1950-05/10/1951; 1 year, 225 days
25/10/1951-06/05/1955; 3 years, 194 days
26/05/1955-18/09/1959; 4 years, 114 days
08/10/1959-25/09/1964; 4 years, 353 days
15/10/1964-10/03/1966; 1 year, 146 days
31/03/1966;-29/05/1970; 4 years, 59 days
18/06/1970-08/02/1974; 3 years, 235 days
28/02/1974-20/09/1974; 6 months, 23 days
10/10/1974-08/04/1979; 4 years, 181 days
03/05/1979-13/05/1983; 4 years, 10 days
09/06/1983-18/05/1987; 4 years, 343 days
11/06/1987-16/03/1992; 4 years, 279 days
09/04/1992-08/04/1997; 5 years, 0 days
01/05/1997-14/05/2001; 4 years, 13 days
07/06/2001-11/04/2005; 3 years, 338 days
05/05/2005-12/04/2010; 4 years, 337 days
06/05/2010-30/03/2015; 4 years, 328 days
07/05/2015-03/05/2017; 1 year, 362 days
08/06/11/2017-06/11/2019; 2 years, 151 days
It looks to me like the Dubai one - not a leg to stand on, depending a little on timing and court determinations around "reckless disposal of assets" or similar.
Full piece: https://archive.is/20241211122726/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/dale-vince-green-tycoon-labour-millions-divorce-payout-ex/
This isn’t a question of “I had the choice between the meat and the fish; I chose the meat and now wish I had chosen the fish”.
At worst, it’s “the fish has been terrible in this place for years, so I am ordering the meat. Now it’s arrived, I am wondering how much better it is?”
An indefinite ban is being imposed.
'These should never have been used until after enough evidence being available' sounds like a potential large incoming compensation bill, if the NHS or NHS staff were involved.
Clear sign that the Markets see UK as stable under a Labour Government with credible fiscal and economic plans over the next 5 to 10 years and a large majority.
Contrast with fragility In France and Germany and the post Truss meltdown.
The fact Starmer seeks cooperation not conflict with EU on all major Global issues noted with positivity and confidence too.
The millions from the UK travelling to the Ski slopes and South European beaches in the coming weeks have plenty to thank Starmer and Reeves for.
Just asking...
(To put numbers on these: IIRC the press was claimed that there were 1000s of regretful post teenage detransitioners out there. So far there seem to be 10s, maybe? Happy to be proven wrong, as usual.)
I think Kemi’s problem is going to be that, even on her points where she might have a case, she doesn’t come across very well. In a debate there’s no good scoring a point on the facts, if you do so in a way that doesn’t impress the audience.
When it comes to campaigning out in the country, that’s going to be a serious handicap.
One advantage the Tories have is that everyone knows they are brutal with leaders. It won’t be a shock or particularly damaging if they defenestrate Kemi