You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
Definitely possible for Labour to hit 35%....especially when they tidy up the edges of the WFA policy for next winter, maintaining the abolition of it being for all but making any means testing simpler possibly by linking to Council Tax or Income Tax datam
The purpose of public inquiries and royal commissions, since at least the seventeenth century, is to 1. Be seen to do something about a political hot topic 2. Find the facts with plausible accuracy 3. Assign no blame except to people who are usefully dead and don't have a lobby supporting them.
Sometimes they come up with actionable improvements that are occasionally implemented. But this isn't the fundamental purpose of the inquiry.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
I posted this article last night when the Mail on Suday poll was released
There is a Deltapoll in there with a 7% Labour lead
Labour 30% Cons 23% Reform 22% Lib Dems 12%
Though Starmer is -42% Badenoch - 21%
Supplementary questions
Is UK heading in right direction 69%/18% no How worried are you for those no longer receiving the WFA 78%/15% worried Do you back IHT on farms 53%/25% no Should there be more or less immigrants coming into UK 62%/11% less Should Musk be allowed to donate £80 million to Reform 54%/30% no
I am confident that if Starmer or Reeves had thought the abolition of tge WFA would be so unpopular they would have done it .................................................................................................................. Re the IHT on farmers you are wrong
“Modern classical music can be a big ‘turn-off’, admits composer Mark-Anthony Turnage”
Perhaps write music that isn’t shit, and write music that people enjoy? If I knapped flints that everyone hated, I wouldn’t sell flints or have a flint agent. I wouldn’t be in a job. How can you have a job making art everyone hates??
The question is not just music and reflects a wider culture. Poetry, novels, painting/visual arts show some of the same features.
Arts at any depth have always worked by a synthesis of canonical tradition and illuminating genius. So, for example, Larkin is a genius but you can trace a line from him back to Edward Thomas, Hardy, John Clare etc.
Richard Strauss is a genius and you can trace a line back through Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart etc.
(As for novels, don't get me started.)
They knew where to go with what they inherited but on the whole have no successors.
The reasons have to be cultural and widespread. Opinions will vary!
Yes I largely agree. Modernism killed several art forms. Chiefly classical music (but it’s not entirely dead), also poetry, opera, maybe more
But others survive and thrive. Movies, TV, some modern art is notably successful - both popular AND profitable (cf the career of Damien Hirst). Theatre seems to be doing ok
Right now “literary fiction” is in terrible shape but other novel genres are doing quite well
Damien Hirst is a graphic designer who got lucky. Saatchi bought sharks; I see taxidermy. Saatchi bought spot paintings; I see wrapping paper.
There is not even a craft element as Hirst pays assistants for execution. You can mould an AI prompt to paint ballet dancers but it ain't Degas.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
“Modern classical music can be a big ‘turn-off’, admits composer Mark-Anthony Turnage”
Perhaps write music that isn’t shit, and write music that people enjoy? If I knapped flints that everyone hated, I wouldn’t sell flints or have a flint agent. I wouldn’t be in a job. How can you have a job making art everyone hates??
Is there not a Flint Council providing generous bursaries for hapless nappers who are so far ahead of quotidien public taste they have to be fed and watered at taxpayers' expense?
Exactly so. We need an end to art that is subsidised by the state mainly because it is so shit no one will voluntarily consume it
If this could be extended to modern architecture everyone hates, that would be great
But. For example the outstanding orchestras of Germany are in part sponsored by the state, and keep alive a great tradition some of which is made available to all. Arts subsidy does not only enable bad music to be written, it also allows the very expensive task of live performing the great tradition.
But why not just pay for the latter, and not the former?
If there's nothing new being written then it all becomes a bit of a dead end, endlessly playing Beethoven and Brahms. So they do need something new, but preferably listenable.
Perhaps there are too many alternative distractions for 'commercially' minded composers, like film music (isn't that what Wagner's operas are?), computer games music etc etc.
I find it quite funny that someone like Peter Maxwell Davies can write all sorts of avant-garde nonsense but also a few 'throwaway' light pieces like "Farewell to Stromness" and "An Orkney Wedding" that get played all the time, much to his apparent annoyance.
I’ve recently discovered the world of minimalist classical music beyond the obvious (Glass, Reich etc). Quite enjoying it
Certainly way better than Harrison frigging Birtwhistle
Literally anything is better than Birtwhistle.
I remember being at the Proms when there was a Birtwhistle piece played in between two rather more popular works.
The bar was heaving!
I once went to a Birtwhistle opera at the ROH (a friend used to get free tickets). I think it was Gawain. Can’t remember. My god it was shit
I’ve never had a greater desire to return to heroin, and at half tine we ran to the nearest bar and found some of the ROH orchestra MUSICIANS necking shots. One of them - a cellist or whatever - said “yes we all hate it as well, we spend our evenings composing evil anagrams of his name Harrison Birtwhistle”
So, everyone hated him. Even musicians with great musical learning. Yet he managed to construct an entire career from awful music and ended up with a knighthood
This is a diseased artistic ecosystem
Went to an opera by Janáček in Budapest a few years ago - in Slovak with Hungarian surtitles. Tickets were about a tenner and the vast hall was a quarter empty. Meanwhile Glyndebourne manages to put a bum on every seat at upwards of £300 a go. This is the paradox: if you can sell out you don't need a subsidy, if you can't sell out you don't deserve one.
Leon posting thousands of messages again destroying PB and joined by moonshine who linked to anti-Semitic and QAnon posts in the past. What's not to like?
What happened to that twitter scandal regarding Starmer referenced umpteen times a few weeks ago. Turned out to be tosh.
Really guys get off twitter. It is full of conspiracy crap.
My Twitter this morning seems to be full of snow pictures, dispatches from Syria and reports about the renewed Ukrainian Kursk offensive. Nothing about Starmer.
Others will be seeing Twitter absolutely dominated by angry men talking grooming gangs, and will be sensing revolution in the air. Thus are all our personal echo chambers curated.
Actually mine is a very pleasant mix of weather, Japan, rugby, Myanmar, “gangs”, AI, flint knappers and the ONGOING UFO DRONES THINGY - which has now deliciously spread to Denmark
Mines classic TV, US wrestling, doom and gloom about China’s 10 year, cricket, fail vides and the weather and a little bit of politics.
Quite so. People who have Twitter feeds full of one horrible or incendiary subject aren’t using Twitter properly. It is still vastly entertaining, you just have to curate it and weed out the real madness (but keep a bit - it can be fun)
I've got two twitter accounts. One for me that occasionally talks LD politics, and a YouTube Tesla one. I spend all my time using the latter on the For You feed. I want to see what people are being fed.
You say "weed out the real madness". Problem is that simpletons like several of my aunts are incapable of such brain power. Both of them have previously reposted EDL material which has disguised what it is ands where it comes from, and are then horrified when its pointed out to them.
Now? I don't think they even need to bother being horrified. There is this fictional character called Tommy Robinson who has been Jailed for Speaking Out against Grooming Gangs. We know that TR is fictional and that he's been jailed for contempt for repeatedly lying and defaming. But the low-information people out there are starting to think its true because that lie is now everywhere on their social media.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
Yep - as someone who has been opposed to FPTP for many, many years, I hope numbers like these concentrate minds.
Beeb journos and editors will be the first to burst into tears when Farage populist nationalist government ends the licence fee on day one and make the BBC into a less well funded version of PBS.
Meh. The BBC is doomed anyway. We might as well face it, even tho it saddens me as a Brit
Probably true but symptomatic of the decline of the country. We have allowed our great institutions to shrivel or be sold off in the name of competition and the 'free market'.
A lot of people dont think the bbc is a great institution however, its the channel you never bother with. Sort of like the shipping forecast, only of interest to a tiny few
That's patently bollocks.
"BBC One dominated the festive ratings charts in a bumper day for Christmas Day viewing, with programmes shown on the channel occupying all spots in the top 10 for the first time."
Christmas is a time when more people watch tv as it means they don't have to talk to the other people after lunch, they are not normal viewing figures therefore.
Even given that no 1 in the rankings was only watched by 1 in 5 people and by the time you get to no 10 you are down to 1 in 20.
Each year more people ditch the licence because they feel its no longer of value to them.
One little ray of light:
"On Christmas Day, 2.35 million viewers watched ITV News, beating out the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special, which drew in 2.15 million viewers."
In France we installed a VPN so we could watch BBC on iPlayer. Then found ourselves unable to watch TF1 because it was (“pas disposable dans votre pays”).
Geolocated television rights were a problem at the start of the cloud because you can see French football but if your backup circuit went through an Amsterdam datacentre, you couldn't. Obviously these issues were quickly sorted out.
Leon posting thousands of messages again destroying PB and joined by moonshine who linked to anti-Semitic and QAnon posts in the past. What's not to like?
What happened to that twitter scandal regarding Starmer referenced umpteen times a few weeks ago. Turned out to be tosh.
Really guys get off twitter. It is full of conspiracy crap.
How am I destroying PB? I only returned yesterday and I didn’t post since about December 20th?!
Serious question. You have some pathological fear
You returned on Thursday, drove Foxy off the site with your posts, in fact you're making me question the wisdom of me continuing on PB.
I’ve frequently disagreed with you on a lot of things but I do value this site and what it provides. But I feel we are losing that with certain users posting conspiracy after conspiracy. I’ve not got an issue with the volume necessarily but what we are seeing is that a few users have been completely captured/radicalised by social media and are increasingly posting more and more deranged and dangerous stuff.
I wasn’t being flippant when I said this kind of stuff is going to get an MP killed. It is irresponsible to share it. Hence I will no longer be posting Tweets.
Name these conspiracies
Well for a start the Starmer one of a few weeks ago.
Given that we’re not allowed to talk about certain things I am unable to reply
Isn't that a bit of a cop out. You asked for an example of a conspiracy. I posted one. One doesn't need to go into any detail unless you are suggesting it wasn't one, which would seem strange as it seems to have been thoroughly debunked.
PS I enjoyed your other reply and only didn't like, because I disagreed with your comment on Roger. He is big enough to look after himself
I am always on the verge of being banned for ANYTHING on here. See comments above. So I don’t have much choice but to be absurdly circumspect. Sorry
Ha ha. Your best joke of the year, though it's early days.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
I rather suspect it's because it's still the Christmas break, so polling is even more worthless than usual because nobody is paying attention.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
I rather suspect it's because it's still the Christmas break, so polling is even more worthless than usual because nobody is paying attention.
The problem is the article doesn't reflect the polling that is supposed to be the reason for the article.
The article is saying the polling says X should happen when the poll says X shouldn't happen.
And while polling is pointless during Christmas the Mail could have saved money and used Reader polls to generate the result they want by closing it as soon as they got the result they wanted. Would at least have meant they weren't posting outright lies..
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
I rather suspect it's because it's still the Christmas break, so polling is even more worthless than usual because nobody is paying attention.
The problem is the article doesn't reflect the polling that is supposed to be the reason for the article.
The article is saying the polling says X should happen when the poll says X shouldn't happen.
And while polling is pointless during Christmas the Mail could have saved money and used Reader polls to generate the result they want by closing it as soon as they got the result they wanted. Would at least have meant they weren't posting outright lies..
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Very concerning article in The Sunday Times today that the UK is almost totally exposed to ballistic missile attacks.
And, yes, I blame Cameron and Osborne for this as much as those since and now.
When the histories are written, perhaps Cameron and Osborne will come off worst, not for any specific harm they did – people can always point to Heath and Thatcher, or Blair and Brown, or Boris and Truss – but for their deep cynicism, including austerity to shrink the state, gerrymandering under cover of improving democracy, and at the MoD, reclassifying pensions as defence spending while buying fewer things that go bang.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
"Right" and "Left" are not fixed points. Reform are clearly to the right based on today's spectrum as they outflank the Tories.
Based on a more traditional political spectrum? Labour are centre right, Tories more right, Reform more right. Being populist doesn't mean that you aren't trying to populise right ideas like scrapping the NHS.
This site is at its worst when it degenerates into ill-tempered discussions about itself and individual posters*. I find if I don't like what's posted (and sometimes there are posters that sail too close to the wind) it is better to put on ignore. There are plenty of opportunities for considered debate most times on here. It's an excellent resource, though I admit I would not like TSE's job.
I am not posting as frequently as I was last year but I still value this site a lot as it helps inform my discussions and thoughts on where politics is going.
*The irony is not lost on me that I am doing so by posting this.
In general I skip posts which feature an anoymous poster attacking another anonymous poster personally - what's the point, and who cares? I think otherwise PB remains pretty healthy, as a place where people discuss the issues across party.
Leon posting thousands of messages again destroying PB and joined by moonshine who linked to anti-Semitic and QAnon posts in the past. What's not to like?
What happened to that twitter scandal regarding Starmer referenced umpteen times a few weeks ago. Turned out to be tosh.
Really guys get off twitter. It is full of conspiracy crap.
How am I destroying PB? I only returned yesterday and I didn’t post since about December 20th?!
Serious question. You have some pathological fear
I'm specifically talking about the posts since your return, not while you weren't here obviously and not when you post normally. Your normal posts are entertaining and as you know I have supported you when you have been banned on occasions, but really since you returned it has been endless and not constructive. I just look at the vitriol and just drop out.
The other day I had a discussion with @HYUFD on a topic where we disagreed strongly, but we didn't take over the forum nor make it unpleasant, which goes beyond banter. Foxy had already been driven away. I have no desire to comment when it gets like this. I'm sure it is the same for others. Hence the destroying of PB comment.
Commentary was so destroyed by my presence there were 1,400 comments on the prior thread. Even if 300 were by me (they weren’t) that’s practically a record
Next
I won't continue with the debate as I will then be obviously hypocritical, but much as I support you posting here you do clearly lack self awareness of your impact by the quantity and type of posts. See @TheScreamingEagles response to you.
I think it’s more the quality, TBH. I’m quite good at verbal vitriol, winding up, and acidly eloquent humiliation
Do we want a site, though, where the ability to tolerate your post prandial vitriol determines who sticks around ?
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
I posted this article last night when the Mail on Suday poll was released
There is a Deltapoll in there with a 7% Labour lead
Labour 30% Cons 23% Reform 22% Lib Dems 12%
Though Starmer is -42% Badenoch - 21%
Supplementary questions
Is UK heading in right direction 69%/18% no How worried are you for those no longer receiving the WFA 78%/15% worried Do you back IHT on farms 53%/25% no Should there be more or less immigrants coming into UK 62%/11% less Should Musk be allowed to donate £80 million to Reform 54%/30% no
I am confident that if Starmer or Reeves had thought the abolition of tge WFA would be so unpopular they would have done it .................................................................................................................. Re the IHT on farmers you are wrong
The poll concluded
Do you back IHT on farms 53%/25% no
I'm surprised Deltapoll didn't ask supplementary question: Are you worried Keir Starmer might be a baby eating monster?
Very concerning article in The Sunday Times today that the UK is almost totally exposed to ballistic missile attacks.
And, yes, I blame Cameron and Osborne for this as much as those since and now.
When the histories are written, perhaps Cameron and Osborne will come off worst, not for any specific harm they did – people can always point to Heath and Thatcher, or Blair and Brown, or Boris and Truss – but for their deep cynicism, including austerity to shrink the state, gerrymandering under cover of improving democracy, and at the MoD, reclassifying pensions as defence spending while buying fewer things that go bang.
It will depend on the historian. I think we can accept by now that a lot of history is expressing one's opinion, much like dozens of other jobs (and none pay particularly well).
Niall Ferguson joins the cravens chorus. Used to think Trump was a bad news bear but has given his head a wobble and thinks he's ok now. Bit of a fan even.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
If we've got to the point where ballistic missiles are being fired at the UK then we are already well into Threads.
I'd have thought that drones were much more of a practical problem given how cheaply they can be made.
I’d suggest the barrier to entry for that kind of thing is going to drop moderately quickly. SpaceX are already 3d printing large parts of their engines - which suggests a reasonable technical university will have that ability in a decade and it’ll be entering the artisanal fabrication space within a decade of that.
“Modern classical music can be a big ‘turn-off’, admits composer Mark-Anthony Turnage”
Perhaps write music that isn’t shit, and write music that people enjoy? If I knapped flints that everyone hated, I wouldn’t sell flints or have a flint agent. I wouldn’t be in a job. How can you have a job making art everyone hates??
The question is not just music and reflects a wider culture. Poetry, novels, painting/visual arts show some of the same features.
Arts at any depth have always worked by a synthesis of canonical tradition and illuminating genius. So, for example, Larkin is a genius but you can trace a line from him back to Edward Thomas, Hardy, John Clare etc.
Richard Strauss is a genius and you can trace a line back through Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart etc.
(As for novels, don't get me started.)
They knew where to go with what they inherited but on the whole have no successors.
The reasons have to be cultural and widespread. Opinions will vary!
Yes I largely agree. Modernism killed several art forms. Chiefly classical music (but it’s not entirely dead), also poetry, opera, maybe more
But others survive and thrive. Movies, TV, some modern art is notably successful - both popular AND profitable (cf the career of Damien Hirst). Theatre seems to be doing ok
Right now “literary fiction” is in terrible shape but other novel genres are doing quite well
Good points. But what you might call the 'Dickens trick' (and Jane Austen) of being immensely popular, and populist and at the same time inexhaustible in profundity seems to be eluding most art forms at the moment.
Yes, other novel genres are doing fine. Chandler and Christie have plenty of successors, if any recent ones are high art I have missed them; Trollope and Dickens fewer - like none?
(Will Hirst/Emin etc seem important in 500 years time?)
Unpopular take: Trollope and Dickens are wildly overrated - tho the latter endures because he could great descriptive prose and occasionally the odd magical plot - Christmas Carol being the best, Oliver Twist next
Austen is much greater coz she wrote great plots AND great prose. That’s why Pride and Prejuduce is infinitely superior to any Dickens/Trollope - and is continuously remade
Have a great plot, then great characters. Your work will endure. And keep the books short if you can. 90,000 words is easily enough
Don't much agree, but agree there is nothing like great story telling - which is where the not very profound Trollope gets 5 stars.
On Austen, I beg to differ in one sense. Her greatest masterpiece, Emma, hardly has a plot. The most interesting things that happen are eating a cake and having a haircut. In the hands of anyone else it is less of a page turner than Ulysses. Nothing happens. But yet it operates as an exemplar of the opposite of King Lear. No-one in Emma is left out in its joy in life. And there's a new baby slipped in with hardly a mention.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
The theory is Robinson receives a significant amount of money from Musk and runs with it.
An extreme right wing party that is well funded is something that the UK has never seen - even the blackshirts didn't have that much money...
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
I was absolutely clear that "TR" was toxic. But having watched the first couple of minutes of the latest video being pushed by Musk, a point was made.
Geert Wilders was so toxic that he literally couldn't travel to places like the UK. And now here he is with his populist nationalism party having more MPs in the Dutch parliament than any party and them being in government.
Imagine what a fortune of Musk money could build for "TR".
It makes the good point that the nuclear deterrent is (or should be) in a different class of defence expenditure. Its raison d'etre is not to be used. But it disguises reduced spending on forces that can be used in battle.
The UK is spending only 1.6 per cent of GDP on “conventional defence”, when commitments like the nuclear deterrent are excluded.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
We simply have to ban social media promoted posts and any feed that isn’t chronological. The idea of curated content was a noble one but has failed in practice.
How ?
You can't sensible do it - which is why I shifted to Bluesky where that is the way things work because of their long term federation plans...
On Bluesky, I ran my first account "find followers from Twiitter" update since a month ago this morning.
It found about a further ~400 of the ~4500 or so I have been following on Twitter, most of whom are new, but some of whom are established (it found Larry the Cat and Cyclefree for two). Most of my "followed" are UK-based, with a fair sprinkling of internationals.
I'm not monitoring or searching for followers, even though it has been my practice to block bots and prune dormant accounts from my twitter following, I don't want to risk picking up any on Bluesky - or do an account by account check on that many at this time.
(Twitter follower numbers are the archetypal meaningless statistic unless pruned, but the media in their thickitude have been using it for 13-14 years because it is easy and they are lazy).
So I'd say that Bluesky is continuing to tick ahead. It's up about 16-18% in the last month.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
The theory is Robinson receives a significant amount of money from Musk and runs with it.
An extreme right wing party that is well funded is something that the UK has never seen - even the blackshirts didn't have that much money...
They wouldn't be extreme right. They would shave off the absolute extremities of their racism and instead be talking about public safety and the defence of culture. Learn the lessons from last year's riots where morons where whipped into riot. Whip them to the level below riot so that they don't all get jailed at the first public event.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
Many on here seem to want Kemi to fail, but if she does Jenrick could well be her successor which would make some form of merger or cooperation more likely
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
Many on here seem to want Kemi to fail, but if she does Jenrick could well be her successor which would make some form of merger or cooperation more likely
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Volatility
This week Kemi is calling for an inquiry into sex abuse cases which is identical to the one she received the report of in 2022/3 and did sod all with.
That shows you her (lack of) calibre and brains.,..
Apart from the speed with which the inquiry was set up & reported (less paperwork/no emails etc., & because - unlike blood poisoning etc., Aberfan could not be ignored), it has been the template for how the British state has dealt with scandals.
There was no space to include this - but the way the Aberfan families were treated in the decades after the tragedy was appalling - and this has been copied in scandals since. Absolutely nothing has been learnt.
And my rather depressing conclusion is that this is not just because of ineptitude. But because there has been a disdain, contempt even for the people who suffer. It is almost as if by being victims they are seen as not worthy of respect or care or basic human decency. Victims are seen as "little people" not worthy bothering about
From my conclusion -
"It is as if, bad as it is to have caused harm in the first place, it somehow also seems necessary to continue with the cruelty and the contempt and the indifference in order to …. well, what? To justify what was done? To enable the perpetrators to forget that the victims are human beings like them? If they can be dismissed or dehumanised in some way, maybe it makes it easier not to face up to what you have been in part responsible for.
As CS Lewis put it:
“The greatest evil is not now done in those “sordid dens of crime” that Dickens loves to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”
There is the indifference which can be one of the causes of a problem. But what is often worse is the indifference shown to victims after problems have arisen. It is hard to understand the callousness of some decisions. Perhaps its impulse is less the effect on the victims but more a desire to save face by those responsible. It harms an institution’s self-image and, often, of the people within it. “We got it wrong.” is hard to say. If “we get it wrong” what sort of a “we” are we, really? Avoiding the shame of having to admit that your actions or inactions have been responsible for the suffering of others is what drives this indifference and contempt.
What happened to the Aberfan families has happened to so many others who have found themselves unjustly treated: not just those contaminated with infected blood, not just subpostmasters, not just those living in a dangerous tower block. But those defrauded by badly regulated financial companies, football fans, Caribbean immigrants who have lived and worked here for decades, crime victims, those wrongly convicted, hospital patients. On and on. They are victims of abuses of power by those with power.
What happened to them could happen to any of us."
This last point is so often forgotten by those in power.
As an aside there was a weirdly interesting side story resulting from the Aberfan tragedy where a psychiatrist picked up on loads of stories of premonitions of the tragedy and set up, along with a reporter for the Evening Standard and his researcher, an entity called the British Premonitions Bureau.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
I was absolutely clear that "TR" was toxic. But having watched the first couple of minutes of the latest video being pushed by Musk, a point was made.
Geert Wilders was so toxic that he literally couldn't travel to places like the UK. And now here he is with his populist nationalism party having more MPs in the Dutch parliament than any party and them being in government.
Imagine what a fortune of Musk money could build for "TR".
I really do not want to imagine anything that involves Tommy Robinson
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
"Right" and "Left" are not fixed points. Reform are clearly to the right based on today's spectrum as they outflank the Tories.
Based on a more traditional political spectrum? Labour are centre right, Tories more right, Reform more right. Being populist doesn't mean that you aren't trying to populise right ideas like scrapping the NHS.
ah, yes, caving into trades unions - that great hallmark of the traditional centre right!
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
Many on here seem to want Kemi to fail, but if she does Jenrick could well be her successor which would make some form of merger or cooperation more likely
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Volatility
This week Kemi is calling for an inquiry into sex abuse cases which is identical to the one she received the report of in 2022/3 and did sod all with.
That shows you her (lack of) calibre and brains.,..
I think the idea of an enquiry is nonsense, not least because it would be an enormous waste of money and time
As for Kemi's position it is just politics and she needs to chose her topics more carefully
Deltapoll could be an outlier, or it could represent a slight strengthening of the governments position after a torrid few months and representing the fact Badenoch hasn’t had much impact yet. One thing I hope we start to get in 2025 is more polling data from some more outfits. In particular I am very interested in where the Reform share goes. If it flatlines in the low 20s then there will be some relief for the big 2, if it starts hitting the 30s we’re in for a very interesting ride.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
Many on here seem to want Kemi to fail, but if she does Jenrick could well be her successor which would make some form of merger or cooperation more likely
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Volatility
This week Kemi is calling for an inquiry into sex abuse cases which is identical to the one she received the report of in 2022/3 and did sod all with.
That shows you her (lack of) calibre and brains.,..
Given that report claimed that 30/85 was a bigger number than 28/9, it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Though of course any further enquiry would no doubt be conducted by people who think the same way, and would try very hard to come to the same conclusion.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Very concerning article in The Sunday Times today that the UK is almost totally exposed to ballistic missile attacks.
And, yes, I blame Cameron and Osborne for this as much as those since and now.
It's been a topic of discussion here for a good couple of years.
ABM systems are expensive - and we decided to fund other things (the semi-vanity project carriers, for example).
Developing our own at the point would be both slow and costly. Best bet might be to negotiate a license deal with S Korea.
I think the carriers are essential for our global power projection. Not only for our status as world power but because we are an island nation that depends, hugely, upon global trade and a defence of the international rules-based order.
We just don't want to fund it properly. I note the Admirals are asking for 12 x Type 83s to properly cover and defend all our commitments, which was exactly what we should have got with the Type 45s but didn't, due to parsimony.
Damn it, dismantling Christmas trees is depressing...
I quite enjoy it. Gives the house a feeling of minimality and spaciousness. Makes me think of the denoument of the Julia Donaldson book "a squash and a squeeze." Better than usual this year because for the first time in ten years or so we had a real tree, giving me the chance to wield a saw and vaguely imagine myself as some frontiersman with actual skills.
Very concerning article in The Sunday Times today that the UK is almost totally exposed to ballistic missile attacks.
And, yes, I blame Cameron and Osborne for this as much as those since and now.
When the histories are written, perhaps Cameron and Osborne will come off worst, not for any specific harm they did – people can always point to Heath and Thatcher, or Blair and Brown, or Boris and Truss – but for their deep cynicism, including austerity to shrink the state, gerrymandering under cover of improving democracy, and at the MoD, reclassifying pensions as defence spending while buying fewer things that go bang.
I've been half-wondering whether a new ministry, the Ministry for Rearmament perhaps, is needed on top of the MoD, who can just manage the existing forces. Or a massive vaccine type taskforce with big delegated authority.
I have little confidence in the MoD to procure and deliver, and the skills for a rapid reindustrialisation and development of capability drawing in those from civilian life, with excellent PM skills, are different.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
The one scenario in which I can see Reform and the Tory party merging without serious concerns would be if they needed to defend their right flank from a well funded Tommy Robinson or similar..
Many on here seem to want Kemi to fail, but if she does Jenrick could well be her successor which would make some form of merger or cooperation more likely
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Volatility
So do I want Kemi to succeed, but she needs to get serious first. The problem is, Labour is the only party in the Union that thinks serious problems need serious answers. Which is a risk if people decide they don't like what Labour is doing. Unfortunately I'm not sure Badenoch is capable of serious, so there doesn't seem to be a viable alternative.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
I was absolutely clear that "TR" was toxic. But having watched the first couple of minutes of the latest video being pushed by Musk, a point was made.
Geert Wilders was so toxic that he literally couldn't travel to places like the UK. And now here he is with his populist nationalism party having more MPs in the Dutch parliament than any party and them being in government.
Imagine what a fortune of Musk money could build for "TR".
I really do not want to imagine anything that involves Tommy Robinson
Other than the hangmans noose or his head on the guillotine rack
Damn it, dismantling Christmas trees is depressing...
I quite enjoy it. Gives the house a feeling of minimality and spaciousness. Makes me think of the denoument of the Julia Donaldson book "a squash and a squeeze." Better than usual this year because for the first time in ten years or so we had a real tree, giving me the chance to wield a saw and vaguely imagine myself as some frontiersman with actual skills.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
Definitely possible for Labour to hit 35%....especially when they tidy up the edges of the WFA policy for next winter, maintaining the abolition of it being for all but making any means testing simpler possibly by linking to Council Tax or Income Tax datam
I think that's a point for Ben's competition.
On the polling question, over the period we will have a lorra-lorra polls, and for the 4 main parties (if we include RefUK for now) we will be likely to get outliers in each direction - which are where we may be for "lowest" and "highest" figures, rather than actual support numbers.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
The theory is Robinson receives a significant amount of money from Musk and runs with it.
An extreme right wing party that is well funded is something that the UK has never seen - even the blackshirts didn't have that much money...
They wouldn't be extreme right. They would shave off the absolute extremities of their racism and instead be talking about public safety and the defence of culture. Learn the lessons from last year's riots where morons where whipped into riot. Whip them to the level below riot so that they don't all get jailed at the first public event.
Robinson is already in receipt of millions from various uber right American sources and Russia to find his lavish 5 to 7 star transitory lifestyle
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Reform is a none of the above protest vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
I have an untested theory that hypothermia is one of the better ways to go. You fall asleep and don't wake up - end of story. But not today of all days: 5°C at noon and 11°C at midnight.
Hypothesis - "Tommy Robinson" is the coming storm in our politics.
Rationale - Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressiing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
I don't think so to be honest
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
The theory is Robinson receives a significant amount of money from Musk and runs with it.
An extreme right wing party that is well funded is something that the UK has never seen - even the blackshirts didn't have that much money...
They wouldn't be extreme right. They would shave off the absolute extremities of their racism and instead be talking about public safety and the defence of culture. Learn the lessons from last year's riots where morons where whipped into riot. Whip them to the level below riot so that they don't all get jailed at the first public event.
Robinson is already in receipt of millions from various uber right American sources and Russia to find his lavish 5 to 7 star transitory lifestyle
when not in solitary confinement for his own safety while jailed for contempt of court...
Deltapoll could be an outlier, or it could represent a slight strengthening of the governments position after a torrid few months and representing the fact Badenoch hasn’t had much impact yet. One thing I hope we start to get in 2025 is more polling data from some more outfits. In particular I am very interested in where the Reform share goes. If it flatlines in the low 20s then there will be some relief for the big 2, if it starts hitting the 30s we’re in for a very interesting ride.
Deltapoll's final poll for the 2024 GE had Labour on 39%, so overestimated their final voteshare by 5%.
They also slightly underestimated the Tories who they had on 22% and slightly overestimated Reform who they had on 17%.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
They're shifting to the right. They're not shifting *to the Conservatives*. Because the Tories spent too many recent years not just not being conservatives, but by being an incompetent shower of backstabbing bastards.
What drives CR mad is that the Tories are on the same failure shelf as Labour having had the same policies as Labour.
I have an untested theory that hypothermia is one of the better ways to go. You fall asleep and don't wake up - end of story. But not today of all days: 5°C at noon and 11°C at midnight.
I'm intrigued. How would you test different ways of dying to find out which one of them is preferable?
It seems to me that there would be a logical problem with finding a reliable methodology...
“Modern classical music can be a big ‘turn-off’, admits composer Mark-Anthony Turnage”
Perhaps write music that isn’t shit, and write music that people enjoy? If I knapped flints that everyone hated, I wouldn’t sell flints or have a flint agent. I wouldn’t be in a job. How can you have a job making art everyone hates??
The question is not just music and reflects a wider culture. Poetry, novels, painting/visual arts show some of the same features.
Arts at any depth have always worked by a synthesis of canonical tradition and illuminating genius. So, for example, Larkin is a genius but you can trace a line from him back to Edward Thomas, Hardy, John Clare etc.
Richard Strauss is a genius and you can trace a line back through Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart etc.
(As for novels, don't get me started.)
They knew where to go with what they inherited but on the whole have no successors.
The reasons have to be cultural and widespread. Opinions will vary!
Yes I largely agree. Modernism killed several art forms. Chiefly classical music (but it’s not entirely dead), also poetry, opera, maybe more
But others survive and thrive. Movies, TV, some modern art is notably successful - both popular AND profitable (cf the career of Damien Hirst). Theatre seems to be doing ok
Right now “literary fiction” is in terrible shape but other novel genres are doing quite well
Good points. But what you might call the 'Dickens trick' (and Jane Austen) of being immensely popular, and populist and at the same time inexhaustible in profundity seems to be eluding most art forms at the moment.
Yes, other novel genres are doing fine. Chandler and Christie have plenty of successors, if any recent ones are high art I have missed them; Trollope and Dickens fewer - like none?
(Will Hirst/Emin etc seem important in 500 years time?)
Unpopular take: Trollope and Dickens are wildly overrated - tho the latter endures because he could great descriptive prose and occasionally the odd magical plot - Christmas Carol being the best, Oliver Twist next
Austen is much greater coz she wrote great plots AND great prose. That’s why Pride and Prejuduce is infinitely superior to any Dickens/Trollope - and is continuously remade
Have a great plot, then great characters. Your work will endure. And keep the books short if you can. 90,000 words is easily enough
Pride and Prejudice with its advocacy of wealth through inheritance to enable a life of genteel idleness together with its sneering hostility to those who work - even in middle class professions such as lawyers, clergymen and army officers.
Someone should do a TV program about the malign socioeconomic consequences of Jane Austen.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
Definitely possible for Labour to hit 35%....especially when they tidy up the edges of the WFA policy for next winter, maintaining the abolition of it being for all but making any means testing simpler possibly by linking to Council Tax or Income Tax datam
I think that's a point for Ben's competition.
On the polling question, over the period we will have a lorra-lorra polls, and for the 4 main parties (if we include RefUK for now) we will be likely to get outliers in each direction - which are where we may be for "lowest" and "highest" figures, rather than actual support numbers.
Back in the very early 60's Jo Grimond's Liberals were exciting much the same sort of comments. They were getting Councillors all over the place on the usual council elections turnout. When it came to the General Election the Liberal vote turned out to have been the Council Election vote and 'gains' were negligible.
Leon posting thousands of messages again destroying PB and joined by moonshine who linked to anti-Semitic and QAnon posts in the past. What's not to like?
What happened to that twitter scandal regarding Starmer referenced umpteen times a few weeks ago. Turned out to be tosh.
Really guys get off twitter. It is full of conspiracy crap.
What we are witnessing in real time is how Twitter under Musk radicalises people.
It's partly some people's opposition to the Labour govt overrides everything so much that when Musk attacks Starmer they start going along with all the other shit he says,
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Reform is a none of the above protest vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
But to become a government you automatically turn into 'one of the above'.
I have an untested theory that hypothermia is one of the better ways to go. You fall asleep and don't wake up - end of story. But not today of all days: 5°C at noon and 11°C at midnight.
I'm intrigued. How would you test different ways of dying to find out which one of them is preferable?
It seems to me that there would be a logical problem with finding a reliable methodology...
I did say it was untested (by me, at least, if not by 'Titus' Oates). But when you read the departed 'died peacefully in their sleep' it sounds more reassuring than many other eventualities. DYOR.
Would the correct term be “brass neck” if you are complaining about your designs being stolen whilst posing in front of a design you have copied from Michelangelo?
Deltapoll could be an outlier, or it could represent a slight strengthening of the governments position after a torrid few months and representing the fact Badenoch hasn’t had much impact yet. One thing I hope we start to get in 2025 is more polling data from some more outfits. In particular I am very interested in where the Reform share goes. If it flatlines in the low 20s then there will be some relief for the big 2, if it starts hitting the 30s we’re in for a very interesting ride.
Deltapoll's final poll for the 2024 GE had Labour on 39%, so overestimated their final voteshare by 5%.
They also slightly underestimated the Tories who they had on 22% and slightly overestimated Reform who they had on 17%.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Which makes the distribution of their votes so critical. If they clump as "not Lab" votes in Lab seats with Ref second, then it's Hung Parliament Shenanigans! If they're more evenly spread, then it's Labour Much Reduced But Still Solid Majority.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Reform is a none of the above protest vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
But to become a government you automatically turn into 'one of the above'.
Lots of populist parties have gotten into government and then crashed when they were in power. But then others have managed to hold on to power, often through nationalism and partisan control of the media etc. (see Hungary, Poland, Turkey).
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
Definitely possible for Labour to hit 35%....especially when they tidy up the edges of the WFA policy for next winter, maintaining the abolition of it being for all but making any means testing simpler possibly by linking to Council Tax or Income Tax datam
I think that's a point for Ben's competition.
On the polling question, over the period we will have a lorra-lorra polls, and for the 4 main parties (if we include RefUK for now) we will be likely to get outliers in each direction - which are where we may be for "lowest" and "highest" figures, rather than actual support numbers.
One reason I went high... 5% away now, if they play clever politics, something they haven't yet done, but say next Autumn "we've listened" and tweak WFA to capture the next 300,000 most vulnerable, then an outlier is highly likely.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
They're shifting to the right. They're not shifting *to the Conservatives*. Because the Tories spent too many recent years not just not being conservatives, but by being an incompetent shower of backstabbing bastards.
What drives CR mad is that the Tories are on the same failure shelf as Labour having had the same policies as Labour.
That is indeed true, but as they did elect one of the candidates (possibly the only candidate) who in theory understands that, they at least have the chance of some recovery. Though it's going to take a lot of skill, judgement and luck to deploy the nostra culpa at an effective moment.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
I am not sure that's quite right.
There's a lot of 'never Tory', 'Conservatives betrayed us', 'Uniparty' type noise around Reform - some just picking up Trumpist and MAGA slogans, certainly amongst their social media groups and presence (and they are social media lead). I have still yet to hear "the LibLabCon", which iirc was a BNP, and I think UKIP, hallmark around 2010.
Now, part of that is because it is a mile wide and half an inch deep, and Farage's strategy is to stir up a mob and stand in front of it, using Far RIght rhetorical hints whilst furiously demanding that that is not what he is doing.
He's embarrassed about Musk and the BNP adjacent (my term) rhetoric he is using, but he won't repudiate it. And that is the current tension of trying to ride two horses that may not always be going in the same direction.
On Musk and Trump, Farage calls himself a "patriot", pro-British, a friend of Musk, and a friend of both.
Yet when Musk is out demonising the UK, and promoting lies about the UK, Farage sits on his arse and waffles - shouting about Musk being a "free speech hero". Yadda yadda yadda.
He shouts all the stuff about the gangs (which we are not mentioning), but entirely ignores the rapists and sex abusers Trump wanted in his cabinet, and Musk publicly supported.
She are plenty of openings there either for Kemi or Keir, or Laura Kuenssberg, to nail Farage - but I have not heard any of them serious push back yet.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Reform is a none of the above protest vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
But to become a government you automatically turn into 'one of the above'.
Lots of populist parties have gotten into government and then crashed when they were in power. But then others have managed to hold on to power, often through nationalism and partisan control of the media etc. (see Hungary, Poland, Turkey).
None of those western nations really though.
Meloni however has managed to do it in Italy and on current polls her right of centre coalition government will be re elected at the next Italian election
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Reform is a none of the above protest vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
But to become a government you automatically turn into 'one of the above'.
Lots of populist parties have gotten into government and then crashed when they were in power. But then others have managed to hold on to power, often through nationalism and partisan control of the media etc. (see Hungary, Poland, Turkey).
The most important differential will be competence.
It matters little where on the political axes a party is if it proves to be incompetent in government.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
Which makes the distribution of their votes so critical. If they clump as "not Lab" votes in Lab seats with Ref second, then it's Hung Parliament Shenanigans! If they're more evenly spread, then it's Labour Much Reduced But Still Solid Majority.
Yes, if Reform voters vote tactically for the Tories in seats the Tories were second in at the GE and Tory voters vote tactically for Reform in seats Reform were second in at the GE a hung parliament would be odds on. Indeed a Tory and Reform coalition government could even be possible. However if they don't Labour may still get a small majority.
Not an issue here in Brentwood and Ongar though given the Tories won with Reform second last July
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
What's mad about that poll is it still represents a significant swing to the right since the GE, but Labour would still probably get a majority on those numbers.
That's defining Reform as "right", whereas arguably they're something orthoganal to the left-right spectrum. They're a classic "I want stuff to change quickly" populst party. whereas the Tories are still predominantly an establishment party. If either of them succeeds in emvracing both currents, Labour will be in deep trouble, but it's not clear that they will.
Keep saying that if it makes you feel better.
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
Perhaps. But I don't think the majority of Ref voters are mentally ticking the bix saying "Like the Conservatives, only more so." Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
They're shifting to the right. They're not shifting *to the Conservatives*. Because the Tories spent too many recent years not just not being conservatives, but by being an incompetent shower of backstabbing bastards.
What drives CR mad is that the Tories are on the same failure shelf as Labour having had the same policies as Labour.
What you fail to recognise (possibly because it's too complex for your mind to process) is that I regularly criticise the Conservatives. Indeed, I've done so on this thread alone.
Yes, I am a classic Shire Tory, and quite right-wing, but I'm not blind to their failings.
Having skimmed the rest of the thread can I try and make a counter argument?
Public Inquiries are by their nature fixed by their terms of reference and those, inevitably, will have to focus on a particular tragedy. Their objective is to see what lessons can be learned and how this tragedy can be prevented from happening again. That objective and that context motivates the Inquiry to both action and broad recommendations.
The problem with this, as I have touched on before, is that implementation of those recommendations, and the introduction of new safeguards, have real world consequences. They make the provision of the service or the need to demonstrate suitable care in taking action much more expensive, bureaucratic and time consuming.
If we take the multiple examples of failures in baby units, spoken to by so many inquiries so repeatedly, full implementation would require the recording and analysis of vast additional quantities of data, having nurses spending more time doing the paperwork and less with the child and a reduction in capacity which would inevitably result in children who should be receiving intensive care simply not doing so.
Even if we take the horrific example of Aberfan the real context of that inquiry was a National Coal Board struggling to survive on substantial sums of public money, struggling to keep open pits which were simply not economically viable for social reasons and with a desperate need to cut corners at every turn including, it turned out, on tip inspections. The management, including the lying Lord Robens, did not avoid spending money on this because they were evil, or because they were stupid. They made that choice because they faced difficult, almost impossible, choices amongst priorities. It is very easy after the event to say, well, they shouldn't have neglected this, but this ignores the real world. /2
/2 This also explains the apparently irrational, dishonest and inept decisions of both the Post Office Management and indeed the Ministers who were supposedly overlooking them. Their duty, as I think they saw it, was to protect the institution that they were being paid to look after. The consequences of an early admission of fault would have been awful for a body that was once again struggling to survive. The inevitable response was to prevaricate, lie, deceive and to put off the day when the thistle had to be grasped, even as it grew. This is, of course, reprehensible, but all too understandable when put in that context. I very much doubt we will see much of that context in the Inquiry report.
For these reasons I would be cautious about emphasising the importance of implementing the recommendations of all inquiries. Their viewpoints are distorted by both their reference and their context (a disaster). Whilst the points can and should be made and some things learned those in charge of the operation are not given the resources to implement them nor will there be much public good if their implementation simply means neglect somewhere else. I think, with some hesitation, that we should pause before we climb on yet another outrage bus and try to think through the implications.
You wouldn't know it from the hilariously misleading headline, but the Mail on Sunday commissioned a Deltapoll which very inconveniently gives Labour a seven point lead:
Labour 30 Conservatives 23 Reform 22 LibDems 12 Greens 8 SNP 4
Probably an outlier, but the Tories really should be doing a lot better given how unpopular the government is.
That article was very odd.
It made out like most voters thought SKS would resign in a year when in fact two thirds said he wouldn’t.
It made out they disagreed with the farming policy when most agreed.
The only really big opposition was to the WFA cut. But yet despite saying they will re-introduce it, the Tories are seven points behind.
Yes, SKS’s ratings are appalling. But would anyone like to have a stab at why Labour are on this poll, only a few points behind their 2024 landslide result?
Are we at risk of saying the government is much more unpopular than in reality it is? Or that perhaps the opposition(s) are toxic to much of the electorate?
The biggest thing it suggests to me, is that any replacement for Starmer would likely get a bounce and assuming competency and any charisma more than his, they might do quite well.
Definitely possible for Labour to hit 35%....especially when they tidy up the edges of the WFA policy for next winter, maintaining the abolition of it being for all but making any means testing simpler possibly by linking to Council Tax or Income Tax datam
I think that's a point for Ben's competition.
On the polling question, over the period we will have a lorra-lorra polls, and for the 4 main parties (if we include RefUK for now) we will be likely to get outliers in each direction - which are where we may be for "lowest" and "highest" figures, rather than actual support numbers.
One reason I went high... 5% away now, if they play clever politics, something they haven't yet done, but say next Autumn "we've listened" and tweak WFA to capture the next 300,000 most vulnerable, then an outlier is highly likely.
At which point the remaining 8,000,000 think they're being discriminated against AGAIN.
And even less money is being saved by abolishing WFA.
Comments
1. Be seen to do something about a political hot topic
2. Find the facts with plausible accuracy
3. Assign no blame except to people who are usefully dead and don't have a lobby supporting them.
Sometimes they come up with actionable improvements that are occasionally implemented. But this isn't the fundamental purpose of the inquiry.
There is a Deltapoll in there with a 7% Labour lead
Labour 30%
Cons 23%
Reform 22%
Lib Dems 12%
Though Starmer is -42% Badenoch - 21%
Supplementary questions
Is UK heading in right direction 69%/18% no
How worried are you for those no longer receiving the WFA 78%/15% worried
Do you back IHT on farms 53%/25% no
Should there be more or less immigrants coming into UK 62%/11% less
Should Musk be allowed to donate £80 million to Reform 54%/30% no
I am confident that if Starmer or Reeves had thought the abolition of tge WFA would be so unpopular they would have done it
..................................................................................................................
Re the IHT on farmers you are wrong
The poll concluded
Do you back IHT on farms 53%/25% no
There is not even a craft element as Hirst pays assistants for execution. You can mould an AI prompt to paint ballet dancers but it ain't Degas.
You say "weed out the real madness". Problem is that simpletons like several of my aunts are incapable of such brain power. Both of them have previously reposted EDL material which has disguised what it is ands where it comes from, and are then horrified when its pointed out to them.
Now? I don't think they even need to bother being horrified. There is this fictional character called Tommy Robinson who has been Jailed for Speaking Out against Grooming Gangs. We know that TR is fictional and that he's been jailed for contempt for repeatedly lying and defaming. But the low-information people out there are starting to think its true because that lie is now everywhere on their social media.
Rationale -
Farage blows hot and cold and is too establishment
The alt-right likes proper agitators like Wilders and Orban
Farage's Brexit project is one of the things that has already failed voters
Trump is enamoured by strong men (because he's such a wuss). He ramps Orban et al. He likes Farage, but Farage obviously isn't a strong manly man, wouldn't look good in black shirt. Trump is now in part a prisoner of Goebbels and his propaganda ministry.
Musk seems very taken by "Tommy Robinson". By what he says, how he says it, his back story. Farage and Reform have said No No No. Why would Musk want to give money to the powers that be suppressing Freedom when he can simply promote The Man himself?
£100m buys a lot of votes. Even for a pretending tosser like SYL. There are an awful lot of people out there like my aunts who are vulnerable to be gas lit off planet sanity and believe anything convincing they are fed. Stick a media machine behind "TR" and who knows where it could go.
Its a hypothesis, not a prediction. But there is clearly something blowing in the air...
*stokes fire with eager poker*
The article is saying the polling says X should happen when the poll says X shouldn't happen.
And while polling is pointless during Christmas the Mail could have saved money and used Reader polls to generate the result they want by closing it as soon as they got the result they wanted. Would at least have meant they weren't posting outright lies..
Based on a more traditional political spectrum? Labour are centre right, Tories more right, Reform more right. Being populist doesn't mean that you aren't trying to populise right ideas like scrapping the NHS.
I'd have thought that drones were much more of a practical problem given how cheaply they can be made.
Robinson is toxic even to Farage, though Farage was heckled in his conference when he banned Robinson from becoming a member
We are witnessing a failing government, an opposition that is not cutting through and Farage, the media's darling, who is undoubtedly a consummate politician who does threaten both labour and the conservatives parties
In the US Musk and Trump have only just started and it is impossible to predict where this all goes
It is worrying, but we are in a world where social media and 24/7 news dominates and journalists ambitions seem solely to achieve as many 'gotchas' as possible
Would be less leading.
On Austen, I beg to differ in one sense. Her greatest masterpiece, Emma, hardly has a plot. The most interesting things that happen are eating a cake and having a haircut. In the hands of anyone else it is less of a page turner than Ulysses. Nothing happens. But yet it operates as an exemplar of the opposite of King Lear. No-one in Emma is left out in its joy in life. And there's a new baby slipped in with hardly a mention.
An extreme right wing party that is well funded is something that the UK has never seen - even the blackshirts didn't have that much money...
I hope she is talking to lawyers about what can be done to shut Musk up. Musk should get back to playing with rockets.
Geert Wilders was so toxic that he literally couldn't travel to places like the UK. And now here he is with his populist nationalism party having more MPs in the Dutch parliament than any party and them being in government.
Imagine what a fortune of Musk money could build for "TR".
The UK is spending only 1.6 per cent of GDP on “conventional defence”, when commitments like the nuclear deterrent are excluded.
It found about a further ~400 of the ~4500 or so I have been following on Twitter, most of whom are new, but some of whom are established (it found Larry the Cat and Cyclefree for two). Most of my "followed" are UK-based, with a fair sprinkling of internationals.
I'm not monitoring or searching for followers, even though it has been my practice to block bots and prune dormant accounts from my twitter following, I don't want to risk picking up any on Bluesky - or do an account by account check on that many at this time.
(Twitter follower numbers are the archetypal meaningless statistic unless pruned, but the media in their thickitude have been using it for 13-14 years because it is easy and they are lazy).
So I'd say that Bluesky is continuing to tick ahead. It's up about 16-18% in the last month.
Stats for anyone interested:
https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
My photo quota for the day is from Larry the Cat:
I want Kemi to succeed, and at least in yesterday's poll she was -21 to Starmer's -42
One word describes our politics at present and it is not going to change in the short-term
Volatility
That shows you her (lack of) calibre and brains.,..
ABM systems are expensive - and we decided to fund other things (the semi-vanity project carriers, for example).
Developing our own at the point would be both slow and costly. Best bet might be to negotiate a license deal with S Korea.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/after-dark-myths-misdeeds-the-paranormal/id1705694900?i=1000679912124
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Premonitions_Bureau
As for Kemi's position it is just politics and she needs to chose her topics more carefully
Though of course any further enquiry would no doubt be conducted by people who think the same way, and would try very hard to come to the same conclusion.
https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1875866024740110505
Britain is shifting significantly to the Right.
Something your bunch of charlatans have managed in less than 6 months.
We just don't want to fund it properly. I note the Admirals are asking for 12 x Type 83s to properly cover and defend all our commitments, which was exactly what we should have got with the Type 45s but didn't, due to parsimony.
Better than usual this year because for the first time in ten years or so we had a real tree, giving me the chance to wield a saw and vaguely imagine myself as some frontiersman with actual skills.
I have little confidence in the MoD to procure and deliver, and the skills for a rapid reindustrialisation and development of capability drawing in those from civilian life, with excellent PM skills, are different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts
On the polling question, over the period we will have a lorra-lorra polls, and for the 4 main parties (if we include RefUK for now) we will be likely to get outliers in each direction - which are where we may be for "lowest" and "highest" figures, rather than actual support numbers.
Though it's hard to know or characterise why any bloc of voters vote for any party. And if you follow the thesis that the reason is often because the voter is rejecting another party (Con because nit Lab, Lab because not Con, etc) then arguably Ref is primarily a "Not Lab" vote.
You can argue that Green are the same on the left but they don't get the same amount of news / publicity so it's not exactly a fair comparison...
They also slightly underestimated the Tories who they had on 22% and slightly overestimated Reform who they had on 17%.
So the actual picture for Labour is likely even worse than Deltapoll has and this weekend's Deltapoll only has Labour at Ed Miliband 2015 levels
https://deltapoll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Deltapoll-240703_trackers.pdf
What drives CR mad is that the Tories are on the same failure shelf as Labour having had the same policies as Labour.
It seems to me that there would be a logical problem with finding a reliable methodology...
Someone should do a TV program about the malign socioeconomic consequences of Jane Austen.
When it came to the General Election the Liberal vote turned out to have been the Council Election vote and 'gains' were negligible.
So we've had a white Christmas after all.
One billionaire, one vote. The new democracy.
Did nobody think it might not be the best idea?
There's a lot of 'never Tory', 'Conservatives betrayed us', 'Uniparty' type noise around Reform - some just picking up Trumpist and MAGA slogans, certainly amongst their social media groups and presence (and they are social media lead). I have still yet to hear "the LibLabCon", which iirc was a BNP, and I think UKIP, hallmark around 2010.
Now, part of that is because it is a mile wide and half an inch deep, and Farage's strategy is to stir up a mob and stand in front of it, using Far RIght rhetorical hints whilst furiously demanding that that is not what he is doing.
He's embarrassed about Musk and the BNP adjacent (my term) rhetoric he is using, but he won't repudiate it. And that is the current tension of trying to ride two horses that may not always be going in the same direction.
On Musk and Trump, Farage calls himself a "patriot", pro-British, a friend of Musk, and a friend of both.
Yet when Musk is out demonising the UK, and promoting lies about the UK, Farage sits on his arse and waffles - shouting about Musk being a "free speech hero". Yadda yadda yadda.
He shouts all the stuff about the gangs (which we are not mentioning), but entirely ignores the rapists and sex abusers Trump wanted in his cabinet, and Musk publicly supported.
She are plenty of openings there either for Kemi or Keir, or Laura Kuenssberg, to nail Farage - but I have not heard any of them serious push back yet.
Meloni however has managed to do it in Italy and on current polls her right of centre coalition government will be re elected at the next Italian election
It matters little where on the political axes a party is if it proves to be incompetent in government.
Not an issue here in Brentwood and Ongar though given the Tories won with Reform second last July
That's not on offer. From any party.
Yes, I am a classic Shire Tory, and quite right-wing, but I'm not blind to their failings.
Public Inquiries are by their nature fixed by their terms of reference and those, inevitably, will have to focus on a particular tragedy. Their objective is to see what lessons can be learned and how this tragedy can be prevented from happening again. That objective and that context motivates the Inquiry to both action and broad recommendations.
The problem with this, as I have touched on before, is that implementation of those recommendations, and the introduction of new safeguards, have real world consequences. They make the provision of the service or the need to demonstrate suitable care in taking action much more expensive, bureaucratic and time consuming.
If we take the multiple examples of failures in baby units, spoken to by so many inquiries so repeatedly, full implementation would require the recording and analysis of vast additional quantities of data, having nurses spending more time doing the paperwork and less with the child and a reduction in capacity which would inevitably result in children who should be receiving intensive care simply not doing so.
Even if we take the horrific example of Aberfan the real context of that inquiry was a National Coal Board struggling to survive on substantial sums of public money, struggling to keep open pits which were simply not economically viable for social reasons and with a desperate need to cut corners at every turn including, it turned out, on tip inspections. The management, including the lying Lord Robens, did not avoid spending money on this because they were evil, or because they were stupid. They made that choice because they faced difficult, almost impossible, choices amongst priorities. It is very easy after the event to say, well, they shouldn't have neglected this, but this ignores the real world. /2
This also explains the apparently irrational, dishonest and inept decisions of both the Post Office Management and indeed the Ministers who were supposedly overlooking them. Their duty, as I think they saw it, was to protect the institution that they were being paid to look after. The consequences of an early admission of fault would have been awful for a body that was once again struggling to survive. The inevitable response was to prevaricate, lie, deceive and to put off the day when the thistle had to be grasped, even as it grew. This is, of course, reprehensible, but all too understandable when put in that context. I very much doubt we will see much of that context in the Inquiry report.
For these reasons I would be cautious about emphasising the importance of implementing the recommendations of all inquiries. Their viewpoints are distorted by both their reference and their context (a disaster). Whilst the points can and should be made and some things learned those in charge of the operation are not given the resources to implement them nor will there be much public good if their implementation simply means neglect somewhere else. I think, with some hesitation, that we should pause before we climb on yet another outrage bus and try to think through the implications.
And now they've got one its a big disappointment.
Starmer has been shown to be all sleaze and no planning.
I'm surprised, PB lefties will be (sometimes secretly) aghast.
And even less money is being saved by abolishing WFA.