The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
This bloke is on the wrong list. However, if true there is something enlightening about it (crops up most years, and it's always a vicar) as he is in deep deep trouble for noting the probable non-existence of Santa Claus - he will have been doing a Bayesian analysis I should think - but he was addressing a post graduate seminar of 10-11 year olds.
Can anyone confirm there really are 10-11 year olds who haven't worked this out?
I think the break point is when kids go to senior school. At infant/Junior school there is a general acceptance that no one mentions the reality even if there is a nod and a wink amongst the oldest children. Once they are going up to senior school the aim is to ensure that, even if they are still pretending to believe, they don't expose themselves to ridicule or a hard landing from the bigger kids.
But the bottom line is the vicar was being a complete arse. Particularly for someone who believes in another non existent mythical being.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Portsmouth said: “We understand that the vicar of St Faith’s, Lee-on-the-Solent, the Rev Paul Chamberlain, was leading an RE lesson for 10- and 11-year-olds at Lee-on-Solent junior school.
“After talking about the nativity story from the Bible, he made some comments about the existence of Father Christmas.
“Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgment, and he should not have done so. He apologised unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.
“The school and diocese have worked together to address this issue, and the headteacher has now written to parents a second time, sending them Paul’s apology.”
God is real of course, as is Santa
I reckon the Rev Chamberlain should have kept his head well down. Probably made things worse now.
Santa Claus of course originated in name from Christian Bishop St Nicholas, he was an idiot and correctly apologised
St Nicholas was an idiot? Sorry I'm confused here.
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
This bloke is on the wrong list. However, if true there is something enlightening about it (crops up most years, and it's always a vicar) as he is in deep deep trouble for noting the probable non-existence of Santa Claus - he will have been doing a Bayesian analysis I should think - but he was addressing a post graduate seminar of 10-11 year olds.
Can anyone confirm there really are 10-11 year olds who haven't worked this out?
I think the break point is when kids go to senior school. At infant/Junior school there is a general acceptance that no one mentions the reality even if there is a nod and a wink amongst the oldest children. Once they are going up to senior school the aim is to ensure that, even if they are still pretending to believe, they don't expose themselves to ridicule or a hard landing from the bigger kids.
But the bottom line is the vicar was being a complete arse. Particularly for someone who believes in another non existent mythical being.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Portsmouth said: “We understand that the vicar of St Faith’s, Lee-on-the-Solent, the Rev Paul Chamberlain, was leading an RE lesson for 10- and 11-year-olds at Lee-on-Solent junior school.
“After talking about the nativity story from the Bible, he made some comments about the existence of Father Christmas.
“Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgment, and he should not have done so. He apologised unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.
“The school and diocese have worked together to address this issue, and the headteacher has now written to parents a second time, sending them Paul’s apology.”
God is real of course, as is Santa
I reckon the Rev Chamberlain should have kept his head well down. Probably made things worse now.
Santa Claus of course originated in name from Christian Bishop St Nicholas, he was an idiot and correctly apologised
With impeccable logic, my 4 year-old nephew told me earlier today that Santa Claus doesn't exist because he hasn't given my nephew any presents yet!
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
Telling in a way they just don’t understand. They look at the USA and think it’s the world.
I think the tweet is referencing this Pew survey published Jan 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/ so the figures are based on a survey of Americans, not by looking at all users of those platforms. Also, the figures are from before the Xodus. They won’t represent Twitter today.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and LDs and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
Me too, but I'm OK with that. Especially if the car behind will also brake so not going to get rear-ended.
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Bring back Blair!
Ducks.
To lead the Tories?
His gigantic mistake was Iraq. If he were to repent of that he could lead Labour to glory again.
Sadly the two really significant LibDems leaders are no longer with us, but I suspect that if they were to find someone out of the 2024 crop they could really go places.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
Well. There's that. Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
Hollande Sholz Starmer
The last ever mainstream centre-left party leaders to lead their respective countries?
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
That's a great poll for Reform and Con on 55 plays Labour 20. There's no way back for Labour 35 points behind.
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
Me too, but I'm OK with that. Especially if the car behind will also brake so not going to get rear-ended.
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
So the automated braking had to kick in because you were driving too fast.
You *never* drive so fast that you cannot stop in the distance you can see to be clear.
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
Telling in a way they just don’t understand. They look at the USA and think it’s the world.
I think the tweet is referencing this Pew survey published Jan 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/ so the figures are based on a survey of Americans, not by looking at all users of those platforms. Also, the figures are from before the Xodus. They won’t represent Twitter today.
Exactly the point. They look at US stats and decide that’s the world.
There are probably similar patterns elsewhere, but who needs to check when you have domestic American facts.
Santa Claus of course originated in name from Christian Bishop St Nicholas, he was an idiot and correctly apologised
I always tell chíldren that Santa was real, but has been dead for about 1700 years, and all the Santas you see now are like historical reenactments; not necessarily particularly accurate ones.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
If Reform get to 30% then it’ll be a lot more 1981-like.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
That's a great poll for Reform and Con on 55 plays Labour 20. There's no way back for Labour 35 points behind.
And with the Tories becoming the the party of choice for decent, respectable people, what will be the point of Labour? You'll have to vote either Tory or Reform if you want your vote to matter.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
If Reform get to 30% then it’ll be a lot more 1981-like.
Ref 30% Lab: 25% Con: 15%
I don't think so. Look at the council elections. It's the Labour vote that is moving en masse to Reform with the Tories taking a much smaller hit.
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
Me too, but I'm OK with that. Especially if the car behind will also brake so not going to get rear-ended.
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
So the automated braking had to kick in because you were driving too fast.
You *never* drive so fast that you cannot stop in the distance you can see to be clear.
I'd have almost certainly stopped still even without the automated braking kicking in first, but I still appreciated it as being helpful.
And on the motorway when the traffic is flowing at 70mph it is generally OK to believe the road ahead of you is not completely stationary, without any prior warning. Nobody else slowed down on the hill before rounding the top of it either.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
That's a great poll for Reform and Con on 55 plays Labour 20. There's no way back for Labour 35 points behind.
And with the Tories becoming the the party of choice for decent, respectable people, what will be the point of Labour? You'll have to vote either Tory or Reform if you want your vote to matter.
By decent respectable people you mean people who earn more than 100k a year?
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
If Reform get to 30% then it’ll be a lot more 1981-like.
Ref 30% Lab: 25% Con: 15%
If we ended up with figures like that unless we got PR Reform would take over the Tories within a few years and Farage would lead both
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
Well. There's that. Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
I think tory and lab will go into a coalition to protect themselves as being the only ones worth voting for
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
If Reform get to 30% then it’ll be a lot more 1981-like.
Ref 30% Lab: 25% Con: 15%
If they do and keep that up, they might continue further and reach the dizzying heights of the SDP/Alliance's success in 1983.
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
Me too, but I'm OK with that. Especially if the car behind will also brake so not going to get rear-ended.
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
Hollande Sholz Starmer
The last ever mainstream centre-left party leaders to lead their respective countries?
I do wonder.
Albanese too but unlikely, voters are not going to vote en masse for Melenchon or the Greens as the main left of centre alternative to the liberals and right either
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
Hollande Sholz Starmer
The last ever mainstream centre-left party leaders to lead their respective countries?
I do wonder.
Two of them are still in power so that's quite a leap...
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
The Tories should just commit seppuku and hand over all their resources to Reform - money, donors, activists, HQ, data, everything
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynsitic racist bigot and a religous fundamelalist
Yes well you clearly have zero understanding of where the right in the UK is going today, Farage I suspect would be even less to your tastes as leader of the main right of centre party than Kemi is or Rishi was.
Though if I was what you said I would be campaigning to reverse same sex marriage, criminalise abortion again, ban all immigration and deport immigrants and ban women from full time work, none of which I am
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynsitic racist bigot and a religous fundamelalist
Yes well you clearly have zero understanding of where the right in the UK is going today, Farage I suspect would be even less to your tastes as leader of the main right of centre party than Kemi is or Rishi was
You are therefore if claiming to be most tory of tories admitting the tory party is a mysognistic racist bigot party....your posts over the last week show you be to be one and you claim to be the true tory here
You'd probably have to introduce American-style "no jaywalking" rules on British roads to make self-driving cars a sensible proposition, and nobody wants that.
Why?
Auto braking systems (not self driving) - just “step on the brakes if something is on the road” are common and may be mandated for new cars in the near future.
Problem is, they don't work very well. I've had my car brake randomly at things which weren't there in the past.
Me too, but I'm OK with that. Especially if the car behind will also brake so not going to get rear-ended.
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
𝕏 stands out as the most politically balanced social media platform. Unlike many other platforms, 𝕏 has an almost equal split between Democrat (48%) and Republican (47%) news consumers. As you would expect, the data don't align with the "right-wing dominance" narrative projected by traditional media.
Instagram, TikTok and Reddit mainly consumed by Democrats and Facebook and Youtube by Republicans
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
Well. There's that. Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
I think tory and lab will go into a coalition to protect themselves as being the only ones worth voting for
Happened in Ireland. Happened in Germany (and a good chance it will again). No reason why they shouldn't be the template for the UK.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
2001 Hague would ironically be more electable today
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynsitic racist bigot and a religous fundamelalist
Yes well you clearly have zero understanding of where the right in the UK is going today, Farage I suspect would be even less to your tastes as leader of the main right of centre party than Kemi is or Rishi was
You are therefore if claiming to be most tory of tories admitting the tory party is a mysognistic racist bigot party....your posts over the last week show you be to be one and you claim to be the true tory here
You have railed against women working full time instead of having babies in the last couple of weeks
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
Well. There's that. Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
I think tory and lab will go into a coalition to protect themselves as being the only ones worth voting for
Happened in Ireland. Happened in Germany (and a good chance it will again). No reason why they shouldn't be the template for the UK.
To keep out the ex political wing of the IRA and a far right party with some members with neo Nazi links.
Reform are neither of those. Plus Ireland and Germany have PR. PR might make a Tory and Labour coalition just about viable, FPTP would make it political suicide and guarantee a Farage landslide win in the end
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
Well. There's that. Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
I think tory and lab will go into a coalition to protect themselves as being the only ones worth voting for
Happened in Ireland. Happened in Germany (and a good chance it will again). No reason why they shouldn't be the template for the UK.
Precisely they value position and power over fixing the country
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
The Tories should just commit seppuku and hand over all their resources to Reform - money, donors, activists, HQ, data, everything
There comes a time when it is decorous to bow out
No, as while a narrow majority of Tories would go Reform if the Tories ceased to exist, nearly half of Tories would go to the LDs not Reform if the Tories disappeared
I see we’re still predicting an election in 2029 in December 2024.
As it flies by into history could we just note that if Alistair Meeks, formerly of this parish and I would love to see him back, is right in his predictions for 2024 there was a General Election in the UK on Thursday.
Sorry this is random but I wonder if someone might help. Does anyone have experience sending Christmas gifts via post? I'm looking at a John Lewis hamper for a relative. However when filling out all the details it seems to be assuming the delivery is to me. Surely they must be used to people asking for things to be sent to other addresses?
Sorry this is random but I wonder if someone might help. Does anyone have experience sending Christmas gifts via post? I'm looking at a John Lewis hamper for a relative. However when filling out all the details it seems to be assuming the delivery is to me. Surely they must be used to people asking for things to be sent to other addresses?
You can add a different address. Should be able to do it on the order page, otherwise go into your account and address book. You can add it there.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
Put it this way: the internet combined with demographic change is causing Anglosphere politics to converge. At the moment we have multiple parties full of people who are aligned with the Democrats so we need some consolidation.
Sorry this is random but I wonder if someone might help. Does anyone have experience sending Christmas gifts via post? I'm looking at a John Lewis hamper for a relative. However when filling out all the details it seems to be assuming the delivery is to me. Surely they must be used to people asking for things to be sent to other addresses?
You can add a different address. Should be able to do it on the order page, otherwise go into your account and address book. You can add it there.
Thanks. It's just I assumed it would be set up clearly to send to another address. Also I want it to be clear that it's from me rather than my SIL answering the door to receive a mystery gift.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
Sorry this is random but I wonder if someone might help. Does anyone have experience sending Christmas gifts via post? I'm looking at a John Lewis hamper for a relative. However when filling out all the details it seems to be assuming the delivery is to me. Surely they must be used to people asking for things to be sent to other addresses?
We sent a John Lewis hamper as a gift a month ago. It was a bit confusing as it did seem to assume the delivery was for me but we made sure we put the recipient's name and address as the delivery address and it got there ok... delivered by Royal Mail.
Be aware that if the hamper contains alcohol Royal Mail will require ID (driving licence or passport) as proof of age. I suspect that's JLP following the law to the letter, other suppliers might not be so scrupulous.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
Put it this way: the internet combined with demographic change is causing Anglosphere politics to converge. At the moment we have multiple parties full of people who are aligned with the Democrats so we need some consolidation.
What will be the alternative big ticket policies to the UK status quo?
I see we’re getting into alt-right fanfic this evening.
My daughter is playing some very basic carols on the piano upstairs and I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity to plan my next holiday to Orient-are.
On a sort of related point I’ve been down the rabbit hole of looking at airbnbs for 2 adults and an infant in Bethlehem on the 24th December. A surprisingly wide range of availability. There is room at various inns.
Nobody offering the full stable / ox and ass / manger experience though it seems.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
I see we’re getting into alt-right fanfic this evening.
My daughter is playing some very basic carols on the piano upstairs and I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity to plan my next holiday to Orient-are.
On a sort of related point I’ve been down the rabbit hole of looking at airbnbs for 2 adults and an infant in Bethlehem on the 24th December. A surprisingly wide range of availability. There is room at various inns.
Nobody offering the full stable / ox and ass / manger experience though it seems.
Leon could probably point you in the right direction if it's ass experience abroad you're after.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
The Tories should just commit seppuku and hand over all their resources to Reform - money, donors, activists, HQ, data, everything
There comes a time when it is decorous to bow out
They don't need the Tories' donors. They're pretty much richer than the Tories now. It's a bit worrying in the sense of bwing bought. But let's hope they're being bought by businessmen who actually want to make money from the British economy working.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
I faintly remember a party who used to stand for those values. Somewhere in the dim and distant past. Something about 'sound money' or 'running out of other peoples money'. All rings a faint bell.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
They'll need completely new MP's and manifesto then. Nigel and Elon are notorious opponents of international capital on behalf of the workers. I'd say careful what you wish for.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
Do you really think the reason the police aren’t able to respond to burglaries is because they’re busy addressing “non crime hate incidents”? Rather than the fact the police budget has been cut by 20% in real terms since 2010.
I see we’re getting into alt-right fanfic this evening.
My daughter is playing some very basic carols on the piano upstairs and I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity to plan my next holiday to Orient-are.
On a sort of related point I’ve been down the rabbit hole of looking at airbnbs for 2 adults and an infant in Bethlehem on the 24th December. A surprisingly wide range of availability. There is room at various inns.
Nobody offering the full stable / ox and ass / manger experience though it seems.
Leon could probably point you in the right direction if it's ass experience abroad you're after.
“Wrap me in swaddling clothes like one of your French girls”
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
'We're the Labour Party your parents voted for'?
Indeed, and with Elon on their side, they can even offer the white heat of technology as part of their vision of the future.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
After xxx years, HYUFD hasn’t yet accepted that his views aren’t mainstream Conservative views. I doubt he ever will, whereas Big G’s views seem to me to be much closer to traditional mainstream Conservatism.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
I agree completely, but in the context of a UK total political structure, based on social democracy, this aspect is a piece of cultural nonsense rather than foundational policy.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
Reform would be a Nationalist not leftwing party, they aren't proposing to renationalise half of industry or even to tax business and fund public sector workers as much as Labour are.
The LDs and Tories are the main international capital parties
I see we’re getting into alt-right fanfic this evening.
My daughter is playing some very basic carols on the piano upstairs and I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity to plan my next holiday to Orient-are.
On a sort of related point I’ve been down the rabbit hole of looking at airbnbs for 2 adults and an infant in Bethlehem on the 24th December. A surprisingly wide range of availability. There is room at various inns.
Nobody offering the full stable / ox and ass / manger experience though it seems.
I think you'll need to try a different website to find someone offering the full ass experience.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
After xxx years, HYUFD hasn’t yet accepted that his views aren’t mainstream Conservative views. I doubt he ever will, whereas Big G’s views seem to me to be much closer to traditional mainstream Conservatism.
Circa Heath 1970 maybe not now post Thatcher and post Brexit
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
Do you really think the reason the police aren’t able to respond to burglaries is because they’re busy addressing “non crime hate incidents”? Rather than the fact the police budget has been cut by 20% in real terms since 2010.
They’ve gaslit you good and proper.
There are now more FTE police officers than in 2010.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
Do you really think the reason the police aren’t able to respond to burglaries is because they’re busy addressing “non crime hate incidents”? Rather than the fact the police budget has been cut by 20% in real terms since 2010.
They’ve gaslit you good and proper.
But they are spending quite a bit of time on non-crime hate incidents. We are also seeing people jailed for offensive remarks whilst people who've committed very serious crimes are being let out of prison early. The debasement of the Oxford Union, the Prime minister unable to stand up to calls for a new blasphemy law and the entire mainstream media (except GB News) ignoring the latest child grooming convictions in Rotherham. Have you ever wondered if maybe something isn't quite right at the moment?
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
There’s been a swing to the right since the election. But (leaving aside the nationalists of SNP and PC), it’s gone from 53:38 to left of centre then to 47:45 in the latest Techne, which is the best for RefCon in the most recent batch.
The right needs a hell of a lot more than a 6% swing and an equally divided vote between Con and Ref to start thinking about power again.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
I faintly remember a party who used to stand for those values. Somewhere in the dim and distant past. Something about 'sound money' or 'running out of other peoples money'. All rings a faint bell.
Well it has been brought upto date with Reeves increases in taxes, the state, and borrowing budget resulting in jobs and growth destroyed
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
'We're the Labour Party your parents voted for'?
Indeed, and with Elon on their side, they can even offer the white heat of technology as part of their vision of the future.
I was being a bit naughty there. That was a slogan the BNP ran with a few years back. Problem is - a bit of immigrant bashing aside - I'm not seeing the Reform leadership being the workers' friends. Nige has always seemed the most evangelical dog-eat-dog Thatcherite to me and rather stuck in his ways.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
Reform would be a Nationalist not leftwing party, they aren't proposing to renationalise half of industry or even to tax business and fund public sector workers as much as Labour are.
The LDs and Tories are the main international capital parties
Reform seeks the votes of social democrats (who constitute almost the entire UK population) who are also populist nationalists. This along with a policy of paying for a better social democratic state with much less money from the tax payer and running it by magicing into existence a new UK workforce is their USP.
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
There’s been a swing to the right since the election. But (leaving aside the nationalists of SNP and PC), it’s gone from 53:38 to left of centre then to 47:45 in the latest Techne, which is the best for RefCon in the most recent batch.
The right needs a hell of a lot more than a 6% swing and an equally divided vote between Con and Ref to start thinking about power again.
William is clearly making Xmas pud, and has been at the brandy.
I've just made my first batch of cranberry sauce, with whiskey (a fine combo).
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
After xxx years, HYUFD hasn’t yet accepted that his views aren’t mainstream Conservative views. I doubt he ever will, whereas Big G’s views seem to me to be much closer to traditional mainstream Conservatism.
To be honest he is struggling to disguise his admiration for Reform, Farage and Trump, and certainly does not reflect the values of the conservatives I have shared canvassing and electioneering with in the many years ( long before @HYUFD graced our world) I supported the party
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
After xxx years, HYUFD hasn’t yet accepted that his views aren’t mainstream Conservative views. I doubt he ever will, whereas Big G’s views seem to me to be much closer to traditional mainstream Conservatism.
But is traditional mainstream Conservatism current mainstream Conservatism?
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
'We're the Labour Party your parents voted for'?
Indeed, and with Elon on their side, they can even offer the white heat of technology as part of their vision of the future.
I was being a bit naughty there. That was a slogan the BNP ran with a few years back. Problem is - a bit of immigrant bashing aside - I'm not seeing the Reform leadership being the workers' friends. Nige has always seemed the most evangelical dog-eat-dog Thatcherite to me and rather stuck in his ways.
Farage is a more subtle politician than that. This broadcast brings a tear to your eye:
Finding this Tory/Reform duopoly masturbation somewhat bewildering. Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre. Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%. Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Reform will be in effect the left-wing party, representing the interests of British workers versus international capital. Labour can't do it because they are too in love with internationalism.
Reform would be a Nationalist not leftwing party, they aren't proposing to renationalise half of industry or even to tax business and fund public sector workers as much as Labour are.
The LDs and Tories are the main international capital parties
Reform seeks the votes of social democrats (who constitute almost the entire UK population) who are also populist nationalists. This along with a policy of paying for a better social democratic state with much less money from the tax payer and running it by magicing into existence a new UK workforce is their USP.
Yes - Reform the party of the patriot white working class and some small businesses and armed forces rank and file. Labour the party of the public sector, Muslims and most ethnic minorities, the Tories the party of pro Leave international capital and big and medium sized business and accountants and armed forces officers and Jews, the LDs the party of pro Remain international capital, private sector lawyers and pro EU big business and C of E clergy.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leave little room for a centrist to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back as seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again. The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Tories end up the opposition by default to both
Look at the continent for a truer sense of where Labour's floor is once they cease to be seen as a default party of government. They could go down to the low teens.
What is this current hobby horse you have about backing Sunk or Hunt to return us to the glory days of the worst Tory election result in living history? Have you decided the Tories are a busted flush and want to smooth the path for Nige?
If Reform continue to make inroads into the Labour vote, we'll end up quite soon with polls that look something like:
Reform: 30% Conservative: 25% Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
But you are making the assumption that there's no movement in voter preferences - that there will always be a plurality of centrist dads (and mums) in the UK whose votes will be up for grabs due to Labour's cratering. But Labour are cratering precisely because those centrist social democrat policies are proving to be so inadequate in response to the current challenges. Politics is realigning, and Tory 'centrists' like Hague telling us how awful it will be if Trump wins and Rory Stewart with his idiotic 'bet on the American people' look increasingly ridiculous. As Patrick O'Flynn says in a peerless paragraph:
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days." https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
So, where do the voters live if they don't live somewhere close to One Nation Toryland, and centrist social democrat policies are not adequate?
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
In short I would say massively reduced migration and less political correctness.
WRT the totality of the state's political programme and spending etc, that list is quite short. If all it amounts to is we want the system we have had since 1945, but we want it better run, and we want to magic people to work it without bringing them in from somewhere else and we want to stop talking about pronouns and stuff, it isn't very radical.
I'd suggest that the police's focus on non-crime hate incidents whilst being unable to send anyone to respond to burglaries is toxic with the broad majority of voters. The arrogant dismissal of the public's exasperation with current social policy will be the death of the 'centrists'. It's about an awful lot more than pronouns.
I try not to be reactionary, but I really am baffled that any priority of police time was ever given to 'non-crime' incidents of essentially just (mostly) unpleasant speech. It sounds like the kind of thing that would infuriate the public, press, and politicians alike, and the police as well for having to deal with it, yet it seems to be a partisan cultural concern only.
The Tories' best option would be to reappoint Sunak but give up on chasing 2019 Johnson voters/2024 Farage voters and instead let Sunak be Sunak. Failing that, do the same strategy with Hunt or Mordaunt. The implosion of Starmer means that a centrist strategy is much more viable than it was at the tail end of the last Tory government.
Labour already under 30% and LDs still under 15% leaves little room for a centrist Tory leader to squeeze much more from either.
Kemi's best hope is a hung parliament which looks possible, however if she fails to even win enough seats to do a deal with Reform to form a government the Tories best hope might ironically be JRM if he wins back a seat in Somerset as he would be the only Tory leader capable of collapsing the Reform vote again (bar Boris who CCHQ likely block from standing again). The Tories cannot progress further and have a hope of a majority with FPTP until they have done that, then if a Labour and LD minority government next time also unpopular the Conservatives post a Reform squeeze then end up the opposition by default to both
If there is a hung parliament I suspect the most likely coalition is a tory lab one than a tory reform one....tory and labour are two cheeks of the same butt
No, neither would touch the other as Labour voters could defect en masse to the Greens and Tory voters to Reform and the LDs if there was a Tory and Labour grand coalition.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
You might most centrist voters wouldnt...tories and lab and lib dems are centrist parties.....one and the same your party left your attitudes behind a long time ago much as you deny it big g is more current conservative thinking than you are
BigG is more LD than traditional rightwing Conservative
You are more islamic state than tory being a mysogynistic racist bigot and a religous fundamentalist
@HYUFD is at it again because I do not agree with his right wing little Englander ideas
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
After xxx years, HYUFD hasn’t yet accepted that his views aren’t mainstream Conservative views. I doubt he ever will, whereas Big G’s views seem to me to be much closer to traditional mainstream Conservatism.
But is traditional mainstream Conservatism current mainstream Conservatism?
Comments
Sorry I'm confused here.
Reform are not the AfD with former far right links, that is the only reason the CDU and SPD did recent deals for power in Germany
I got my new car just over a year ago (its just had its first service) and just once had the automated braking kick in where I thought it was very useful. Cruising at 70mph on the motorway, went over the top of a hill and with no prior warning, not far ahead at all, the entire traffic was stationary. The automated braking kicked in immediately, I slammed my foot hard on the brake and stopped swiftly. Clever thing too is the hazard lights turned themselves on too then turned themselves off once I'd slowed down.
Sadly the two really significant LibDems leaders are no longer with us, but I suspect that if they were to find someone out of the 2024 crop they could really go places.
Reform: 30%
Conservative: 25%
Labour 20%
That's the way the realignment is heading. The Tories have missed their chance to be the party that Reform are becoming, so their best bet is to embrace being the heirs to Blair again. There is an opportunity to kill off Labour as an electoral force for decades.
Then there's the sheer number of votes Tories and Reform would need to get enough seats to form a coalition.
Sholz
Starmer
The last ever mainstream centre-left party leaders to lead their respective countries?
I do wonder.
You *never* drive so fast that you cannot stop in the distance you can see to be clear.
There are probably similar patterns elsewhere, but who needs to check when you have domestic American facts.
Ref 30%
Lab: 25%
Con: 15%
And on the motorway when the traffic is flowing at 70mph it is generally OK to believe the road ahead of you is not completely stationary, without any prior warning. Nobody else slowed down on the hill before rounding the top of it either.
"Hague is far from being alone among a generation of One Nation Tories who became accustomed to regarding themselves as get-with-the-programme modernisers just as the tide was going out on the progressive paradigm. One could say that George Osborne, Rory Stewart, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve are also among those wandering around an ideological wilderness while claiming it to be the promised land. It’s not where the voters live. Not these days."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/william-hague-donald-trump-and-the-lesson-of-eric-morecambe/
Yes the Tories need to be different from Reform, but urging them to be rats jumping on the sinking ship of centrism looks devious to me.
P.S. First day of trains to Ashington today. Yellow pen merchants out in force.
Don't drive over blind summits at 70 mph.
There comes a time when it is decorous to bow out
Though if I was what you said I would be campaigning to reverse same sex marriage, criminalise abortion again, ban all immigration and deport immigrants and ban women from full time work, none of which I am
https://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/news/north-yorkshire/news/court-results/2024/11-november/north-yorkshire-barrister-jailed-following-fatal-road-traffic-collision/#:~:text=A family law barrister has,causing death by dangerous driving.
No reason why they shouldn't be the template for the UK.
Reform are neither of those. Plus Ireland and Germany have PR. PR might make a Tory and Labour coalition just about viable, FPTP would make it political suicide and guarantee a Farage landslide win in the end
I agree with the implication that this question is central.
However, looking at Reform's offer, along with the others, I conclude this: Voters including Reform voters (though not all Reform theoreticians) want these elements of the post 1945 UK social democratic deal: NATO; the cradle to grave state - education, health, state pensions, safety net; lots of trade with other nations; regulated private enterprise; regulated migration at non damaging levels; opportunity to do well.
That is where voters live.
Reform differs from others in the coherence (but also impossibility) of their migration policy, while the others all flounder in different ways. That aside, what exactly is this new deal the voters want to live in?
93% of SMEs cite delays in securing planning permission as a major barrier to growth.
https://www.hbf.co.uk/news/planning-delays-continue-to-pose-greatest-obstacle-to-uk-home-builders/
My daughter is playing some very basic carols on the piano upstairs and I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity to plan my next holiday to Orient-are.
93% of SMEs can't agree on anything generally, except how problematic the planning system is.
Be aware that if the hamper contains alcohol Royal Mail will require ID (driving licence or passport) as proof of age. I suspect that's JLP following the law to the letter, other suppliers might not be so scrupulous.
They're at home to Crawley Boxing Day.
Nobody offering the full stable / ox and ass / manger experience though it seems.
I am not a Lib Dem and have never voted for them
Indeed I am a one nation conservative and want lower taxes, state and borrowing
Yet to see how there is room for the two dominant Parties to be right of centre.
Who are their potential voters? It would need to be at least 65%.
Unless the Tories become the LD's. But they already exist.
Nigel and Elon are notorious opponents of international capital on behalf of the workers.
I'd say careful what you wish for.
They’ve gaslit you good and proper.
The LDs and Tories are the main international capital parties
With a similar bodycount.
The right needs a hell of a lot more than a 6% swing and an equally divided vote between Con and Ref to start thinking about power again.
At least Labour now own the economy
I've just made my first batch of cranberry sauce, with whiskey (a fine combo).
https://x.com/reformparty_uk/status/1149009483600932864
That is the divide we are heading to