There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
The Wiki entry on Horden contains, amidst the debris of failure, this piece of absolute poetry:
In 1987, the United Peterlee Panther bus service Was launched between Peterlee And Horden/Horden Hall Estate. It stopped anywhere passengers wanted,
On County Councils, these are the current seats by party - my photo quota. 21 are up for Re-election.
That looks potentially fragile for the Tories.
They are only over 2/3 of seats in Kent, Leics, Lincs, Norfolk, Staffs, Suffolk, Warks.
I'd say the other 12 they control or lead are all under threat, at least potentially.
Finger in the air, I'd say they will lose control in between 6 and 12 looking at the potential numbers and the several routes by which it could happen. A real problem is that they need simultaneous contradictory narratives, in some cases in the same County.
I'd postulate that those with a small Labour contingent where most of the non-Tories are Lib or Green may already be gone.
I make that by inspection East Sussex, Gloucs are probably gone, and possibly Hants, Herts, Surrey, West Sussex. And that is my 6.
By the numbers, which I have not done, I'd say they have problems where LD + Green are above ~25% of seats - as neither party have especially blatant negative factors at present. Except maybe "global warming" and "Palestine" amongst small parts of the Electorate.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
My experience and I think many people’s experience is that this sort of local campaigning does work. It reminds voters you exist. They get the impression that you are doing stuff and working hard.
People at your doorstep aren’t usually there to persuade you to vote differently. They are canvassing, identifying likely voters for targeted messages later, but most of all for get out the vote operations on the day, which really matter when turnout in local elections is so low.
So, yes, it works. Maybe social media blitzes and charismatic candidates also works.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
Nationally the former may work in getting their voteshare up but locally in lower turnout elections leaflets and canvassing are far more effective at identifying your voters and getting them out in council elections. Leaflets and canvassing are also important in by elections and the most marginal seats in general elections need good canvass data to especially if your opponent knows who their supporters are
Does anyone know much about Jiffy Corn Muffins from the USA? A Yankee Doodle friend was saying that these were one of a small list of things he always brings back, because he misses them so.
Having obtained a packet, they seem like a traditional basic sponge cake that I might have with jam or make into butterfly buns. I'd expect to find them featured in Charlie Brown.
Do any of our correspondents from across the pond know anything?
I think americans use them as a savoury side dish. The sugar level is just the standard American savoury food sugar level...
Having grown up on fried drop scones (mildly sweet) for Sunday breakfast with bacon, egg etc. I had a look out of curiosity after the recent discussion of hydrolysed disaccharides on here. Jiffy say 15g of 'sugar' - presumably straight sucrose this time, but it's called 'sweet cornbread' and 15g in 78g of mix seems a lot for British tastes if it is to be a "staple for any pantry, as it compliments any barbecue or chili dish".
I quite like cornbread (corn in the US sense means maize) and it is often served as a savoury side dish, particularly with what Americans call gravy, which is usually a white sauce with bacon added.
I am looking forward to the guilty pleasure of a Crackerbarrel chicken fried steak with cornbread when I go to the USA for a research meeting in the Spring. Once in a blue moon is often enough, but it is a reminder of my youth in Atlanta.
The sugar level is why I compared it to a basic sponge, not an English Muffin (the type that are already cut in 2 with 6 or 8 attachment points round the edge) or other sweet bread.
Does anyone know whether American recipes aimed at the home cook include such high levels of sugar or related sweeteners? Or does the mass-produced stuff not define the expected taste of the product to that extent?
More importantly, the funeral of a Russian major-general took place today.
With no details given about how he died, I’m sure it was just a random heart attack and definitely not one of several Ukranian strikes on military facilities in Russia last week.
On County Councils, these are the current seats by party - my photo quota. 21 are up for Re-election.
That looks potentially fragile for the Tories.
They are only over 2/3 of seats in Kent, Leics, Lincs, Norfolk, Staffs, Suffolk, Warks.
I'd say the other 12 they control or lead are all under threat, at least potentially.
Finger in the air, I'd say they will lose control in between 6 and 12 looking at the potential numbers and the several routes by which it could happen. A real problem is that they need simultaneous contradictory narratives, in some cases in the same County.
Essex is likely to postpone its elections next year and Kent probably follows as both will shift to unitaries and a Mayor most likely, with the first unitary elections then being held in 2026. That would not be great news for Reform as both counties will be far better targets for them than the likes of Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire which likely will hold county elections next year and where the main battle will be Tory v LD.
Reform will therefore have to focus on counties like Lincolnshire and Norfolk and Staffordshire
More importantly, the funeral of a Russian major-general took place today.
With no details given about how he died, I’m sure it was just a random heart attack and definitely not one of several Ukranian strikes on military facilities in Russia last week.
The problem is the Tories have just had 14 years in Downing Street so it almost doesn't matter what Badenoch says/does right now, even if she says exactly the right thing the public wants to hear it is met with a thought of "well why didn't you do that in office then?"
Four years is a long-time to the next election though, so Badenoch needs to be seriously reflecting on what could be done better/differently and why the Tories should be back in Downing Street and what they would do. Not worrying about Twitter spats or soundbites.
Some reflection that perhaps Starmer should have done more of to be better prepared than he is today.
After 1997 the Tories had some seriously capable leaders in the likes of Hague and Michael Howard. It did not do them any good because the public mood was against them and the government well led. Kemi is no IDS but she is not in the class of the 2 I mentioned either.
Her chance, her only chance, is that Starmer continues to under perform and is not replaced by a panicking party. Her task is to be the person in position when that opportunity arises. I think that would be the case if she was another William Hague or another IDS. This is not really about her.
Yet the Tories are currently projected to get 205 seats and a hung parliament, so Kemi is forecast to get more Conservative MPs than Hague, IDS or Howard ever got https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
You have just linked to a poll where just 31% of voters want to rejoin the full EU, even if more would join the single market again and have closer trading links with the EU
Next-gen warfare has moved on considerably in the last couple of years.
I was researching a commercial drone project last week and came across this, a Chinese small VTOL plane drone that costs from $15k, but could easily draw out much more expensive air defences and expose their location a long way away. https://www.jouav.com/products/cw-30e.html
There’s a huge market for these for farmers, mappers etc, and there would be an even bigger market for a not-Chinese version by military and domestic emergency services in the West. It does 90% of what a police helicopter can do for 1% of the cost.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
It's all about visibility. If you are invisible no-one will vote for you.
The LibDems get visibility by delivering leaflets (mostly unread I agree but noted), canvassing, posters and stakeboards, street stalls. These are all local and focused, and very effective as we have seen. But they are limited to areas of supporter strength which can only be slowly expanded.
In the US, as we have seen from Trump's campaign, visibility is TikTok, influencers, targeted digital messaging and a charismatic leader always in the news for good or bad. Farage is following that strategy. It leads to high national visibility spread fairly evenly, which is not effective in a FPTP system, unless you get to a tipping point.
The next local elections are going to be fascinating. I can't wait. No doubt I'll still be delivering leaflets and knocking on doors.
Just been out for a walk. Pair of gobshites on an electric scooter grumbled about me not moving out of their way. There was enough room, just, but I'm irritated by entitled brats thinking pedestrians should leap out of their way.
I've experienced very bad driving manners between Christmas and New Year on more than one occasion.
There do appear to be some quite angry people out there spoiling for a fight.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
It's all about visibility. If you are invisible no-one will vote for you.
The LibDems get visibility by delivering leaflets (mostly unread I agree but noted), canvassing, posters and stakeboards, street stalls. These are all local and focused, and very effective as we have seen. But they are limited to areas of supporter strength which can only be slowly expanded.
In the US, as we have seen from Trump's campaign, visibility is TikTok, influencers, targeted digital messaging and a charismatic leader always in the news for good or bad. Farage is following that strategy. It leads to high national visibility spread fairly evenly, which is not effective in a FPTP system, unless you get to a tipping point.
The next local elections are going to be fascinating. I can't wait. No doubt I'll still be delivering leaflets and knocking on doors.
Leaflets are low cost though - a few £00 to print and then free labour to distribute.
That isn't the case with social media - getting your message out is very expensive and I doubt most Reform voters are on Twitter...
On County Councils, these are the current seats by party - my photo quota. 21 are up for Re-election.
That looks potentially fragile for the Tories.
They are only over 2/3 of seats in Kent, Leics, Lincs, Norfolk, Staffs, Suffolk, Warks.
I'd say the other 12 they control or lead are all under threat, at least potentially.
Finger in the air, I'd say they will lose control in between 6 and 12 looking at the potential numbers and the several routes by which it could happen. A real problem is that they need simultaneous contradictory narratives, in some cases in the same County.
Essex is likely to postpone its elections next year and Kent probably follows as both will shift to unitaries and a Mayor most likely, with the first unitary elections then being held in 2026. That would not be great news for Reform as both counties will be far better targets for them than the likes of Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire which likely will hold county elections next year and where the main battle will be Tory v LD.
Reform will therefore have to focus on counties like Lincolnshire and Norfolk and Staffordshire
Conservative switchers to Reform are another potential wildcard, where there are already potential straws in the wind.
They will be shooting for a couple of wins in the most responsive or 'persuadable' areas as a best-result, but they will also want groups of 4-10 Councillors as platforms for the future (if they are really aping LibDems and Greens in strategy).
Were I Mr Farage's Psmith or Jeeves, I'd be wanting 50 or ideally 100 switchers by Easter, and be driving it with a person-by-person strategy. I'd also perhaps be trying to mine the various Captain Mainwaring Independent factions.
Mrs Lee Anderson, for example, is still a Conservative Councillor in Mansfield.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
@HYUFD and @bondegezou have both given excellent responses so not much to add, but how do you think we win by elections from way back both in these elections previously and being behind in the polls. How do you think we got the seats we won on a low national poll. It is ruthless local targeting and the only way to do that is leaflets and posterboards and grassroots and at the election it is just the former two. Canvassing is primarily for GOTV, but it does also registers you as a player in this election. Most leaflets spend little time between the letter box and the bin, but every single one registers you as a player particularly if you out leaflet all the others by a margin. Similarly posterboards. It has the effect of motivating people to believe you are the main challengers.
At the moment Reform can't do this. Labour, Tories and LDs can and do. We aren't all daft spending most of our time doing this for no reason. The LDs have become best at leaflets, canvassing and posterboards because of circumstances. They have less funds and target more ruthlessly because they are looking at less seats (locally and nationally) so have more mobile active members who move from seat to seat, which lends itself to by elections.
I wouldn't say the LDs are best at GOTV. My experience of that is the Tories are better, but I have no experience of Labour and have heard they are also good.
Reform have got to acquire these skills and have said they want to learn from the LDs. If they do they will be formidable. They have certainly learnt how to do good leaflets. You have to get a message over from the leaflets 10 second life from the letterbox to the bin.
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Is there anyone with a proper Reuters/Bloomberg screen here, who can come up with a rough estimate for how many US$ are being traded on the rouble currency pair?
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
The problem is the Tories have just had 14 years in Downing Street so it almost doesn't matter what Badenoch says/does right now, even if she says exactly the right thing the public wants to hear it is met with a thought of "well why didn't you do that in office then?"
Four years is a long-time to the next election though, so Badenoch needs to be seriously reflecting on what could be done better/differently and why the Tories should be back in Downing Street and what they would do. Not worrying about Twitter spats or soundbites.
Some reflection that perhaps Starmer should have done more of to be better prepared than he is today.
After 1997 the Tories had some seriously capable leaders in the likes of Hague and Michael Howard. It did not do them any good because the public mood was against them and the government well led. Kemi is no IDS but she is not in the class of the 2 I mentioned either.
Her chance, her only chance, is that Starmer continues to under perform and is not replaced by a panicking party. Her task is to be the person in position when that opportunity arises. I think that would be the case if she was another William Hague or another IDS. This is not really about her.
Yet the Tories are currently projected to get 205 seats and a hung parliament, so Kemi is forecast to get more Conservative MPs than Hague, IDS or Howard ever got https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Which is a nice way of saying "Kemi is forecast to lose the election".
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
How is 'levelling up' even defined.
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices might be desired but that's unachievable without a generational improvement in skillsets.
So instead the country gets various levels of 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices or 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices.
The fortunate ones are those who can have a 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices ie the affluent in cheaper areas.
The unfortunate are those who get an 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices ie many of the young and poor in southern England.
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Immigration under free movement in the EU was lower than immigration since. What people are objecting to in that polling may be what happened after Brexit.
On County Councils, these are the current seats by party - my photo quota. 21 are up for Re-election.
That looks potentially fragile for the Tories.
They are only over 2/3 of seats in Kent, Leics, Lincs, Norfolk, Staffs, Suffolk, Warks.
I'd say the other 12 they control or lead are all under threat, at least potentially.
Finger in the air, I'd say they will lose control in between 6 and 12 looking at the potential numbers and the several routes by which it could happen. A real problem is that they need simultaneous contradictory narratives, in some cases in the same County.
Essex is likely to postpone its elections next year and Kent probably follows as both will shift to unitaries and a Mayor most likely, with the first unitary elections then being held in 2026. That would not be great news for Reform as both counties will be far better targets for them than the likes of Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire which likely will hold county elections next year and where the main battle will be Tory v LD.
Reform will therefore have to focus on counties like Lincolnshire and Norfolk and Staffordshire
Conservative switchers to Reform are another potential wildcard, where there are already potential straws in the wind.
They will be shooting for a couple of wins in the most responsive or 'persuadable' areas as a best-result, but they will also want groups of 4-10 Councillors as platforms for the future (if they are really aping LibDems and Greens in strategy).
Were I Mr Farage's Psmith or Jeeves, I'd be wanting 50 or ideally 100 switchers by Easter, and be driving it with a person-by-person strategy. I'd also perhaps be trying to mine the various Captain Mainwaring Independent factions.
Mrs Lee Anderson, for example, is still a Conservative Councillor in Mansfield.
Your Brucie Bonus.
There's potential in Red Wall and former strong UKIP areas like North Notts and North Derbys. In Derbyshire for example Reform now have Alfreton and Somercotes, and Greater Heanor. Both are former heartlands for Right / Far Right ie UKIP / BNP - in so far as they had heartlands, and that vote will go Reform imo if it is motivated.
In this area, they have 1-3 Councillors on Ashfield, Bolsover, Mansfield, and Derbyshire Councils at this point. From a Reform point of view they will need to be nurturing those to be more than five on each, for starters.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
The Brexit that you voted for was to withdraw from the EU's political structures without significant economic distruption. On those terms, Brexit hasn't failed at all.
"Tony Blair's Labour government pushed on with plans to open the UK's borders to Eastern Europe despite mounting concerns from senior ministers, according to newly released official files. The former prime minister relaxed immigration controls in 2004 after eight mainly former Soviet states, including Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, joined the EU.
Papers given to the National Archives in London show then deputy PM John Prescott and foreign secretary Jack Straw both urged delay to the policy, warning of a surge in immigration unless some restrictions were put in place."
Kemi Badenoch will be in trouble after the May locals if Reform pip her and outperform expectations, and probably in terminal trouble after the May 2026 round.
At the moment, that's what I expect to happen.
I thought the May locals had been cancelled, prior to the latest inept attempt to reorganise local government?
Counties that are already unitary will definitely have elections. Of the counties that are still two-tier, I don't think anyone is expecting them all to play nicely and agree a plan in the next fortnight. It's only the tranche of counties that come up with a plan for the next wave where there's talk of cancelling the elections, because there will be a new council along in a minute. (Going live in 2026?)
It's a mess, but it's the existing mess. And the Dictator Starmer stuff came from people still adjusting to being out of power themselves.
(Me? I'm fairly happy with the model- the bottom-up map of regions and powers seems a lot like the approach Spain took to decentralise after Franco.)
Essex county council will vote next week to scrap May's county council elections and hold a Mayoral and unitary election in 2026 as the next Essex local elections if Southend and Thurrock unitaries agree.
In which case there will never be a county or district election in Essex again
They'd be voting to request the elections be postponed by the Government - Essex CC does not have the power to scrap its own elections.
I'm a bit doubtful permission will be given in these cases. Creation of unitary authorities is no straightforward matter simply in terms of the logistics, employment implications and so on. It seems to me a bit unlikely that a new unitary would be ready to begin by May 2026 - probably more like 2027, in which case a newly elected County Council would be best to steer it.
It's not impossible by any means, but I'm a bit sceptical these requests will be granted.
Interesting discussion. @hyufd do you have any details of what is happening in Essex. We have the same issue in Surrey with that vote coming up in a week, I think, but it seems impossible to believe that it can be organised in time and that there will not be serious objections. From a politics point of view the Tories would like to cancel the May elections and the LDs not, because the Tories will almost certainly lose the county and the LDs might win it in May. From a practical point of view the Tories want a Surrey wide unitary and the LDs want it broken down into 2 or 3 Unitaries. Also a couple of boroughs might want to move from Surrey to London if the change happens.
That is a hell of a lot to sort out at short notice with lots of arguments and looks likes disaster waiting to happen if rushed. Is Essex similar? Is it being rushed by pressure from the Govt?
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices. .
I like the analogy .
That's @viewcode 's house we were discussing last night .
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices. .
I like the analogy .
That's @viewcode 's house we were discussing last night .
I missed that discussion - sounds like a fun read for later.
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Immigration under free movement in the EU was lower than immigration since. What people are objecting to in that polling may be what happened after Brexit.
The Tories actively increased immigration. It was a policy choice, not a consequence of Brexit.
Is there anyone with a proper Reuters/Bloomberg screen here, who can come up with a rough estimate for how many US$ are being traded on the rouble currency pair?
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
The Russian central bank now has much reduced Forex left to prop up the rouble. It used it to keep it at around 100. Until it ran out - and now we are at 113.75 for one dollar.
Russia’s foreign currency reserves, built over a decade from surplus revenues in the raw materials sector, are nearing exhaustion, The Moscow Times reported on Dec. 5.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the National Welfare Fund (NWF) held approximately $140 billion in liquid assets. Over three years of war, this financial cushion has dwindled to nearly one-third of its former size.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices. .
I like the analogy .
That's @viewcode 's house we were discussing last night .
I missed that discussion - sounds like a fun read for later.
Is there anyone with a proper Reuters/Bloomberg screen here, who can come up with a rough estimate for how many US$ are being traded on the rouble currency pair?
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
The Russian central bank now has much reduced Forex left to prop up the rouble. It used it to keep it at around 100. Until it ran out - and now we are at 113.75 for one dollar.
Russia’s foreign currency reserves, built over a decade from surplus revenues in the raw materials sector, are nearing exhaustion, The Moscow Times reported on Dec. 5.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the National Welfare Fund (NWF) held approximately $140 billion in liquid assets. Over three years of war, this financial cushion has dwindled to nearly one-third of its former size.
Russia is a Mafia state and if there's one thing that can bring down gangsters it's them running out of money.
Is there anyone with a proper Reuters/Bloomberg screen here, who can come up with a rough estimate for how many US$ are being traded on the rouble currency pair?
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
The Russian central bank now has much reduced Forex left to prop up the rouble. It used it to keep it at around 100. Until it ran out - and now we are at 113.75 for one dollar.
Russia’s foreign currency reserves, built over a decade from surplus revenues in the raw materials sector, are nearing exhaustion, The Moscow Times reported on Dec. 5.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the National Welfare Fund (NWF) held approximately $140 billion in liquid assets. Over three years of war, this financial cushion has dwindled to nearly one-third of its former size.
Russia is a Mafia state and if there's one thing that can bring down gangsters it's them running out of money.
They may have a breathing space while they steal Assad's billions. Otherwise, hard to see who is giving them the cash to stay afloat.
Kemi Badenoch will be in trouble after the May locals if Reform pip her and outperform expectations, and probably in terminal trouble after the May 2026 round.
At the moment, that's what I expect to happen.
I thought the May locals had been cancelled, prior to the latest inept attempt to reorganise local government?
Counties that are already unitary will definitely have elections. Of the counties that are still two-tier, I don't think anyone is expecting them all to play nicely and agree a plan in the next fortnight. It's only the tranche of counties that come up with a plan for the next wave where there's talk of cancelling the elections, because there will be a new council along in a minute. (Going live in 2026?)
It's a mess, but it's the existing mess. And the Dictator Starmer stuff came from people still adjusting to being out of power themselves.
(Me? I'm fairly happy with the model- the bottom-up map of regions and powers seems a lot like the approach Spain took to decentralise after Franco.)
Essex county council will vote next week to scrap May's county council elections and hold a Mayoral and unitary election in 2026 as the next Essex local elections if Southend and Thurrock unitaries agree.
In which case there will never be a county or district election in Essex again
They'd be voting to request the elections be postponed by the Government - Essex CC does not have the power to scrap its own elections.
I'm a bit doubtful permission will be given in these cases. Creation of unitary authorities is no straightforward matter simply in terms of the logistics, employment implications and so on. It seems to me a bit unlikely that a new unitary would be ready to begin by May 2026 - probably more like 2027, in which case a newly elected County Council would be best to steer it.
It's not impossible by any means, but I'm a bit sceptical these requests will be granted.
Interesting discussion. @hyufd do you have any details of what is happening in Essex. We have the same issue in Surrey with that vote coming up in a week, I think, but it seems impossible to believe that it can be organised in time and that there will not be serious objections. From a politics point of view the Tories would like to cancel the May elections and the LDs not, because the Tories will almost certainly lose the county and the LDs might win it in May. From a practical point of view the Tories want a Surrey wide unitary and the LDs want it broken down into 2 or 3 Unitaries. Also a couple of boroughs might want to move from Surrey to London if the change happens.
That is a hell of a lot to sort out at short notice with lots of arguments and looks likes disaster waiting to happen if rushed. Is Essex similar? Is it being rushed by pressure from the Govt?
Ooh- maybe that's the plan.
Given what the White Paper said about population, Surrey looks like it ought to be 2 unitaries of about 600k each- 1 would be too big, 3 is a bit too small. Essex probably 3 (and memory hole Thurrock's debts while we're at it), maybe 4. Same for Hampshire.
So you stop the county concillors moaning about their abolition by letting them duck out of elections for another year. Unless they want to spend April on the doorstep being moaned at for not being strong like that splendid Mr Farage.
We've known the rational map since about 1969, it's just vested interests always get in the way.
Is there anyone with a proper Reuters/Bloomberg screen here, who can come up with a rough estimate for how many US$ are being traded on the rouble currency pair?
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
The Russian central bank now has much reduced Forex left to prop up the rouble. It used it to keep it at around 100. Until it ran out - and now we are at 113.75 for one dollar.
Russia’s foreign currency reserves, built over a decade from surplus revenues in the raw materials sector, are nearing exhaustion, The Moscow Times reported on Dec. 5.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the National Welfare Fund (NWF) held approximately $140 billion in liquid assets. Over three years of war, this financial cushion has dwindled to nearly one-third of its former size.
Russia is a Mafia state and if there's one thing that can bring down gangsters it's them running out of money.
They may have a breathing space while they steal Assad's billions. Otherwise, hard to see who is giving them the cash to stay afloat.
As someone pointed out the other day, Russia is 2% of Chinese exports, while Europe and North America is 46%.
With the political uncertainty in the US, the last thing Xi wants to do is to bring sanctions to his recessionary economy to go along with the tariffs.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
@HYUFD and @bondegezou have both given excellent responses so not much to add, but how do you think we win by elections from way back both in these elections previously and being behind in the polls. How do you think we got the seats we won on a low national poll. It is ruthless local targeting and the only way to do that is leaflets and posterboards and grassroots and at the election it is just the former two. Canvassing is primarily for GOTV, but it does also registers you as a player in this election. Most leaflets spend little time between the letter box and the bin, but every single one registers you as a player particularly if you out leaflet all the others by a margin. Similarly posterboards. It has the effect of motivating people to believe you are the main challengers.
At the moment Reform can't do this. Labour, Tories and LDs can and do. We aren't all daft spending most of our time doing this for no reason. The LDs have become best at leaflets, canvassing and posterboards because of circumstances. They have less funds and target more ruthlessly because they are looking at less seats (locally and nationally) so have more mobile active members who move from seat to seat, which lends itself to by elections.
I wouldn't say the LDs are best at GOTV. My experience of that is the Tories are better, but I have no experience of Labour and have heard they are also good.
Reform have got to acquire these skills and have said they want to learn from the LDs. If they do they will be formidable. They have certainly learnt how to do good leaflets. You have to get a message over from the leaflets 10 second life from the letterbox to the bin.
Obviously I don't want it to sound like I am dismissing other forms of campaigning like you described. They are vital and get your national vote up, and the greater the national vote then the more targets become available.
The Reform national campaign was effective and we saw that in Guildford, although they were never going to be a challenger. Knocking up on the day should only result in you knocking on the doors of your supporters because you are using canvas data. Obviously mistakes get made, but generally that is true. But if someone has run a good national campaign you will find switchers. I knocked on hundreds of doors on election day. All were, as expected LDs, except 1 Conservative and no Labour/Greens. However the exception to that was about the dozen or so Reform voters I knocked up. All our other GOTV people got the same. People fed up with the Tories who were now voting LD suddenly preferred the Reform message and switched again during the election period.
Kemi Badenoch will be in trouble after the May locals if Reform pip her and outperform expectations, and probably in terminal trouble after the May 2026 round.
At the moment, that's what I expect to happen.
I thought the May locals had been cancelled, prior to the latest inept attempt to reorganise local government?
Counties that are already unitary will definitely have elections. Of the counties that are still two-tier, I don't think anyone is expecting them all to play nicely and agree a plan in the next fortnight. It's only the tranche of counties that come up with a plan for the next wave where there's talk of cancelling the elections, because there will be a new council along in a minute. (Going live in 2026?)
It's a mess, but it's the existing mess. And the Dictator Starmer stuff came from people still adjusting to being out of power themselves.
(Me? I'm fairly happy with the model- the bottom-up map of regions and powers seems a lot like the approach Spain took to decentralise after Franco.)
Essex county council will vote next week to scrap May's county council elections and hold a Mayoral and unitary election in 2026 as the next Essex local elections if Southend and Thurrock unitaries agree.
In which case there will never be a county or district election in Essex again
They'd be voting to request the elections be postponed by the Government - Essex CC does not have the power to scrap its own elections.
I'm a bit doubtful permission will be given in these cases. Creation of unitary authorities is no straightforward matter simply in terms of the logistics, employment implications and so on. It seems to me a bit unlikely that a new unitary would be ready to begin by May 2026 - probably more like 2027, in which case a newly elected County Council would be best to steer it.
It's not impossible by any means, but I'm a bit sceptical these requests will be granted.
Interesting discussion. @hyufd do you have any details of what is happening in Essex. We have the same issue in Surrey with that vote coming up in a week, I think, but it seems impossible to believe that it can be organised in time and that there will not be serious objections. From a politics point of view the Tories would like to cancel the May elections and the LDs not, because the Tories will almost certainly lose the county and the LDs might win it in May. From a practical point of view the Tories want a Surrey wide unitary and the LDs want it broken down into 2 or 3 Unitaries. Also a couple of boroughs might want to move from Surrey to London if the change happens.
That is a hell of a lot to sort out at short notice with lots of arguments and looks likes disaster waiting to happen if rushed. Is Essex similar? Is it being rushed by pressure from the Govt?
Essex votes next week on cancelling next year's county elections, already a petition up against it. Herts and Devon now also considering scrapping their county council elections and waiting for unitary elections in 2026 or later
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
I suspect social media will have much more effect than door knocking and leaflets. Most people I have ever even heard mention door knocking refer to them as a bloody nuisance
Kemi Badenoch will be in trouble after the May locals if Reform pip her and outperform expectations, and probably in terminal trouble after the May 2026 round.
At the moment, that's what I expect to happen.
I thought the May locals had been cancelled, prior to the latest inept attempt to reorganise local government?
Counties that are already unitary will definitely have elections. Of the counties that are still two-tier, I don't think anyone is expecting them all to play nicely and agree a plan in the next fortnight. It's only the tranche of counties that come up with a plan for the next wave where there's talk of cancelling the elections, because there will be a new council along in a minute. (Going live in 2026?)
It's a mess, but it's the existing mess. And the Dictator Starmer stuff came from people still adjusting to being out of power themselves.
(Me? I'm fairly happy with the model- the bottom-up map of regions and powers seems a lot like the approach Spain took to decentralise after Franco.)
Essex county council will vote next week to scrap May's county council elections and hold a Mayoral and unitary election in 2026 as the next Essex local elections if Southend and Thurrock unitaries agree.
In which case there will never be a county or district election in Essex again
They'd be voting to request the elections be postponed by the Government - Essex CC does not have the power to scrap its own elections.
I'm a bit doubtful permission will be given in these cases. Creation of unitary authorities is no straightforward matter simply in terms of the logistics, employment implications and so on. It seems to me a bit unlikely that a new unitary would be ready to begin by May 2026 - probably more like 2027, in which case a newly elected County Council would be best to steer it.
It's not impossible by any means, but I'm a bit sceptical these requests will be granted.
Interesting discussion. @hyufd do you have any details of what is happening in Essex. We have the same issue in Surrey with that vote coming up in a week, I think, but it seems impossible to believe that it can be organised in time and that there will not be serious objections. From a politics point of view the Tories would like to cancel the May elections and the LDs not, because the Tories will almost certainly lose the county and the LDs might win it in May. From a practical point of view the Tories want a Surrey wide unitary and the LDs want it broken down into 2 or 3 Unitaries. Also a couple of boroughs might want to move from Surrey to London if the change happens.
That is a hell of a lot to sort out at short notice with lots of arguments and looks likes disaster waiting to happen if rushed. Is Essex similar? Is it being rushed by pressure from the Govt?
I wish this discussion had been earlier. I was with our local County Councillor this morning.
The problem is the Tories have just had 14 years in Downing Street so it almost doesn't matter what Badenoch says/does right now, even if she says exactly the right thing the public wants to hear it is met with a thought of "well why didn't you do that in office then?"
Four years is a long-time to the next election though, so Badenoch needs to be seriously reflecting on what could be done better/differently and why the Tories should be back in Downing Street and what they would do. Not worrying about Twitter spats or soundbites.
Some reflection that perhaps Starmer should have done more of to be better prepared than he is today.
After 1997 the Tories had some seriously capable leaders in the likes of Hague and Michael Howard. It did not do them any good because the public mood was against them and the government well led. Kemi is no IDS but she is not in the class of the 2 I mentioned either.
Her chance, her only chance, is that Starmer continues to under perform and is not replaced by a panicking party. Her task is to be the person in position when that opportunity arises. I think that would be the case if she was another William Hague or another IDS. This is not really about her.
Yet the Tories are currently projected to get 205 seats and a hung parliament, so Kemi is forecast to get more Conservative MPs than Hague, IDS or Howard ever got https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Which is a nice way of saying "Kemi is forecast to lose the election".
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Immigration under free movement in the EU was lower than immigration since. What people are objecting to in that polling may be what happened after Brexit.
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
I suspect social media will have much more effect than door knocking and leaflets. Most people I have ever even heard mention door knocking refer to them as a bloody nuisance
Most people you have heard couldn't run a bath let alone a political campaign to win a marginal seat or ward I suspect. Get Out the Vote is key to that especially in close seats or wards where you need to identify your supporters and get them to the polls
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
It's all about visibility. If you are invisible no-one will vote for you.
The LibDems get visibility by delivering leaflets (mostly unread I agree but noted), canvassing, posters and stakeboards, street stalls. These are all local and focused, and very effective as we have seen. But they are limited to areas of supporter strength which can only be slowly expanded.
In the US, as we have seen from Trump's campaign, visibility is TikTok, influencers, targeted digital messaging and a charismatic leader always in the news for good or bad. Farage is following that strategy. It leads to high national visibility spread fairly evenly, which is not effective in a FPTP system, unless you get to a tipping point.
The next local elections are going to be fascinating. I can't wait. No doubt I'll still be delivering leaflets and knocking on doors.
Leaflets are low cost though - a few £00 to print and then free labour to distribute.
That isn't the case with social media - getting your message out is very expensive and I doubt most Reform voters are on Twitter...
Only if you do targetted ads, a supporter putting up a poster on the local facebook group however that is free. Pretty much everyone has a facebook account
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I will sign Nomination Papers I will host an event I will be a social media ambassador I will help reach out to my network
He hasn't asked me to deliver leaflets or canvass.
Interesting. They say they are going to learn from the LDs yet have missed off the 2 most resource intensive items, followed of course by posterboarding also being absent.
Is it possible that the Reform election strategy will major on social media, media, influencers, free publicity, news, stories, networking, momentum and charismatic personalities about 98% and canvassers and leaflets about 2%?
Apart from PBers checking for LD barcharts, has anyone ever read a single one of those dismal leaflets? Or been persuaded by a persistent eccentric at your front door as you are bathing the baby and burning fish fingers?
It's all about visibility. If you are invisible no-one will vote for you.
The LibDems get visibility by delivering leaflets (mostly unread I agree but noted), canvassing, posters and stakeboards, street stalls. These are all local and focused, and very effective as we have seen. But they are limited to areas of supporter strength which can only be slowly expanded.
In the US, as we have seen from Trump's campaign, visibility is TikTok, influencers, targeted digital messaging and a charismatic leader always in the news for good or bad. Farage is following that strategy. It leads to high national visibility spread fairly evenly, which is not effective in a FPTP system, unless you get to a tipping point.
The next local elections are going to be fascinating. I can't wait. No doubt I'll still be delivering leaflets and knocking on doors.
Leaflets are low cost though - a few £00 to print and then free labour to distribute.
That isn't the case with social media - getting your message out is very expensive and I doubt most Reform voters are on Twitter...
Only if you do targetted ads, a supporter putting up a poster on the local facebook group however that is free. Pretty much everyone has a facebook account
Provided the supporter doesn't do it often and you still need sympathetic group admins because if political posts appeared on a group I was admin for the poster wouldn't be posting subsequent ones..
There's been some discussion upthread about directly elected mayoral elections in 2025.
There are 4 combined authority mayors up for election in 2025: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (currently Lab); West of England (currently Lab); Greater Lincolnshire (new); Hull and East Yorkshire (new)
Rob Ford did a predictions thread on BlueSky recently and has had a go at predicting these: https://bsky.app/profile/robfordmancs.bsky.social/post/3lejd4smqjk22 He predicts the Tories to win Cambs & Peterborough, the Greens to win W of England, Reform UK to win G Lincolnshire and the LibDems to win Hull/E Yorks (although he thinks Labour will do better if they re-institute SV for the elections).
There are also two directly elected mayors for single local authorities: Doncaster and North Tyneside. Both are held by Labour on hefty majorities.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Immigration under free movement in the EU was lower than immigration since. What people are objecting to in that polling may be what happened after Brexit.
The Tories actively increased immigration. It was a policy choice, not a consequence of Brexit.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
He's a very interesting character. Clearly, a misanthrope and abuses anyone the second he feels they've let him down or thwarted him - and those tend to be his peers or seniors.
I understand some of those who worked for him as juniors, who he rated, still like him.
On topic. The interesting choice in the header is Starmer vs Farage in a forced choice.
There isn't much enthusiasm for Starmerism at present, though plenty of time for that to change, but having Farage as the alternative is a great motivator.
Britain is about 60% Remainer, it doesn't want the chief architect of Brexit as PM. Neither does it want a Trump kiss-arse.
No it was 48% Remainer
It was 48%. Now it is 60%.
The Boomers are sliding into their coffins and taking Brexit with them (like everything else they could get their grasping hands on)
Ask about rejoin requiring the Euro and free movement to rejoin the EU and that 60% becomes 30%
Even a majority of Leavers now want a closer relationship with the EU.
70% of people think the level of immigration is too high. Restoring free movement won't be on any serious politician's agenda until it's no longer an issue.
Immigration under free movement in the EU was lower than immigration since. What people are objecting to in that polling may be what happened after Brexit.
The Tories actively increased immigration. It was a policy choice, not a consequence of Brexit.
Johnson did exactly the same as Tony Blair.
A full second term of Cameron with Theresa May at the Home Office would have been an interesting alternative timeline.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
How is 'levelling up' even defined.
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices might be desired but that's unachievable without a generational improvement in skillsets.
So instead the country gets various levels of 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices or 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices.
The fortunate ones are those who can have a 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices ie the affluent in cheaper areas.
The unfortunate are those who get an 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices ie many of the young and poor in southern England.
It is about individuals and unlocking their potential. So you need to govern them the infrastructure - education - to succeed and mechanisms to get back on track if they mess up.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Exemptions from business rates and employer NI for anyone investing in the area?
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Exemptions from business rates and employer NI for anyone investing in the area?
Congratulations - all you've done is moved the employment from Boro to Redcar...
And that's at best - most schemes of the type you describe just bring in work until the tax benefits run out - at which point the factory is closed and moved to the next location of discounts.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
The thing is how do you "level up"? Even if you look at probably the best local example of Bishop Auckland the levelling up hasn't carried the town with it...
How is 'levelling up' even defined.
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices might be desired but that's unachievable without a generational improvement in skillsets.
So instead the country gets various levels of 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices or 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices.
The fortunate ones are those who can have a 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices ie the affluent in cheaper areas.
The unfortunate are those who get an 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices ie many of the young and poor in southern England.
It is about individuals and unlocking their potential. So you need to govern them the infrastructure - education - to succeed and mechanisms to get back on track if they mess up.
Also transport. So much of left behind Britain is an hour or more from anywhere with opportunity. There is poverty in London and the SE too, of course, but access to opportunity is rarely the issue that it is in, say, Loftus or Consett or Nelson or Skelmersdale.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
*note I used 12% as full employer ni as couldnt be bothered to look up actual value but you get the idea
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Next-gen warfare has moved on considerably in the last couple of years.
I was researching a commercial drone project last week and came across this, a Chinese small VTOL plane drone that costs from $15k, but could easily draw out much more expensive air defences and expose their location a long way away. https://www.jouav.com/products/cw-30e.html
There’s a huge market for these for farmers, mappers etc, and there would be an even bigger market for a not-Chinese version by military and domestic emergency services in the West. It does 90% of what a police helicopter can do for 1% of the cost.
90kmh speed ? Easy prey for the air-air drones which are increasingly used. And are cheaper.
But yes, such systems will take over a significant part of manned aircraft roles. Particularly helicopters, which are both expensive and slow.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Ah perfection being the enemy of good I see, so your solution is just do nothing. As to 6) frankly that objection is bollocks....you have a team of 5 and a team leader. Why is him team leading the same team limiting his options whether he does it in scunthorpe or central london? He doesn't even necessarily be need to be based there himself.
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Liberate planning rules so that anyone who wants to build a factory, or a shop, or a house, or anything else on their own land can do so without asking for permission first.
If people don't have to jump through hoops to create work, they're more likely to do so.
Also if simply owning land and not doing anything with it is no longer a licence to print money then people need to invest in doing something productive to create money instead, and production equals jobs.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
You throw billions of taxpayers money at BP to build a new power station with carbon capture.
Slightly on topic about the uselessness of the current Conservative Party, who have been briefing their client press on twice reelected Sadiq Khan being rewarded for failure with a knighthood.
They don't say whether the not reelected Conservative mayor for West Midlands also got his knighthood as a reward for failure.
Two of three Tory candidates so far beaten by Khan were rewarded with peerages - not mere knights they - as an indication of their success?
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Exemptions from business rates and employer NI for anyone investing in the area?
Congratulations - all you've done is moved the employment from Boro to Redcar...
And that's at best - most schemes of the type you describe just bring in work until the tax benefits run out - at which point the factory is closed and moved to the next location of discounts.
You’re not interested in making traditional factories, you’re interested in new technology drivers that relocate the 20somethings who can’t afford to live on their own in places like Bracknell and Reading. They can and should use the opportunity to save like crazy, so when they relocate back to the SE and SW they can afford a deposit on somewhere to live.
Slightly on topic about the uselessness of the current Conservative Party, who have been briefing their client press on twice reelected Sadiq Khan being rewarded for failure with a knighthood.
They don't say whether the not reelected Conservative mayor for West Midlands also got his knighthood as a reward for failure.
Two of three Tory candidates so far beaten by Khan were rewarded with peerages - not mere knights they - as an indication of their success?
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Exemptions from business rates and employer NI for anyone investing in the area?
Congratulations - all you've done is moved the employment from Boro to Redcar...
And that's at best - most schemes of the type you describe just bring in work until the tax benefits run out - at which point the factory is closed and moved to the next location of discounts.
You’re not interested in making traditional factories, you’re interested in new technology drivers that relocate the 20somethings who can’t afford to live on their own in places like Bracknell and Reading. They can and should use the opportunity to save like crazy, so when they relocate back to the SE and SW they can afford a deposit on somewhere to live.
Also he makes it sound like employment moving from a well off area to a deprived area is a bad thing. Under any plan that works businesses will move. I would much prefer that there was equalisation between areas so that there were less burning hot areas and less deprived areas and all are on a even field.
Slightly on topic about the uselessness of the current Conservative Party, who have been briefing their client press on twice reelected Sadiq Khan being rewarded for failure with a knighthood.
They don't say whether the not reelected Conservative mayor for West Midlands also got his knighthood as a reward for failure.
Two of three Tory candidates so far beaten by Khan were rewarded with peerages - not mere knights they - as an indication of their success?
Slightly on topic about the uselessness of the current Conservative Party, who have been briefing their client press on twice reelected Sadiq Khan being rewarded for failure with a knighthood.
They don't say whether the not reelected Conservative mayor for West Midlands also got his knighthood as a reward for failure.
Two of three Tory candidates so far beaten by Khan were rewarded with peerages - not mere knights they - as an indication of their success?
Street's ahead.
But Khan can; Street cannot.
Street sleeps with Michael Fabricant, so he must be a Whig Knight.
Next-gen warfare has moved on considerably in the last couple of years.
I was researching a commercial drone project last week and came across this, a Chinese small VTOL plane drone that costs from $15k, but could easily draw out much more expensive air defences and expose their location a long way away. https://www.jouav.com/products/cw-30e.html
There’s a huge market for these for farmers, mappers etc, and there would be an even bigger market for a not-Chinese version by military and domestic emergency services in the West. It does 90% of what a police helicopter can do for 1% of the cost.
90kmh speed ? Easy prey for the air-air drones which are increasingly used. And are cheaper.
But yes, such systems will take over a significant part of manned aircraft roles. Particularly helicopters, which are both expensive and slow.
It’s awfully similar to the larger Ukranian suicide drones which have been hitting military airfields and oil refineries all over Russia in the last few months.
Manned helicopters for commercial or emergency use are so ridiculously expensive. The average air ambulance, for which you’ll see a collecting tin in every flying club, runs around £10k an hour.
If you could launch five search drones and then direct the helicopter to the incident site, you could save the price of the drones in months. You can run the five drones with one man.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Ah perfection being the enemy of good I see, so your solution is just do nothing. As to 6) frankly that objection is bollocks....you have a team of 5 and a team leader. Why is him team leading the same team limiting his options whether he does it in scunthorpe or central london? He doesn't even necessarily be need to be based there himself.
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
“The Industrial Degree Bill”
In it, the government sets up and funds departments in universities.
1) Said departments train in various skills - plumbing, bricklaying, CNC operation etc etc 2) The courses are modules towards a degree. So your CORGI becomes a degree module. 3) mixing between practical and intellectual skills gets you more points towards your degree. So doing Welding & Elizabethan poetry gets you a degree faster (and with slightly less effort) than either just welding or poetry. 4) the training levy is used to part fund the “practical” departments.
This would massively break down the current class barrier between the degree’d and non-degree’d
A question for any gamers here, got a PS5 for Christmas (digital edition) and looking for advice on any games to get for it.
Already bought myself a 12 month PSN Extra subscription to go for it and been playing FFVII Remake which has been fun to replay a newer version of something I first played decades ago, though I was disappointed to realise last night that Remake is only the first third of the game and thus I've already nearly finished that story, was expecting it to be the full game not split into a "trilogy".
Used to have a collection of every generation of consoles I'd had from NES onwards, with FFVII to FFXIII being main games I loved on prior PlayStation generations, but lost all my old consoles and games in a move a few years ago.
Never been a big fan of shooters, prefer strategy, RPG or action or adventure games though normally play strategy more on the PC.
Any recommendations? Doesn't have to be the newest but does have to be something I can download digitally.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Ah perfection being the enemy of good I see, so your solution is just do nothing. As to 6) frankly that objection is bollocks....you have a team of 5 and a team leader. Why is him team leading the same team limiting his options whether he does it in scunthorpe or central london? He doesn't even necessarily be need to be based there himself.
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
“The Industrial Degree Bill”
In it, the government sets up and funds departments in universities.
1) Said departments train in various skills - plumbing, bricklaying, CNC operation etc etc 2) The courses are modules towards a degree. So your CORGI becomes a degree module. 3) mixing between practical and intellectual skills gets you more points towards your degree. So doing Welding & Elizabethan poetry gets you a degree faster (and with slightly less effort) than either just welding or poetry. 4) the training levy is used to part fund the “practical” departments.
This would massively break down the current class barrier between the degree’d and non-degree’d
All good, but are you expecting the “currently non-dregee’d” to end up £50k in debt for a career in welding that’s currently a paid apprenticeship?
Your scheme succeeds or fails depending on where the costs fall.
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Ah perfection being the enemy of good I see, so your solution is just do nothing. As to 6) frankly that objection is bollocks....you have a team of 5 and a team leader. Why is him team leading the same team limiting his options whether he does it in scunthorpe or central london? He doesn't even necessarily be need to be based there himself.
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
“The Industrial Degree Bill”
In it, the government sets up and funds departments in universities.
1) Said departments train in various skills - plumbing, bricklaying, CNC operation etc etc 2) The courses are modules towards a degree. So your CORGI becomes a degree module. 3) mixing between practical and intellectual skills gets you more points towards your degree. So doing Welding & Elizabethan poetry gets you a degree faster (and with slightly less effort) than either just welding or poetry. 4) the training levy is used to part fund the “practical” departments.
This would massively break down the current class barrier between the degree’d and non-degree’d
In favour of 1,2 and 4 not so much 3. To me that actually keeps the snobbery of intellectual skills being superior if you make the degree quicker because of it. I would much rather have a plumber that knows how to safely fix my plumbing than one that can sort of fix it while quoting sonnets
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
The apprenticeships the levy can fund are organised in a very complicated way. Simplify the scheme!
There are dead towns like Horden across the country. It’s easy for those of us in leafier places to look at the broken economy and say “Brexit”. But too many of these places were dead before Brexit and are dead after Brexit. Brexit has failed, but isn’t the reason that towns like Horden are broken.
Reform - with a pile of cash, wall to wall Twitter support and an influx of angry and motivated activists - can do a serious amount of business in places like this. It is hopium and denialism to insist that Farage is too x or y for that to happen.
This also shows that Dominic Cummings was right about levelling up (and also he was right, albeit cynical, about selling Brexit as a panacea to dying towns).
I know it’s bad to say it, but Cummings was right about a lot of problems facing the country, and he was the first to take a modern data-driven approach to looking at issues.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
Dominic Cummings has an interesting gift
100% right on the problems 100% wrong on the solutions
I don't think there are any plausible solutions to the problems (beyond getting people on their bikes to where work still exists) so Cummings went for the approach of abusing those people to get the result he wanted...
There are potential solutions just are politicians tend to be so london centric that they aren't that bothered finding them because they don't see deprived areas as that important apart from every five years
Go on then - how would you generate employment in say Loftus or Redcar?
Mentioned some the other day however if I was in charge I would do the following
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived 2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1 3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2% 4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50% 5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding 6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief 7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
That falls apart on 4 and 5. Apprenticeship levy means training already costs nothing and yet an awful lot of it isn't used...
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
Ah perfection being the enemy of good I see, so your solution is just do nothing. As to 6) frankly that objection is bollocks....you have a team of 5 and a team leader. Why is him team leading the same team limiting his options whether he does it in scunthorpe or central london? He doesn't even necessarily be need to be based there himself.
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
“The Industrial Degree Bill”
In it, the government sets up and funds departments in universities.
1) Said departments train in various skills - plumbing, bricklaying, CNC operation etc etc 2) The courses are modules towards a degree. So your CORGI becomes a degree module. 3) mixing between practical and intellectual skills gets you more points towards your degree. So doing Welding & Elizabethan poetry gets you a degree faster (and with slightly less effort) than either just welding or poetry. 4) the training levy is used to part fund the “practical” departments.
This would massively break down the current class barrier between the degree’d and non-degree’d
All good, but are you expecting the “currently non-dregee’d” to end up £50k in debt?
No - but the qualifications they would have done anyway, count towards a degree. Think Open University as much as anything.
For a start, probably non residential, part time, in conjunction with work.
Comments
In 1987, the United Peterlee Panther bus service
Was launched between Peterlee
And Horden/Horden Hall Estate.
It stopped anywhere passengers wanted,
Except on Cosford Lane.
I make that by inspection East Sussex, Gloucs are probably gone, and possibly Hants, Herts, Surrey, West Sussex. And that is my 6.
By the numbers, which I have not done, I'd say they have problems where LD + Green are above ~25% of seats - as neither party have especially blatant negative factors at present. Except maybe "global warming" and "Palestine" amongst small parts of the Electorate.
People at your doorstep aren’t usually there to persuade you to vote differently. They are canvassing, identifying likely voters for targeted messages later, but most of all for get out the vote operations on the day, which really matter when turnout in local elections is so low.
So, yes, it works. Maybe social media blitzes and charismatic candidates also works.
Good afternoon, everybody.
https://x.com/paddypower/status/1874040321103061379
With no details given about how he died, I’m sure it was just a random heart attack and definitely not one of several Ukranian strikes on military facilities in Russia last week.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1874022065067446527
Reform will therefore have to focus on counties like Lincolnshire and Norfolk and Staffordshire
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/british-teenage-girls-alcohol-m32b8r9zl (£££)
Makes you proud to be British.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/47997-britons-support-rejoining-the-single-market-even-if-it-means-free-movement
https://x.com/defenceu/status/1862940662313701745
Next-gen warfare has moved on considerably in the last couple of years.
I was researching a commercial drone project last week and came across this, a Chinese small VTOL plane drone that costs from $15k, but could easily draw out much more expensive air defences and expose their location a long way away.
https://www.jouav.com/products/cw-30e.html
There’s a huge market for these for farmers, mappers etc, and there would be an even bigger market for a not-Chinese version by military and domestic emergency services in the West. It does 90% of what a police helicopter can do for 1% of the cost.
The LibDems get visibility by delivering leaflets (mostly unread I agree but noted), canvassing, posters and stakeboards, street stalls. These are all local and focused, and very effective as we have seen. But they are limited to areas of supporter strength which can only be slowly expanded.
In the US, as we have seen from Trump's campaign, visibility is TikTok, influencers, targeted digital messaging and a charismatic leader always in the news for good or bad. Farage is following that strategy. It leads to high national visibility spread fairly evenly, which is not effective in a FPTP system, unless you get to a tipping point.
The next local elections are going to be fascinating. I can't wait. No doubt I'll still be delivering leaflets and knocking on doors.
There do appear to be some quite angry people out there spoiling for a fight.
Really??
That isn't the case with social media - getting your message out is very expensive and I doubt most Reform voters are on Twitter...
They will be shooting for a couple of wins in the most responsive or 'persuadable' areas as a best-result, but they will also want groups of 4-10 Councillors as platforms for the future (if they are really aping LibDems and Greens in strategy).
Were I Mr Farage's Psmith or Jeeves, I'd be wanting 50 or ideally 100 switchers by Easter, and be driving it with a person-by-person strategy. I'd also perhaps be trying to mine the various Captain Mainwaring Independent factions.
Mrs Lee Anderson, for example, is still a Conservative Councillor in Mansfield.
It was invaluable during the pandemic, especially in the early days. “Yes of course the Cabinet Office and No.10 need massive f***ing screens full of data”.
Other governments could learn a lot from that approach.
At the moment Reform can't do this. Labour, Tories and LDs can and do. We aren't all daft spending most of our time doing this for no reason. The LDs have become best at leaflets, canvassing and posterboards because of circumstances. They have less funds and target more ruthlessly because they are looking at less seats (locally and nationally) so have more mobile active members who move from seat to seat, which lends itself to by elections.
I wouldn't say the LDs are best at GOTV. My experience of that is the Tories are better, but I have no experience of Labour and have heard they are also good.
Reform have got to acquire these skills and have said they want to learn from the LDs. If they do they will be formidable. They have certainly learnt how to do good leaflets. You have to get a message over from the leaflets 10 second life from the letterbox to the bin.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/do-brits-think-that-immigration-has-been-too-high-or-low-in-the-last-10-years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUODdPpnxcA
Because 99% of them are going to be coming from the Russian central bank trying to hold their currency up somewhere close to a rate of 100.
The market doesn’t look like that for any other major any other currency pair, and there’s almost no-one else who is going to want to be selling dollars for roubles right now.
A 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices might be desired but that's unachievable without a generational improvement in skillsets.
So instead the country gets various levels of 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices or 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices.
The fortunate ones are those who can have a 'Waitrose' lifestyle at 'Asda' prices ie the affluent in cheaper areas.
The unfortunate are those who get an 'Asda' lifestyle at 'Waitrose' prices ie many of the young and poor in southern England.
There's potential in Red Wall and former strong UKIP areas like North Notts and North Derbys. In Derbyshire for example Reform now have Alfreton and Somercotes, and Greater Heanor. Both are former heartlands for Right / Far Right ie UKIP / BNP - in so far as they had heartlands, and that vote will go Reform imo if it is motivated.
In this area, they have 1-3 Councillors on Ashfield, Bolsover, Mansfield, and Derbyshire Councils at this point. From a Reform point of view they will need to be nurturing those to be more than five on each, for starters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_UK
UKIP history under Farage leadership to 2016/7 seems relevant, when they peaked at 167 Local Councillors.
Papers given to the National Archives in London show then deputy PM John Prescott and foreign secretary Jack Straw both urged delay to the policy, warning of a surge in immigration unless some restrictions were put in place."
https://news.sky.com/story/tony-blair-opened-uk-borders-to-east-european-migrants-despite-misgivings-newly-released-files-show-13281833
That is a hell of a lot to sort out at short notice with lots of arguments and looks likes disaster waiting to happen if rushed. Is Essex similar? Is it being rushed by pressure from the Govt?
This theme tune also suits:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwsKzWli94
That's @viewcode 's house we were discussing last night
(I'm pretty sure I first heard that gag in an episode of Metal Mickey.)
Russia’s foreign currency reserves, built over a decade from surplus revenues in the raw materials sector, are nearing exhaustion, The Moscow Times reported on Dec. 5.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the National Welfare Fund (NWF) held approximately $140 billion in liquid assets. Over three years of war, this financial cushion has dwindled to nearly one-third of its former size.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/5073874/#Comment_5073874
My brain has been background-processing and I have some further thoughts, but I'll need to wait for 20 minutes free to write them up.
Organisers in Newcastle, Blackpool and Ripon followed Edinburgh in cancelling firework displays while London is “monitoring the weather”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/31/new-years-eve-weather-warnings-cancelled-events-2025/
Given what the White Paper said about population, Surrey looks like it ought to be 2 unitaries of about 600k each- 1 would be too big, 3 is a bit too small. Essex probably 3 (and memory hole Thurrock's debts while we're at it), maybe 4. Same for Hampshire.
So you stop the county concillors moaning about their abolition by letting them duck out of elections for another year. Unless they want to spend April on the doorstep being moaned at for not being strong like that splendid Mr Farage.
We've known the rational map since about 1969, it's just vested interests always get in the way.
With the political uncertainty in the US, the last thing Xi wants to do is to bring sanctions to his recessionary economy to go along with the tariffs.
Obviously I don't want it to sound like I am dismissing other forms of campaigning like you described. They are vital and get your national vote up, and the greater the national vote then the more targets become available.
The Reform national campaign was effective and we saw that in Guildford, although they were never going to be a challenger. Knocking up on the day should only result in you knocking on the doors of your supporters because you are using canvas data. Obviously mistakes get made, but generally that is true. But if someone has run a good national campaign you will find switchers. I knocked on hundreds of doors on election day. All were, as expected LDs, except 1 Conservative and no Labour/Greens. However the exception to that was about the dozen or so Reform voters I knocked up. All our other GOTV people got the same. People fed up with the Tories who were now voting LD suddenly preferred the Reform message and switched again during the election period.
https://www.lgcplus.com/politics/governance-and-structure/three-counties-set-to-postpone-elections-18-12-2024/
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/essex-let-the-people-vote?source=whatsapp-share-button&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=whatsapp&share=8d0d40ed-a748-436a-bac9-93c4828aa3bb
https://us12.campaign-archive.com/?e=__test_email__&u=40250f17955cfb7586ade94ce&id=b39e7e2a5f
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/whats-behind-the-sudden-decline-in-immigration-to-the-uk/
100% right on the problems
100% wrong on the solutions
There are 4 combined authority mayors up for election in 2025: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (currently Lab); West of England (currently Lab); Greater Lincolnshire (new); Hull and East Yorkshire (new)
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_Kingdom_local_elections#Combined_authority_mayors
Rob Ford did a predictions thread on BlueSky recently and has had a go at predicting these: https://bsky.app/profile/robfordmancs.bsky.social/post/3lejd4smqjk22 He predicts the Tories to win Cambs & Peterborough, the Greens to win W of England, Reform UK to win G Lincolnshire and the LibDems to win Hull/E Yorks (although he thinks Labour will do better if they re-institute SV for the elections).
There are also two directly elected mayors for single local authorities: Doncaster and North Tyneside. Both are held by Labour on hefty majorities.
I understand some of those who worked for him as juniors, who he rated, still like him.
How about saying no and using the money on something else?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/31/reject-800m-chagos-island-demands-diplomat-starmer/
And that's at best - most schemes of the type you describe just bring in work until the tax benefits run out - at which point the factory is closed and moved to the next location of discounts.
1) First categorise each area in five ratings from 1) doing fine...to 5) severely deprived
2) Target transport improvements from 5 to 1
3) Reduce employer ni for employees depending on zone catergory...cat 1 = 12%..cat2 10% all the way to cat 5 full 2%
4) Give tax breaks for training based on zone, zone 1 they can offset training cost against tax, zone 2 training costs+10% to zone 5 training costs+50%
5) Make the rule that training is not allowable just for current job but for a higher paid position in the company....for example training an it support person in coding
6) Encourage setting up teams in small subsidiary offices in deprived area using business rate relief
7) Reassess zone categorisation every 5 years
I think a lot of that might encourage employers to consider more deprived areas
*note I used 12% as full employer ni as couldnt be bothered to look up actual value but you get the idea
6 fails because who wants to manage a regional office which limits your future career options..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KyAUSqqmZY
Easy prey for the air-air drones which are increasingly used. And are cheaper.
But yes, such systems will take over a significant part of manned aircraft roles.
Particularly helicopters, which are both expensive and slow.
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/winston-churchill-great-nephew-backs-reform-uk
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6610793/Trump-Duke-Marlboroughs-friendship-revealed.html
as to 4 and 5 you seem to have misunderstood, training would supply higher tax relief so 1000 pounds of training in a zone 5 would give an offset of 1500 against tax. The reason few firms make use of the apprenticeship levy is it isnt suitable for most on the job training....for example it is useless for training a warehouse person to drive an hgv
If people don't have to jump through hoops to create work, they're more likely to do so.
Also if simply owning land and not doing anything with it is no longer a licence to print money then people need to invest in doing something productive to create money instead, and production equals jobs.
They don't say whether the not reelected Conservative mayor for West Midlands also got his knighthood as a reward for failure.
Two of three Tory candidates so far beaten by Khan were rewarded with peerages - not mere knights they - as an indication of their success?
Manned helicopters for commercial or emergency use are so ridiculously expensive. The average air ambulance, for which you’ll see a collecting tin in every flying club, runs around £10k an hour.
If you could launch five search drones and then direct the helicopter to the incident site, you could save the price of the drones in months. You can run the five drones with one man.
Seriously impressive. I tried for a 10k average in 2023 and fell 300 short.
In it, the government sets up and funds departments in universities.
1) Said departments train in various skills - plumbing, bricklaying, CNC operation etc etc
2) The courses are modules towards a degree. So your CORGI becomes a degree module.
3) mixing between practical and intellectual skills gets you more points towards your degree. So doing Welding & Elizabethan poetry gets you a degree faster (and with slightly less effort) than either just welding or poetry.
4) the training levy is used to part fund the “practical” departments.
This would massively break down the current class barrier between the degree’d and non-degree’d
Already bought myself a 12 month PSN Extra subscription to go for it and been playing FFVII Remake which has been fun to replay a newer version of something I first played decades ago, though I was disappointed to realise last night that Remake is only the first third of the game and thus I've already nearly finished that story, was expecting it to be the full game not split into a "trilogy".
Used to have a collection of every generation of consoles I'd had from NES onwards, with FFVII to FFXIII being main games I loved on prior PlayStation generations, but lost all my old consoles and games in a move a few years ago.
Never been a big fan of shooters, prefer strategy, RPG or action or adventure games though normally play strategy more on the PC.
Any recommendations? Doesn't have to be the newest but does have to be something I can download digitally.
Your scheme succeeds or fails depending on where the costs fall.
No surprise but very sad nonetheless. Grew up with him on Radio 1 School Lunch slot
Someone up in Heaven will be singing "Come Up and see Me make me Smile"
For a start, probably non residential, part time, in conjunction with work.
That's what I'm saying and I'm sticking to it!