This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I'd prefer a Reform PM than an unreconstructed Tory one. If its a Tory and they fail badly as is likely the next one will be Reform anyway. If its Reform and they fail badly, that will hopefully be the end of this populist nonsense we have been suffering from. And if Reform win, the Tories might end up going back to being a sensible party of the centre right without (so many of) the swivel eyed loons again.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
Who would you like to have met and had a conversation with? One dead, one alive.
This changes for me, but at the moment: Robert Hooke and Kate Bush.
My erstwhile boss toured with Kate Bush
Duke of Wellington and Warren Buffet
You must be very old. Speaking of old Scots, this morning I was at Barts Hospital, with its plaque marking the execution of William Wallace (and some Protestant martyrs and Wat Tyler).
Surprised to read that Bart has his own hospital. Bet it has a huge car park.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
In five years at boarding school the only tv I watched was Twin Peaks when it was on. Loved the relatively recent new series.
And Mullholland Drive, I remember being slightly stunned for ages after watching that and thinking “what the actual f actually happened”, not even “huhuh, Naomi watts and Laura Harring did lesbian things”.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Not sure I agree with this. You could argue that in 1983 and 1987 the Tories were the more populist of the two main parties, and the SDP/Liberal Alliance was the establishment choice.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Not sure I agree with this. You could argue that in 1983 and 1987 the Tories were the more populist of the two main parties, and the SDP/Liberal Alliance was the establishment choice.
Obviously it glosses over a lot and Thatcher and the reaction against her had a lot to do with the birth of Blairism, but I don't think you're right about 1983 and 1987.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
I normally avoid rabid right wing posters but you are quite readable even if I view through a standard lens and you see things through a kaleidoscope.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Interesting. Not sure. My own feeling is that there isn't anything wrong with Labour that couldn't be put right by having three or four political geniuses in charge in a sustained way for about 10 years. On the whole they occupy a centre ground (progressive social democracy) which, with the starting point of the payroll vote, should get 40% of the voters voting for them.
As to the Tories, what are their core USPs? Once they were competence, decent chaps, post war social democracy + very pro business, conservative about institutions, small platoons, One Nation, opportunity, sound on defence, pragmatic. Not a trace remains of any of these. They are in much more trouble than Labour.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Interesting. Not sure. My own feeling is that there isn't anything wrong with Labour that couldn't be put right by having three or four political geniuses in charge in a sustained way for about 10 years. On the whole they occupy a centre ground (progressive social democracy) which, with the starting point of the payroll vote, should get 40% of the voters voting for them.
As to the Tories, what are their core USPs? Once they were competence, decent chaps, post war social democracy + very pro business, conservative about institutions, small platoons, One Nation, opportunity, sound on defence, pragmatic. Not a trace remains of any of these. They are in much more trouble than Labour.
Labour has the voting constituency to keep power, but only if they can deliver at least some positive results.
Without something to point to, a significant chunk of their vote will throw up their hands, decide that Labour is just as much a waste of their vote as the Tories were and defect to either Reform or one of the Socialist / leftist parties. Or just without their vote altogether as so many Tory voters did last time around IIRC.
Right now, Labour seems on track to completely screw everything up, but they’ve still got time to turn things around if they get serious about it.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Interesting. Not sure. My own feeling is that there isn't anything wrong with Labour that couldn't be put right by having three or four political geniuses in charge in a sustained way for about 10 years. On the whole they occupy a centre ground (progressive social democracy) which, with the starting point of the payroll vote, should get 40% of the voters voting for them.
As to the Tories, what are their core USPs? Once they were competence, decent chaps, post war social democracy + very pro business, conservative about institutions, small platoons, One Nation, opportunity, sound on defence, pragmatic. Not a trace remains of any of these. They are in much more trouble than Labour.
At the moment the Tories are for soft Leave voters, pensioners and rural areas. Labour should still be for the public sector, most of the Muslim vote and urban Remainers. Both are being squeezed by Reform but neither are out, we just in a 3 way politics era for UK wide parties or 3 and a half plus the LDs (with the Greens also having a few MPs now)
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile Christ, the awful theatricality of people condemning @TorstenBell for not liking the triple lock. Of course he doesn't like it. It's a shit policy. But it's no more at risk than it ever was, because voters love pensioners and free money and pensioners getting free money.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile · 2h (You can probably tell I'm not planning to stand as an MP eh.)
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
I think there are enough people who appreciate the Blairite, Cameroon, Lib-Con coalition style of running things for Labour to be fine. People in the UK are deeply conservative - just look at the polling on Musk, the far-right, Just Stop Oil, and that lends itself to that kind of governance.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Set up an employment agency and you can meet any number of forcibly-retired MPs.
Behind the paywall. Is it Gullis? Perhaps being such an unpleasant roaster (particularly when one is a career teacher) whist being an MP in a RedWall seat wasn't such a good idea afterall.
shows how easy it is for absolute dummies to become MP's and then they cannot even get a job in the real world.
If it is Gullis, he was formerly a teacher. Probably a very good teacher. But he spent the last five years spitting bile in the most high profile way. I hope he finds his feet, although I would be reluctant to offer him a job in education.
It's Charles Walker who's only made £575, not sure how he's in that position, he decided to retire in 2022 so had ample time to sort out some lucrative gigs. According to wiki, Gullis was at 4 schools in his 7 year teaching career, possibly moving around for PPC opportunities but it doesn't look good. I do have a bit of sympathy for the one complaining of ageism, asked an agent today why he'd added my University dates to my CV, presumably having found them on linkedin, and was then asked to confirm DOB.
Why on earth Walker retired from his safe seat, which the Tories held last July anyway, when he is only in his 50s not past retirement age and didn't have millions in the bank or a well paid job already offered to him is beyond me? The others who fought and lost marginal seats they had held before and find their skills out of practice in their old careers and consultancy and political think tank, CCHQ work hard to come by too I have more sympathy for
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
I think there are enough people who appreciate the Blairite, Cameroon, Lib-Con coalition style of running things for Labour to be fine. People in the UK are deeply conservative - just look at the polling on Musk, the far-right, Just Stop Oil, and that lends itself to that kind of governance.
But this doesn't mean Labour will be that party. In the latest YouGov, among C2DE voters, Reform lead Labour by 31 to 25 while Labour have a small lead over the Tories among ABC1 voters - 26 to 23. I thnk Labour will end up losing in both categories to Reform and the Tories respectively.
Set up an employment agency and you can meet any number of forcibly-retired MPs.
Behind the paywall. Is it Gullis? Perhaps being such an unpleasant roaster (particularly when one is a career teacher) whist being an MP in a RedWall seat wasn't such a good idea afterall.
shows how easy it is for absolute dummies to become MP's and then they cannot even get a job in the real world.
If it is Gullis, he was formerly a teacher. Probably a very good teacher. But he spent the last five years spitting bile in the most high profile way. I hope he finds his feet, although I would be reluctant to offer him a job in education.
It's Charles Walker who's only made £575, not sure how he's in that position, he decided to retire in 2022 so had ample time to sort out some lucrative gigs. According to wiki, Gullis was at 4 schools in his 7 year teaching career, possibly moving around for PPC opportunities but it doesn't look good. I do have a bit of sympathy for the one complaining of ageism, asked an agent today why he'd added my University dates to my CV, presumably having found them on linkedin, and was then asked to confirm DOB.
Why on earth Walker retired from his safe seat, which the Tories held last July anyway, when he is only in his 50s not past retirement age and didn't have millions in the bank already or a well paid job already offered to him is beyond me? The others who fought and lost marginal seats they had held before and find their skills out of practice in their old careers and consultancy and political think tank, CCHQ work hard to come by too I have more sympathy for
Someone should find him a very well paid job. He should be looking at a minimum of £150k. Pa. Can't someone on here give him a try. £150k is pocket money for some of our PB entrepreneurs.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
2 cheeks of the same arse. I would still vote LD/Green.
Missing the point, I know, but the URL says "cross" rather than "gross" misconduct so for a moment I thought we were back to trans again. Well done to the eagle-eyed Times sub, I guess.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
On the subject of former MPs, any news of @Tissue_Price ? Is he back at Bet365?
Freelance political consultant on LinkedIn. There used to be a sort-of joke that a freelance management consultant had been let go after their big company's graduate traineeship entered.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
2001 nobody understood. Every last cinema-goer got their money's worth though.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
I'm just wondering exactly with whom you were dancing. There is not, and never has been, an Anglican Bishop of Blackpool. This lends mystery, enchantment and excitement to the encounter. I hesitate to ask but, was his (or of course her) behaviour entirely proper?
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
My only real claim to fame is playing roulette with Thom Yorke backstage at Lost Vagueness at Glastonbury. I'm not sure that will go down too well in this crowd.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
I went to see Mulholland Drive in the cinema. I very much enjoyed the cacophony of confused noises. Lovely film though. I like films which are beautiful and confusing and this ticked both boxes. As did 2001.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
My only real claim to fame is playing roulette with Thom Yorke backstage at Lost Vagueness at Glastonbury. I'm not sure that will go down too well in this crowd.
Hey, anything that means he wasn't playing music at Glastonbury...
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
A bit of playing around with CoPilot suggests Yorgos lanthimos. Denis Villeneuve could do it (see "Enemy" for proof) but doesn't want to. Happy to entertain other suggestions.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
George Michael's death prompted great sadness. Felt his best work could still have been ahead of him.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
2001 nobody understood. Every last cinema-goer got their money's worth though.
2001 is a far easier first time watch if you've already read the book.
Elon's latest Twitter spat is easily the funniest and most trivial of all but he's on a loser this time. It's distracted him from the state of UK politics for a few days though. Imagine arguing with a bunch of smelly basement dwelling game streamers all day.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
If the Conservatives were really that desperate to become Reform they would just merge with them, scrap the EHRC in the UK like Farage wants etc.
The fact is though Reform can reach voters in Llanelli, Rotherham etc the Tories could never reach and voters in Blyth, Stoke, Burnley etc only Boris as Tory leader could reach. If they take seats off Labour the Tories can't reach that makes it easier to remove Labour and get into government, even if they have to do a deal with Reform to get there.
There are plenty of soft Leave seats and rural seats however the Tories not only can win but are projected to win on today's FindOutNow poll with Kemi
Someone needs to look at the supporting data behind the Find Out Now numbers. The previous numbers added up to 98, the current numbers to 102. I suspect rounding may be involved.
I thought the Conservative number in the last poll from this lot looked an outlier.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
2001 nobody understood. Every last cinema-goer got their money's worth though.
2001 is a far easier first time watch if you've already read the book.
Well... the book is better, but seeing the film makes it (the book) even better than it was. The last bit though. Maybe the film is better. I can't really remember the end of the book, but the end of the film is bafflingly unforgettable.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
Mulholland is the only one I felt I understood.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
2001 nobody understood. Every last cinema-goer got their money's worth though.
2001 is a far easier first time watch if you've already read the book.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
2 cheeks of the same arse. I would still vote LD/Green.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
He's very different from Wilson, of course, but I am increasingly convinced that Steve Coogan would be ripe for the lead role in the inevitable Elon Musk biopic.
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
George Michael's death prompted great sadness. Felt his best work could still have been ahead of him.
Also, Father Ted felt a real loss.
John Peel and William Burroughs were my two big surprises. I loved them both dearly - if only as voices in print or radio. But boy did seeing those headlines hit me.
Lynch I've yet to process. He's been a constant creative energy throughout my life. I think something about 'regular' US cinema and TV vs. Lynch's vision .... dunno. Felt compelling.
I hope the last couple of project he was working on were complete. And I hope, where-ever he is, he's having a good strong coffee and an amazing cigarette (despite it all...)
Finally got round to watching the original Twin Peaks series about 6 or 7 years ago and, although it was a very slow start in terms of getting into it, it ended up being one of the best TV series I've watched. Took about 10 episodes to warm to.
I see the Lib Dems have come out in favour of a customs union with the EU on the eve of Donald Trump declaring a trade war on them.
Bloody idiots.
It is very difficult to determine who is the most stupid party at Westminster now.
Anyone aligning with Trump is the stupid one. If the price of alignment is complete submission to his desires - and it is, because cross him or even out-perform the US in some trade sectors and he'll come after you - then it is unacceptably high. Previous loyalty doesn't count for anything at that point, nor treaties signed, and extortion and corruption is both expected and necessary in those circumstances.
Britain has no choice of neutrality if there is a trade war between Trump and the EU for the same reason. If we are not with him, totally, then he will regard us as against him.
Not to mention that it might not be just trade. I would take his threat to invade sovereign Danish territory seriously.
Britain's interests are aligned with the EU much more than with the US now. It is wise to co-operate where we can.
Fuck that, we go with The Donald
He’s an Anglo-Celt. He’s one of us. He’s of the blood
In the end this global war will come down to blood ties
ONWARDS TO KATTEGAT
*goes back to Vikings Valhalla*
He's German on his father's side.
Darling: "I'm as British as Queen Victoria!"
Blackadder: "So your father's German, you're half German, and you married a German!"
Queen Victoria's mother might have been German but her father wasn't:
Finally got round to watching the original Twin Peaks series about 6 or 7 years ago and, although it was a very slow start in terms of getting into it, it ended up being one of the best TV series I've watched. Took about 10 episodes to warm to.
If you've not seen the film 'prequel' - Fire: Walk With Me - it's worth a shot.
When I went to see it I was literally the only person in the cinema. Which made it... all the more disturbing. The scenes of Laura Palmers descent are quite traumatising.
I see the Lib Dems have come out in favour of a customs union with the EU on the eve of Donald Trump declaring a trade war on them.
Bloody idiots.
It is very difficult to determine who is the most stupid party at Westminster now.
Anyone aligning with Trump is the stupid one. If the price of alignment is complete submission to his desires - and it is, because cross him or even out-perform the US in some trade sectors and he'll come after you - then it is unacceptably high. Previous loyalty doesn't count for anything at that point, nor treaties signed, and extortion and corruption is both expected and necessary in those circumstances.
Britain has no choice of neutrality if there is a trade war between Trump and the EU for the same reason. If we are not with him, totally, then he will regard us as against him.
Not to mention that it might not be just trade. I would take his threat to invade sovereign Danish territory seriously.
Britain's interests are aligned with the EU much more than with the US now. It is wise to co-operate where we can.
Fuck that, we go with The Donald
He’s an Anglo-Celt. He’s one of us. He’s of the blood
In the end this global war will come down to blood ties
ONWARDS TO KATTEGAT
*goes back to Vikings Valhalla*
He's German on his father's side.
Darling: "I'm as British as Queen Victoria!"
Blackadder: "So your father's German, you're half German, and you married a German!"
Queen Victoria's mother might have been German but her father wasn't:
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
I don't really know how to process this. Celebrity deaths don't really impact on me, although they do inspire a brief moment of sadness. Sometimes they do pop above my emotional horizon (Leonard Nimoy and the other Star Trek cast for example) but not often and not for long. The only one who ever really impacted was Robin Williams, who was doubly tragic, both in himself and the manner of his death. Surprisingly it appears David Lynch occupies a similar space in my heart, which I wasn't expecting. He was such a nice man.
And there is now no one left who understands "Inland Empire".
Somebody once told me that Lynch films aren't meant to make sense, they are meant to inspire emotions in a given sequence, like a piano score. Once you know that makes things much easier.
They all have a participator lens. Maybe for Blue Velvet it's Freud. For Twin Peaks it might be Jung. For Wild At Heart it's... etc.
This almost NPC-like conversation between Lynch and Cher (yes) is worth a watch :
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
In Brentwood, I probably would. As long as you aren't going to put them in anyway. But I'm in Romford so you will need to find a candidate who isn't Reform in all but name. Having said that I expect to move by the next election so I might choose my new Constituency carefully to avoid that dilemma!
(Edited for Vanilla cockup that I only half got rid of)
"I do think the the Tories are facing an existential crisis where they are overtaken in votes by Reform and in seats by the Lib Dems"
This is nothing new. Forget Left vs Right, Cosmopolitan vs Rural, Pensioners vs Youngsters and any other paradigms. In pure electoral terms, British (well, English) politics is 'Tories vs Everybody else' and has been so for close to 40 years.
Lib Dems may talk about how different they are to Reform, and Reform may bang on about being the real opposition to Labour, but our system is about constituency battles, and in pretty much every single damn case, it's somebody vs the Conservatives, and all the non-Tory parties have a vested interest in each other doing well, whatever they say and regardless of how crocadilic their shed tears may be.
At the height of the Blair governments unpopularity and opposition to the Iraq war, the Lib Dems decided that the best election strategy was to 'decapitate' senior Tories.
In 1997, James Goldsmiths short-lived Referendum party wilfully stood candidates against Eurosceptic Tories, in some cases costing them their seats and boosting the size of the Labour majority. Reform arguably did the same in 2024.
It's Tories vs Toryphobes, as it has been for my entire adult life, and if we're not careful the collusion will finally achieve its end game.
This can be put differently. Until recently - Reform and all that - the Tories had the right and centre right ground to themselves in every seat in GB. They faced various oppositions, mostly Labour but some LD and a few Nats, but no rivals. The fact that Lab and LD stood in everty seat had the effect of slightly splitting the centre/centre left vote, sometimes to the Tory's advantage.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
You can look at the divide as populist vs establishment. For the best part of a century, Labour were the populist party and you voted for them if you wanted to stick it to the man and hated the toffs and you voted for the Tories if you wanted proper government.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
"‘I’ve earned £575 in six months’: The ex-Tory MPs who can’t get a job The sudden shift into unemployment after an election defeat is brutal – and so is finding work when you were a Conservative parliamentarian"
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
He's very different from Wilson, of course, but I am increasingly convinced that Steve Coogan would be ripe for the lead role in the inevitable Elon Musk biopic.
Some years ago, in the Oak Room at the Algonquin, got chatting to a stranger at the bar. We earnestly discussed the weather, NYC traffic and baseball. After ten minutes he got up to leave and we exchanged the customary polite valedictions. As he went the bar tender said "do you know who that was?". Before I could say "Sorry, old bean, haven't the foggiest," he was called away to mix someone's cocktail and after that he pocketed his tips and disappeared into the night. I do occasionally wonder who it was, and whether he ever wonders who I am.
Incidentally it's not true about Oasis and Debt. Parliament has discussed Debt far more times.
Yes, it's actually a good speech. I think she needs to stay on this message about being honest and confronting the issues that the nation faces head on with proper solutions rather than get dragged into every small argument going around. Her point about Oasis is a good one, how many times has the government made an official comment about trivialities, not just Oasis tickets but all of that kind of nonsense.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
It's a false choice. Left leaning voters don't like or vote for the Tories in any significant numbers. They do the opposite. The Lib Dem element in the Tories is almost purely in the PCP and assorted party workers and hangers on. It's a fiction that there's a phalanx of stout lib dem leaning Tory voters who right wing policies might offend.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Labour are in power.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
It's a false choice. Left leaning voters don't like or vote for the Tories in any significant numbers. They do the opposite. The Lib Dem element in the Tories is almost purely in the PCP and assorted party workers and hangers on. It's a fiction that there's a phalanx of stout lib dem leaning Tory voters who right wing policies might offend.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
You are making the mistake of believing that most voters care primarily about ideology. They don't. Values, yes. Competence, even more so. Policies, only at the margins.
The idea that Kemi Badenoch is less 'Tory' than John Major or David Cameron - or William Hague or Theresa May for that matter - is true only in the sense she's lost sight of good government as the core objective of the Conservative Party. She certainly isn't more left wing than they.
Incidentally it's not true about Oasis and Debt. Parliament has discussed Debt far more times.
Yes, it's actually a good speech. I think she needs to stay on this message about being honest and confronting the issues that the nation faces head on with proper solutions rather than get dragged into every small argument going around. Her point about Oasis is a good one, how many times has the government made an official comment about trivialities, not just Oasis tickets but all of that kind of nonsense.
Yes, I thought it mostly good, particularly her saying that the Tories had no proper plan for Brexit, nor Net Zero, nor cutting immigration and ran up far too much debt.
The road to recovery starts by accepting that a lot of mistakes were made by the government that she was a front bencher for, and most of her shadow cabinet were also members of.
Is the Tory party ready for that sort of honesty though?
"‘I’ve earned £575 in six months’: The ex-Tory MPs who can’t get a job The sudden shift into unemployment after an election defeat is brutal – and so is finding work when you were a Conservative parliamentarian"
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
It's a false choice. Left leaning voters don't like or vote for the Tories in any significant numbers. They do the opposite. The Lib Dem element in the Tories is almost purely in the PCP and assorted party workers and hangers on. It's a fiction that there's a phalanx of stout lib dem leaning Tory voters who right wing policies might offend.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
You are making the mistake of believing that most voters care primarily about ideology. They don't. Values, yes. Competence, even more so. Policies, only at the margins.
The idea that Kemi Badenoch is less 'Tory' than John Major or David Cameron - or William Hague or Theresa May for that matter - is true only in the sense she's lost sight of good government as the core objective of the Conservative Party. She certainly isn't more left wing than they.
I think one of us has misinterpreted Luckyguy's comment. I read it as that over the last 14 years the Tories stopped being Tory - certainly they lost sight of good governance over much of that period! - which brought Reform to prominence. And that maybe Badenoch will make them more Tory again.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
It's a false choice. Left leaning voters don't like or vote for the Tories in any significant numbers. They do the opposite. The Lib Dem element in the Tories is almost purely in the PCP and assorted party workers and hangers on. It's a fiction that there's a phalanx of stout lib dem leaning Tory voters who right wing policies might offend.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
You are making the mistake of believing that most voters care primarily about ideology. They don't. Values, yes. Competence, even more so. Policies, only at the margins.
The idea that Kemi Badenoch is less 'Tory' than John Major or David Cameron - or William Hague or Theresa May for that matter - is true only in the sense she's lost sight of good government as the core objective of the Conservative Party. She certainly isn't more left wing than they.
I think one of us has misinterpreted Luckyguy's comment. I read it as that over the last 14 years the Tories stopped being Tory - certainly they lost sight of good governance over much of that period! - which brought Reform to prominence. And that maybe Badenoch will make them more Tory again.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Why, what's the difference between them.
It's the awkward choice the Conservatives are yet to act on.
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
All the evidence of the last 9 years suggests that the Tories will go for the superficially attractive short term option rather than the correct one.
It's a false choice. Left leaning voters don't like or vote for the Tories in any significant numbers. They do the opposite. The Lib Dem element in the Tories is almost purely in the PCP and assorted party workers and hangers on. It's a fiction that there's a phalanx of stout lib dem leaning Tory voters who right wing policies might offend.
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
You are making the mistake of believing that most voters care primarily about ideology. They don't. Values, yes. Competence, even more so. Policies, only at the margins.
The idea that Kemi Badenoch is less 'Tory' than John Major or David Cameron - or William Hague or Theresa May for that matter - is true only in the sense she's lost sight of good government as the core objective of the Conservative Party. She certainly isn't more left wing than they.
I think one of us has misinterpreted Luckyguy's comment. I read it as that over the last 14 years the Tories stopped being Tory - certainly they lost sight of good governance over much of that period! - which brought Reform to prominence. And that maybe Badenoch will make them more Tory again.
I think he means they weren’t right wing enough.
Yes, that's what I assumed. Which is why I was baffled by David's last paragraph.
OGH has met Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, as well as a few minor UK Prime Ministers.
Meeting politicians is quite easy tho, So I am afraid one has to deduct points. Likewise royalty
These people - pols and royals - have to go out meet other people, it’s their job. Even the most humdrum party worker or activist or even hustings attender can therefore meet a few PMs without breaking a sweat
Meeting famous sport stars, artists, actors - actually MEETING them, conversing, snogging, doing a line of changaroo - is significantly more impressive
Went to dinner with Tony Wilson (of Hacienda Club fame) at his home. Met Jack Nicholson when he was over in London once. Had Roland Gift of FYC at my birthday party. Went dancing with the Anglican Bishop of Blackpool in Puglia one summer.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
I'm just wondering exactly with whom you were dancing. There is not, and never has been, an Anglican Bishop of Blackpool. This lends mystery, enchantment and excitement to the encounter. I hesitate to ask but, was his (or of course her) behaviour entirely proper?
He was actually the Suffragan Bishop of Lancaster - but for reasons - I always remember him as the Bishop for Blackpool.
It was the Festival of Ferragosto and his approach was: "CycleFree - I bet you've never danced with an Anglican Bishop before - so how about it?"
You've almost got to admire the thought process behind seeing how spectacularly badly Labour's winter fuel payments policy has gone down with pensioners and then thinking "let's come up with something even more unpopular"
Incidentally it's not true about Oasis and Debt. Parliament has discussed Debt far more times.
Yes, it's actually a good speech. I think she needs to stay on this message about being honest and confronting the issues that the nation faces head on with proper solutions rather than get dragged into every small argument going around. Her point about Oasis is a good one, how many times has the government made an official comment about trivialities, not just Oasis tickets but all of that kind of nonsense.
Yes, I thought it mostly good, particularly her saying that the Tories had no proper plan for Brexit, nor Net Zero, nor cutting immigration and ran up far too much debt.
The road to recovery starts by accepting that a lot of mistakes were made by the government that she was a front bencher for, and most of her shadow cabinet were also members of.
Is the Tory party ready for that sort of honesty though?
I don't know but I'd rather the party go down in flames trying to do something positive as go for real change than just meander into obscurity like the Liberal party.
Elon's latest Twitter spat is easily the funniest and most trivial of all but he's on a loser this time. It's distracted him from the state of UK politics for a few days though. Imagine arguing with a bunch of smelly basement dwelling game streamers all day.
"‘I’ve earned £575 in six months’: The ex-Tory MPs who can’t get a job The sudden shift into unemployment after an election defeat is brutal – and so is finding work when you were a Conservative parliamentarian"
Elon's latest Twitter spat is easily the funniest and most trivial of all but he's on a loser this time. It's distracted him from the state of UK politics for a few days though. Imagine arguing with a bunch of smelly basement dwelling game streamers all day.
Calling @HYUFD Have we always been at war with Eastasia?
How the f do you "means test" the Triple Lock?
You can means test the state pension which is how Labour are going to play what she has said.
Just merge tax and NI. Pensioners earning just the state pension won’t be affected, as it is below the threshold. Higher earning pensioners will pay more on their income, above the threshold, just as people do who get their income from employment or self employment.
Calling @HYUFD Have we always been at war with Eastasia?
Good. It's unsustainable.
I agree.
Daring of a Tory leader to piss off the core grey vote though.
A courageous decision as they say in Yes Minister.
The Tories need to rebuild themselves as the party of hardworking 30-60 year olds who want to get on in life, don't interact with the state very often but want to receive good service when they do. I don't know how many votes there are in that but it's surely more than they'll get in 2029 if the let Reform eat all of their lunches.
This will be a fascinating byelection, with Reform and the Conservatives throwing absolutely everything at it.
And my gut is that Reform will win it: most Labour supporters will stay home (I'd reckon their vote total will drop to something like 7-8,000), while Reform will grab a few Labour and Conservative supporters, and get their 2024 voters out.
I don't agree. Runcorn itself is outer Liverpool which for the past fifteen years has been unusually loyal to Labour. I suspect enough of the vote will come out. And Helsby and Frodsham, which I know reasonably well, doesn't feel to me like natural Reform territory. Frodsham in particular is pretty comfortably off.
Reform's chance at Runcorn - which I put at about 50% as things stand - is simply this: few will turn out, and there are no reasons to turn out for Labour - they already have a million MPs and have just removed grandma's WFA and lost you your 16 hours a week job at Next, and no reasons to turn out for the Tories because they were and are useless beyond belief and a total irrelevance.
There is a reason to turn out for Reform - they are the only party that isn't tainted by government and won't make you install a heat pump that doesn't work and power your car by windmills.
I have family in the Cheshire section of the seat. I don't know for sure but my best guess is that votes for LD/Lab/DNV/Lab will become votes for Con/DNV/DNV/DNV. I'd be surprised if any vote Ref. Though guesswork and anecdata and its from an atypical part of the seat, so, treat with caution.
The Tories should sit this one out.
It will pit massive pressure on Labour if Reform win . If Reform lose it pus the Cons on the front foot.
If the Tories sit it out they are effectively ceding large chunks of the Labour-Tory marginal lands to their right wing rivals. Whilst perturbing those blue wall Lib Dems they want back. Seems unlikely.
Millions of Lib Dem and Labour voters will find that they have to vote Tory to stop Farage being Prime Minister. Polly Toynbee will endorse voting for them while wearing a clothes peg on your nose.
You keep writing this. I don't see it personally. I am not expecting a forgive and forget note from the electorate for the last 14 years and particularly last five years of Tory misconduct.
Yes Labour might get spanked and Reform are the beneficiaries, but your extrapolation for a parallel Tory revival seems unlikely. It could happen if both parties do as Suella has advocated, but Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters will be looking at reducing the size of your RefCon coalition.
You do need to remember that most voters vote primarily to pick a PM/government, so unless you're suggesting that LD and Labour voters in Con/Ref seats would see Badenoch and Farage as equally bad then the question will arise.
I think they might. I.might. I think you underestimate the hatred we "never kissed a Tory" crowd have for any form of right wing populism.
I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't hesitate to vote Conservative if that was the way to keep Reform out of government.
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
In my constituency of Brentwood and Ongar the Tories were first and Reform second at the GE, so already in a few seats like mine liberals like you need to vote Tory to keep Reform out
Comments
OTOH if they aren't clear that they won't go into government with them then there's no point and I will stick with LD or Labour (or maybe Green if they stop being so socialist by the next GE).
Bet it has a huge car park.
That was then and this is now. There is now a party taking populist votes off Tory and Labour. (Labour can't quite make up their mind whether this is threat or opportunity. If they were sure it was an opportunity they would welcome a by-election in Runcorn. I don't think they want one).
Twin Peaks was awesome as were most of his workl
When I was eighteen, I rolled a joint for Geno Washington and smoked it with him and his band. I think they still called themselves the Ram Jam Band
And Mullholland Drive, I remember being slightly stunned for ages after watching that and thinking “what the actual f actually happened”, not even “huhuh, Naomi watts and Laura Harring did lesbian things”.
The goal of the Blair project was to reposition Labour as the natural party of government and it largely succeeded. Cameron temporarily reversed things by aping Blair, but the logic of the realignment pushed the Tories to put on more and more populist clothing, culminating in the Boris landslide, but Boris then betrayed his new coalition by ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels.
This left a political hole for a populist party that is now being filled by Reform, but with the Blairite establishment now utterly discredited, Labour are caught between two stools and their position looks terminal.
Thatcher won ABC1 voters by margins of 30%+.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-october-1974
My wife is a massive fan. I never quite got it all myself.
As to the Tories, what are their core USPs? Once they were competence, decent chaps, post war social democracy + very pro business, conservative about institutions, small platoons, One Nation, opportunity, sound on defence, pragmatic. Not a trace remains of any of these. They are in much more trouble than Labour.
Without something to point to, a significant chunk of their vote will throw up their hands, decide that Labour is just as much a waste of their vote as the Tories were and defect to either Reform or one of the Socialist / leftist parties. Or just without their vote altogether as so many Tory voters did last time around IIRC.
Right now, Labour seems on track to completely screw everything up, but they’ve still got time to turn things around if they get serious about it.
Have met loads of politicians and worked with some of them.
Variety
@Variety
Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.
https://bit.ly/40is3yQ
If a male Chancellor had told similar LinkedIn fibs, gender wouldn't come into analysis of the jibe
@rcolvile
Christ, the awful theatricality of people condemning
@TorstenBell
for not liking the triple lock. Of course he doesn't like it. It's a shit policy. But it's no more at risk than it ever was, because voters love pensioners and free money and pensioners getting free money.
Robert Colvile
@rcolvile
·
2h
(You can probably tell I'm not planning to stand as an MP eh.)
https://x.com/rcolvile/status/1879929680012407258
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5wYVxjuJd3g
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/VotingIntention_MRP_250113_w.pdf
ETA scooped by williamglenn.
But the reality is I probably didn't. LOL.
An interesting thought is whether a new Lynch could make it in the new world of streaming/apple/netflix formula films and Marvel-only certs from studios??
On one hand, the easy way to kick Labour out is to make it as easy as possible for Reform to break through in the Red Wall. It's really tempting to try to set up a nod'n'wink deal. I don't know if it works in five years, but it's a heck of a temptation.
On the other, boosting Reform costs the Conservatives. The more they flutter their eyelashes at Farage, the more the Conservatives lose votes on the right to Reform. And the more they lose wets to the Lib Dems. If you don't like RefUK, why vote Conservative if they are just going to roll out the blue carpet?
If you're a Conservative, are Reform your ally or your enemy? There's only really one answer to that, but it's not a pleasant one.
Lovely film though. I like films which are beautiful and confusing and this ticked both boxes. As did 2001.
Also, Father Ted felt a real loss.
The fact is though Reform can reach voters in Llanelli, Rotherham etc the Tories could never reach and voters in Blyth, Stoke, Burnley etc only Boris as Tory leader could reach. If they take seats off Labour the Tories can't reach that makes it easier to remove Labour and get into government, even if they have to do a deal with Reform to get there.
There are plenty of soft Leave seats and rural seats however the Tories not only can win but are projected to win on today's FindOutNow poll with Kemi
Someone needs to look at the supporting data behind the Find Out Now numbers. The previous numbers added up to 98, the current numbers to 102. I suspect rounding may be involved.
I thought the Conservative number in the last poll from this lot looked an outlier.
Lynch I've yet to process. He's been a constant creative energy throughout my life. I think something about 'regular' US cinema and TV vs. Lynch's vision .... dunno. Felt compelling.
I hope the last couple of project he was working on were complete. And I hope, where-ever he is, he's having a good strong coffee and an amazing cigarette (despite it all...)
Lady In The Radiator :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awVNCIjQq1A
Ghosts of Love :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YDvRIWBovM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward,_Duke_of_Kent_and_Strathearn
When I went to see it I was literally the only person in the cinema. Which made it... all the more disturbing. The scenes of Laura Palmers descent are quite traumatising.
BREAKING: FBI closes diversity office days before Trump inauguration
This almost NPC-like conversation between Lynch and Cher (yes) is worth a watch :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IvTunmj048
(Edited for Vanilla cockup that I only half got rid of)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/16/kemi-badenoch-uk-getting-poorer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Incidentally it's not true about Oasis and Debt. Parliament has discussed Debt far more times.
"‘I’ve earned £575 in six months’: The ex-Tory MPs who can’t get a job
The sudden shift into unemployment after an election defeat is brutal – and so is finding work when you were a Conservative parliamentarian"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/16/ex-tory-mp-unemployed-political-views/
The Tories have stopped being Tory - that's the whole reason that Reform exist. And now apparently if they do go back to being Tories they are batting their eyelashes at Reform. The circular logic is baffling.
Reform are not Tories.
The idea that Kemi Badenoch is less 'Tory' than John Major or David Cameron - or William Hague or Theresa May for that matter - is true only in the sense she's lost sight of good government as the core objective of the Conservative Party. She certainly isn't more left wing than they.
The road to recovery starts by accepting that a lot of mistakes were made by the government that she was a front bencher for, and most of her shadow cabinet were also members of.
Is the Tory party ready for that sort of honesty though?
It was the Festival of Ferragosto and his approach was: "CycleFree - I bet you've never danced with an Anglican Bishop before - so how about it?"
And that is all I am going to say.
https://bsky.app/profile/adambienkov.bsky.social/post/3lfv7i73eq227
Calling @HYUFD Have we always been at war with Eastasia?
You can means test the state pension which is how Labour are going to play what she has said.
You've almost got to admire the thought process behind seeing how spectacularly badly Labour's winter fuel payments policy has gone down with pensioners and then thinking "let's come up with something even more unpopular"
Daring of a Tory leader to piss off the core grey vote though.
A courageous decision as they say in Yes Minister.