Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
And what of the Hamas fighters jubilantly celebrating? That wasn't them celebrating peace.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
I think it''l be quite a while before the LibDems do any sort of deal with the Tories.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
The polling does not suggest that (yet). It's primarily Conservative voters and GE '24 non-voters.
That's why I'm fairly confident that the Labour vote share would be higher with Farage as the main challenger than Badenoch. But they would be much less efficient, with lefty votes piling up in the outraged cities and lots of Reform/Labour marginals in the north.
The long-term trend is disguised by the Boris landslide in 2019 which means that a lot of the people who look like Tory -> Reform switchers on paper are actually former Labour voters.
They voted Labour to get rid of the Tories, out of frustration at them, but there wasn't a values shift.
They've moved to the Right and have stayed on the Right.
Possibly right on social issues, but they want more spending on them and their communities.
These are not free market Libertarians.
Which I suspect is the faultline on which the next GE will be fought. The populist right is in the ascendency on cultural topics. They have a much weaker spot when it comes to economic topics. Particularly Farage, who is an unreconstructed classical liberal free marketeer.
He will likely need to square that circle and moderate himself on that topic somewhat if he wants to push into the 30%s, IMHO.
On thread - regrettably to me, I think Eaglea is right - Reform will eclipse the Tories. Not Kemi's fault - she's slowly improving - nor Nigel's brilliance - which is very much up to a point. The fact (/wild assertion) is that Tory voters are more likely to hold their noses and vote Reform to get Labour out than Reform voters are to do the reverse.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
The polling does not suggest that (yet). It's primarily Conservative voters and GE '24 non-voters.
That's why I'm fairly confident that the Labour vote share would be higher with Farage as the main challenger than Badenoch. But they would be much less efficient, with lefty votes piling up in the outraged cities and lots of Reform/Labour marginals in the north.
The long-term trend is disguised by the Boris landslide in 2019 which means that a lot of the people who look like Tory -> Reform switchers on paper are actually former Labour voters.
No, this poll was of GE '24 Conservative voters, not '19. I'll try and fish it out.
YouGov:
5% of '24 Lab voters would now vote Reform 15% Con 6% LD 87% Reform
PLEASE STOP BRINGING FACTS INTO THE DISCUSSION.
Those can't possibly be facts. They say that 113% of 2024 Labour voters will vote for other parties...
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
And what of the Hamas fighters jubilantly celebrating? That wasn't them celebrating peace.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
The polling does not suggest that (yet). It's primarily Conservative voters and GE '24 non-voters.
That's why I'm fairly confident that the Labour vote share would be higher with Farage as the main challenger than Badenoch. But they would be much less efficient, with lefty votes piling up in the outraged cities and lots of Reform/Labour marginals in the north.
The long-term trend is disguised by the Boris landslide in 2019 which means that a lot of the people who look like Tory -> Reform switchers on paper are actually former Labour voters.
They voted Labour to get rid of the Tories, out of frustration at them, but there wasn't a values shift.
They've moved to the Right and have stayed on the Right.
Possibly right on social issues, but they want more spending on them and their communities.
These are not free market Libertarians.
They want more prosperous communities, nicer public spaces and better services. For a good 20 years, those things have only come at the behest of the Government spending more public money. So wanting that to happen doesn't indicate an ideological preference, just a familiarity with British life as it stands.
The word cloud shows one fundamental thing. The public being polled wants solutions to a number of well known problems but does not want to pay for them, and furthermore wants them a bit more quickly than is feasible anyway. Farage and Reform are the only outfit offering this (bogusly of course) who have not already recently been tried out. Just one year ago Labour and Starmer were in that pole position.
I would dispute the "more quickly than is feasible anyway"
This is the point where people who are intellectually invested in the Process State say things like "2 decades for planning a major river crossing is a sensible timescale".
The problem you have is that people travel. And see places where this isn't so.
The solution, obviously, is to reintroduce the Vagrancy Acts of Henry VIII. Any person discovered more than a few hours travel, on foot, who cannot explain a clear need to be away from home can be arrested as a vagrant. Exceptions for the NU10K & OG10K, of course.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
I think Labour will be at least a two term government, unless something changes. It's difficult for either Reform or the Conservatives to be largest party as long as they split the votes on the right. It's also difficult for the two parties to create a voting coalition before the election.
By default in that case, Labour will continue to have more seats than any other party and can form a government from there, even if it no longer has a majority.
That's possible, also possible that in 4 years time people will have forgotten how shit the tories were and the Conservatives will get a majority. They'd probably need to have a fresh untainted leader, and appeal to Reform voters on "controlling the border" - this might involve repudiating the last Conservative government letting in record numbers of immigrants. They've got the perfect fall guy to pin the blame on - Boris Johnson, who once said
“I’m probably about the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.”
I think the Tories have a way to go to get the trust back, not unlike in 1997. Is there a Cameron figure out there to at least look like he connects and 'gets it'? Its unlikely to be Badenoch. But I also think that Labours massive majority is built on sand and could collapse as fast as it appeared.
I think Labour will be at least a two term government, unless something changes. It's difficult for either Reform or the Conservatives to be largest party as long as they split the votes on the right. It's also difficult for the two parties to create a voting coalition before the election.
By default in that case, Labour will continue to have more seats than any other party and can form a government from there, even if it no longer has a majority.
That's possible, also possible that in 4 years time people will have forgotten how shit the tories were and the Conservatives will get a majority. They'd probably need to have a fresh untainted leader, and appeal to Reform voters on "controlling the border" - this might involve repudiating the last Conservative government letting in record numbers of immigrants. They've got the perfect fall guy to pin the blame on - Boris Johnson, who once said
“I’m probably about the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.”
Absolutely that could happen, but there needs to be a change. People are making predictions based on the situation as is, including a big increase in Reform voting intention, when their predictions require a different set of circumstances, in which case the current situation is irrelevant.
The word cloud shows one fundamental thing. The public being polled wants solutions to a number of well known problems but does not want to pay for them, and furthermore wants them a bit more quickly than is feasible anyway. Farage and Reform are the only outfit offering this (bogusly of course) who have not already recently been tried out. Just one year ago Labour and Starmer were in that pole position.
Went out for a drink last night with a couple of neighbours. Bit younger than me, but not that much. One of them said that he'd been watching a lot of GB news "because he was fed up with the bias shown by the BBC and wanted the truth." He then went on about the amount of grooming of young girls by men of Pakistani origin. When he'd gone my remaining friend and I shook our heads sadly over hm.
I work at Uni and I am surrounded by people who mostly vote Labour or Lib Dem. Hard to find a Tory (or at least someone who would admit to it). It leads people who work here to believe that the whole country thinks as they do and so the shock at Brexit, and when Corbyn lost in 2019 etc is profound. The lack of engagement with 'normal people' feeds into this.
PB is rather like this. We have some who are not of the herd, but most are rather similar in views/beliefs. We are lucky that there are some outspoken outliers, otherwise we would be even more of an echo chamber than BSkyBBlueSky or whatever its called.
I'm not surprised at your neighbours attitudes. Lots of people think as they do. And currently they are flocking to Reform.
I would say this site skews towards professional, managerial, AB Class individuals. In the time I’ve been on this site I think the prevailing wind when it comes to views and debate has shifted very much in line with how that class appears to have shifted (quite significantly leftwards on cultural topics, a slight nudge leftwards on economics).
Let's shift it further left economically
"Politicians claim countries must be run like households, and that’s completely wrong." Richard J Murphy, YouTube, 23Jan2025, 13 mins, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FZmhyKkFdU
Richard Murphy is a complete loon. You might as well quote Piers Morgan. His economics are sub-Lizz Truss level.
The word cloud shows one fundamental thing. The public being polled wants solutions to a number of well known problems but does not want to pay for them, and furthermore wants them a bit more quickly than is feasible anyway. Farage and Reform are the only outfit offering this (bogusly of course) who have not already recently been tried out. Just one year ago Labour and Starmer were in that pole position.
Went out for a drink last night with a couple of neighbours. Bit younger than me, but not that much. One of them said that he'd been watching a lot of GB news "because he was fed up with the bias shown by the BBC and wanted the truth." He then went on about the amount of grooming of young girls by men of Pakistani origin. When he'd gone my remaining friend and I shook our heads sadly over hm.
I work at Uni and I am surrounded by people who mostly vote Labour or Lib Dem. Hard to find a Tory (or at least someone who would admit to it). It leads people who work here to believe that the whole country thinks as they do and so the shock at Brexit, and when Corbyn lost in 2019 etc is profound. The lack of engagement with 'normal people' feeds into this.
PB is rather like this. We have some who are not of the herd, but most are rather similar in views/beliefs. We are lucky that there are some outspoken outliers, otherwise we would be even more of an echo chamber than BSkyBBlueSky or whatever its called.
I'm not surprised at your neighbours attitudes. Lots of people think as they do. And currently they are flocking to Reform.
I had lunch today with my secretary, the ward cleaner and a porter. I think my secretary has always been Tory, but none of the 3 could stand Starmer.
The big grievance is the WFP. So it looks as if they all want a government that doles out more spending. Complaints too that the Minimum wage increase is affecting wage differentials. They were all seeing new trainee staff starting at or close to their pay, despite being required to train and supervise them.
Increases in minimum wage are good for those on them but we have seen massive pay restraint in the NHS and also at Uni - and this does erode the idea of a pay scale and advancement.
The other theme was that benefits were too generous, and that it barely paid to work. On the face of it a certain inconsistency, but there is a certain logic. More welfare spending, but better targeted at the workers than beneficiaries, apart from pensions. The cleaner said she didn't want to live long in retirement, as she expects permanent poverty and hardship.
It was a pretty bleak conversation, but I didn't provoke or participate in it.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
On thread - regrettably to me, I think Eaglea is right - Reform will eclipse the Tories. Not Kemi's fault - she's slowly improving - nor Nigel's brilliance - which is very much up to a point. The fact (/wild assertion) is that Tory voters are more likely to hold their noses and vote Reform to get Labour out than Reform voters are to do the reverse.
I think one also has to remember just how bad a state the Tory brand is in right now. I know all parties go through cycles, but they don’t all have a new, resurgent party trying to gobble up their voters and steal their colours at the same time.
I believe you are right about people holding their noses. I think if Reform are able to point to something concrete that suggests they have eclipsed the Tories on the right* then a lot will hold their nose and shift over.
*that concrete event, I would suggest, is probably the Scottish/Welsh/local elections next year and whether Reform can beat the Tories on vote share in all 3.
On topic I suspect much is out of the Tories’, or indeed we Brits’, hands, and depends on how Trump is seen come the next election. People will feel rather differently about reform in the two extreme scenarios of relative success and Trump having trashed both domestic and world affairs.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
On thread - regrettably to me, I think Eaglea is right - Reform will eclipse the Tories. Not Kemi's fault - she's slowly improving - nor Nigel's brilliance - which is very much up to a point. The fact (/wild assertion) is that Tory voters are more likely to hold their noses and vote Reform to get Labour out than Reform voters are to do the reverse.
For that to happen Reform would need to be clearly ahead of the Tories in most polls as the main alternative to Labour, which they aren't.
Plus with over 50s the Tories are now first and Reform second, so they are directly in competition with each other, with Labour also rans in 3rd and even 4th behind the LDs with pensioners
"International law is preventing the UK from giving teenage killers such as Axel Rudakubana whole life orders, a Cabinet minister has said.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, suggested that the UN convention on children’s rights stops Britain from being able to impose unlimited sentences on under-18s."
Heaven preserve us from grandstanding politicians. Rudakubana drew a 52-year minimum which is enough to be getting on with. Ministers pontificating on sentences and knife sales and widening definitions just masks the real issues around what to do about non-terrorist dangers.
That kid was bang out of order. Fairly decent chance of getting fucked up inside anyway, I would have thought.
Well exactly. Unless he's going into solitary, he has a very high likelihood of a very unpleasant time.
Absolutely.
Sara Sharif’s Dad has already been the recipient of prison ‘justice’
Still it's not a sign of great health in our polity that we're half-hoping for someone to get illegally shanked in prison to dispense proper justice.
Whose the "we"?
He's been locked up, nearly certainly, for the rest of his life.
I'm not impressed by the idea of one nutter murdering or injuring another nutter to prove some version of dominance. That just sounds like more scumbaggery.
In principle I agree. However, I would admit at present I would find the news of him experiencing some unexpected misfortune in gaol quite easy to bear. I'm not proud of that fact but there it is.
“The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
One thing that I tremendously admire about Norway was that, with Breivik, they had every excuse to demand vengeance.
Instead, by giving his exact legal due, they shrank him back to what he really is. A malevolent, vicious, stupid clown who claims that the ballpoint pens he is given to write with hurt his hand.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
I think too that is the problem in the Russo-Ukranian war. The war only stops when Putin stops, and unless it is total subjugation of Ukraine with Zelensky replaced by a puppet government, then it looks like Putin has failed. A lot more Russians and Ukranians have to die to keep him unchallenged.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
A confidence and supply deal might last as long as it took to get PR legislation through Parliament ?
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
The polling does not suggest that (yet). It's primarily Conservative voters and GE '24 non-voters.
That's why I'm fairly confident that the Labour vote share would be higher with Farage as the main challenger than Badenoch. But they would be much less efficient, with lefty votes piling up in the outraged cities and lots of Reform/Labour marginals in the north.
The long-term trend is disguised by the Boris landslide in 2019 which means that a lot of the people who look like Tory -> Reform switchers on paper are actually former Labour voters.
They voted Labour to get rid of the Tories, out of frustration at them, but there wasn't a values shift.
They've moved to the Right and have stayed on the Right.
Possibly right on social issues, but they want more spending on them and their communities.
These are not free market Libertarians.
Free market fundamentalism is now a core belief most commonly held on the centre-left. These are the people who think that you can't possibly inhibit international trade or the movement of workers without the sky falling in.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left and right is too simplistic as measures of politics. See horseshoe theory for Nazis vs Communists.
I think Labour will be at least a two term government, unless something changes. It's difficult for either Reform or the Conservatives to be largest party as long as they split the votes on the right. It's also difficult for the two parties to create a voting coalition before the election.
By default in that case, Labour will continue to have more seats than any other party and can form a government from there, even if it no longer has a majority.
That's possible, also possible that in 4 years time people will have forgotten how shit the tories were and the Conservatives will get a majority. They'd probably need to have a fresh untainted leader, and appeal to Reform voters on "controlling the border" - this might involve repudiating the last Conservative government letting in record numbers of immigrants. They've got the perfect fall guy to pin the blame on - Boris Johnson, who once said
“I’m probably about the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.”
I think the Tories have a way to go to get the trust back, not unlike in 1997. Is there a Cameron figure out there to at least look like he connects and 'gets it'? Its unlikely to be Badenoch. But I also think that Labours massive majority is built on sand and could collapse as fast as it appeared.
Yes, I'm just not really seeing this government becoming popular (though maybe the mood will change). But I'm equally not seeing Reform winning. So it's the Conservatives by default. But they do need to get their act together + find someone who can pull off a tough-on-immigration-yet-compassionate-conservative image.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
A confidence and supply deal might last as long as it took to get PR legislation through Parliament ?
I predict Nigel will become curiously more reticent about abolishing FPTP if it delivers him 150+ seats next time.
No idea of this is true, but on past evidence, it's credible.
The Washington Post reveals that an aide working for Mike Johnson persuaded Republicans not to issue a subpoena for former WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified to the Jan. 6 committee—fearing it could expose the sexual texts many of them had sent her... https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1882546569108718019
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
I could never stand the Hang-em-and-flog-em types.
For a start, what's the point of flogging people *after* you've hung 'em?
It's this kind of basic failure in process engineering that makes this country second rate.... {old man starts shouting at clouds...}
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
I think Labour will be at least a two term government, unless something changes. It's difficult for either Reform or the Conservatives to be largest party as long as they split the votes on the right. It's also difficult for the two parties to create a voting coalition before the election.
By default in that case, Labour will continue to have more seats than any other party and can form a government from there, even if it no longer has a majority.
That's possible, also possible that in 4 years time people will have forgotten how shit the tories were and the Conservatives will get a majority. They'd probably need to have a fresh untainted leader, and appeal to Reform voters on "controlling the border" - this might involve repudiating the last Conservative government letting in record numbers of immigrants. They've got the perfect fall guy to pin the blame on - Boris Johnson, who once said
“I’m probably about the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.”
I think the Tories have a way to go to get the trust back, not unlike in 1997. Is there a Cameron figure out there to at least look like he connects and 'gets it'? Its unlikely to be Badenoch. But I also think that Labours massive majority is built on sand and could collapse as fast as it appeared.
Yes, I'm just not really seeing this government becoming popular (though maybe the mood will change). But I'm equally not seeing Reform winning. So it's the Conservatives by default. But they do need to get their act together + find someone who can pull off a tough-on-immigration-yet-compassionate-conservative image.
I don't think either main party has a chance of a majority next time, most likely it will be a choice of Labour and LDs or Tories and Reform
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
But then you blow away the 'hanging is the best deterrent' argument.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left and right is too simplistic as measures of politics. See horseshoe theory for Nazis vs Communists.
It would be interesting to see a plot on the Political Compass style chart (One axis for social, one for economic) of the current positions of the UK political parties.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
A confidence and supply deal might last as long as it took to get PR legislation through Parliament ?
I predict Nigel will become curiously more reticent about abolishing FPTP if it delivers him 150+ seats next time.
Quite possibly. On the other hand, with the alternatives being a brief stay for him in No.10, at the cost of PR, or another immediate election, it would depend on how good he saw his chances in a second ballot.
With PR, Reform would likely be a permanent contender for government.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
The polling does not suggest that (yet). It's primarily Conservative voters and GE '24 non-voters.
That's why I'm fairly confident that the Labour vote share would be higher with Farage as the main challenger than Badenoch. But they would be much less efficient, with lefty votes piling up in the outraged cities and lots of Reform/Labour marginals in the north.
The long-term trend is disguised by the Boris landslide in 2019 which means that a lot of the people who look like Tory -> Reform switchers on paper are actually former Labour voters.
They voted Labour to get rid of the Tories, out of frustration at them, but there wasn't a values shift.
They've moved to the Right and have stayed on the Right.
Possibly right on social issues, but they want more spending on them and their communities.
These are not free market Libertarians.
As with the large bulk of voters they are completely cakeist. Handouts for them, paid for by a combination of taxes on the rich (loosely defined as anyone who earns more than they do,) combined with the withdrawal of handouts from various categories of scroungers (primarily benefit cheats and asylum seekers, the draining effects of both of which on the state are vastly, vastly overestimated in the mind of the average voter.) The latter tendency is particularly prevalent, which is excellent news for Reform and the broader hard right project of blaming the enemy within for people's problems and encouraging them to vote for an alternative that will put the enemy in its place.
We have, of course, been here before.
The truth is that modern medicine has become rather good at keeping very decrepit elderly people, often with multiple complex health needs, alive, along with various categories of sick and disabled people who would previously have died young, and they and their care are, in the main, an enormous drain on the public purse. This, at the same time as women have decided they'd rather like interesting lives and careers, rather than pumping out loads of babies and spending all their waking hours cooking and cleaning and wiping up snot. Hence, extremely difficult demographics. Nobody wants to hear any of this because it means that society essentially has two choices: pay an absolute bloody fortune in tax to equip the vulnerable with the necessities of life and pay enough people enough money to give them decent care; or shoot them.
Voters don't want to stump up the cash and they don't want a granny genocide either, so they revolt and throw tantrums and turn to snake oil salesmen peddling quackonomic nonsense. Misinformation, wilfully blinkered attitudes, anger and desperation, aided and abetted by a muddled Government: this is how we arrive with the pitiable notion that Nigel Farage (or the second coming of Boris Johnson) is the solution to the nation's ills.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
Yes that is also part of the calculus.
There's an idea kicking around that president Donald J Trump will design and enforce a grand bargain involving the Saudis, the oil price, China, Putin, Kim, missiles and sanctions, out of which comes an end to the Ukraine war, peace in the Middle East, a secure Israel and a Palestinian state.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
It's the (Labour) MP for Southport who's asked the AG to consider whether the sentence is too lenient, as I understand. Regrettable, but I guess understandable given his constituency. I expect the appeal to be rejected.
As for the death penalty - it would be the end of the Labour Party if it ever went there.
The word cloud shows one fundamental thing. The public being polled wants solutions to a number of well known problems but does not want to pay for them, and furthermore wants them a bit more quickly than is feasible anyway. Farage and Reform are the only outfit offering this (bogusly of course) who have not already recently been tried out. Just one year ago Labour and Starmer were in that pole position.
Went out for a drink last night with a couple of neighbours. Bit younger than me, but not that much. One of them said that he'd been watching a lot of GB news "because he was fed up with the bias shown by the BBC and wanted the truth." He then went on about the amount of grooming of young girls by men of Pakistani origin. When he'd gone my remaining friend and I shook our heads sadly over hm.
I work at Uni and I am surrounded by people who mostly vote Labour or Lib Dem. Hard to find a Tory (or at least someone who would admit to it). It leads people who work here to believe that the whole country thinks as they do and so the shock at Brexit, and when Corbyn lost in 2019 etc is profound. The lack of engagement with 'normal people' feeds into this.
PB is rather like this. We have some who are not of the herd, but most are rather similar in views/beliefs. We are lucky that there are some outspoken outliers, otherwise we would be even more of an echo chamber than BSkyBBlueSky or whatever its called.
I'm not surprised at your neighbours attitudes. Lots of people think as they do. And currently they are flocking to Reform.
I had lunch today with my secretary, the ward cleaner and a porter. I think my secretary has always been Tory, but none of the 3 could stand Starmer.
The big grievance is the WFP. So it looks as if they all want a government that doles out more spending. Complaints too that the Minimum wage increase is affecting wage differentials. They were all seeing new trainee staff starting at or close to their pay, despite being required to train and supervise them.
Increases in minimum wage are good for those on them but we have seen massive pay restraint in the NHS and also at Uni - and this does erode the idea of a pay scale and advancement.
The other theme was that benefits were too generous, and that it barely paid to work. On the face of it a certain inconsistency, but there is a certain logic. More welfare spending, but better targeted at the workers than beneficiaries, apart from pensions. The cleaner said she didn't want to live long in retirement, as she expects permanent poverty and hardship.
It was a pretty bleak conversation, but I didn't provoke or participate in it.
How does a cleaner advance their career? There presumably aren't many Senior Cleaners out there. So if you start and end as a cleaner you need to really think how your retirement will be funded. I think too many people don't think about the future until it is too late. And not everyone can be a consultant at a Hospital or a Senior Lecturer at a top 10 uni*. I recall grandparents of a friend who had saved and scrimped their whole lives being livid that others who hadn't done so were bailed out by the state. They wondered why they had bothered. This is a real challenge.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
I think too that is the problem in the Russo-Ukranian war. The war only stops when Putin stops, and unless it is total subjugation of Ukraine with Zelensky replaced by a puppet government, then it looks like Putin has failed. A lot more Russians and Ukranians have to die to keep him unchallenged.
I am very interested to see the outcome of Trump's hardballing (at least publicly) of Putin. It will be quite hard to view 'making the deal' as anything other than the capitulation of one 'strong man' to another. On the other hand it gives Russia a much needed off-ramp to the invasion, and possibly with some of its ill-gotten gains.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
In the unlikely eventuality, the only possibility I can see is a short term agreement to introduce STV followed by an election six months later
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
In the unlikely eventuality, the only possibility I can see is a short term agreement to introduce STV followed by an election six months later
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
So you’re citing a bloke with a 139 Twitter followers as an example.
Try actually listening to the people in the criminal justice system.
Yes he's "Britain's most trusted". He could be the next big thing if he fancies it.
From a BBC interview in 2022 - [Lewis] said he would never take on a "polemic party job" in politics because "my mental health is not robust enough to deal with it and I wouldn't put my family through it".
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
There was another sign of Wiles’s determination to put some distance between Musk and Trump in the executive order setting up Doge, which stated that its chief administrator must report to her.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left and right is too simplistic as measures of politics. See horseshoe theory for Nazis vs Communists.
It would be interesting to see a plot on the Political Compass style chart (One axis for social, one for economic) of the current positions of the UK political parties.
"International law is preventing the UK from giving teenage killers such as Axel Rudakubana whole life orders, a Cabinet minister has said.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, suggested that the UN convention on children’s rights stops Britain from being able to impose unlimited sentences on under-18s."
Heaven preserve us from grandstanding politicians. Rudakubana drew a 52-year minimum which is enough to be getting on with. Ministers pontificating on sentences and knife sales and widening definitions just masks the real issues around what to do about non-terrorist dangers.
That kid was bang out of order. Fairly decent chance of getting fucked up inside anyway, I would have thought.
Well exactly. Unless he's going into solitary, he has a very high likelihood of a very unpleasant time.
Absolutely.
Sara Sharif’s Dad has already been the recipient of prison ‘justice’
Still it's not a sign of great health in our polity that we're half-hoping for someone to get illegally shanked in prison to dispense proper justice.
Whose the "we"?
He's been locked up, nearly certainly, for the rest of his life.
I'm not impressed by the idea of one nutter murdering or injuring another nutter to prove some version of dominance. That just sounds like more scumbaggery.
In principle I agree. However, I would admit at present I would find the news of him experiencing some unexpected misfortune in gaol quite easy to bear. I'm not proud of that fact but there it is.
“The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
One thing that I tremendously admire about Norway was that, with Breivik, they had every excuse to demand vengeance.
Instead, by giving his exact legal due, they shrank him back to what he really is. A malevolent, vicious, stupid clown who claims that the ballpoint pens he is given to write with hurt his hand.
There are of course a few people - yesterday's defendant I hope is one - who will never come out of prison. But the other 80,000 are coming out sometime to live alongside the rest of us.
This single fact - ignore abstract moral claims for a moment despite their strength - means that it is irrational to make prisons expensive ways of making bad people worse, instead of expensive and tough minded educational and therapeutic communities for those who will one day live next door.
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
There was another sign of Wiles’s determination to put some distance between Musk and Trump in the executive order setting up Doge, which stated that its chief administrator must report to her.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left and right is too simplistic as measures of politics. See horseshoe theory for Nazis vs Communists.
It would be interesting to see a plot on the Political Compass style chart (One axis for social, one for economic) of the current positions of the UK political parties.
Quibble about where they have put the origin of their chart, but the relative positions look about right.
Nice find
The thing that sunrises me about that is the definition of Reform economics as right wing. They want lots of state spending on the “right” (ha!) things. Rather like the DUP.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left and right is too simplistic as measures of politics. See horseshoe theory for Nazis vs Communists.
It would be interesting to see a plot on the Political Compass style chart (One axis for social, one for economic) of the current positions of the UK political parties.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
Pop the champagne, Israel not as genocidal as they might be.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
Can’t say that I’ve noticed the more enthusiastic supporters of capital punishment wanting a more humane option. They crave the state killing criminals, preferably unpleasantly, as the salve to their vengeful outrage.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
Brilliant typo? Dreadlocked juries would not be popular, I fear.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
Dreadlocked juries would surely add some colour to the court proceedings though..😉
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
That's speculative and implies that juries are currently convicting people where they have doubts because the stakes are lower.
As a majority yes, though most polls have them staying in office in a hung parliament if they can get LD support
The problem is, a Labour Party booted out by the voters means the LibDems would be toxic if voting for them meant keeping Labour in power.
They may have to go shit or bust - Prime Minister or nothing. Which didn't play so well when last tried by them...
Or maybe a coalition with Farage.
You can see their problem.
The LDs would never touch Farage, they would rather deal with the Tories again than him, though yes a Labour minority government propped up by the LDs would not be a bad outcome for Tory candidates in LD held home counties seats certainly
The idea of a LibDem/Farage coalition wouldn't last even as long as my smirk as I typed it...
In the unlikely eventuality, the only possibility I can see is a short term agreement to introduce STV followed by an election six months later
Reform don't want a preferential system of PR. They want a list system.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
That's speculative and implies that juries are currently convicting people where they have doubts because the stakes are lower.
No, it implies they would apply an even stricter test than "beyond reasonable doubt" if capital punishment were an option. Some might even simply refuse to convict irrespective of evidence - and unless they said so publicly, there would be little you could do about it.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
I think too that is the problem in the Russo-Ukranian war. The war only stops when Putin stops, and unless it is total subjugation of Ukraine with Zelensky replaced by a puppet government, then it looks like Putin has failed. A lot more Russians and Ukranians have to die to keep him unchallenged.
I am very interested to see the outcome of Trump's hardballing (at least publicly) of Putin. It will be quite hard to view 'making the deal' as anything other than the capitulation of one 'strong man' to another. On the other hand it gives Russia a much needed off-ramp to the invasion, and possibly with some of its ill-gotten gains.
Ever since the Russian army was successfully repulsed from Kyiv, the probable outcome has always been the partition of Ukraine. Russia is too large, and Putin is too invested in the war, for Ukraine to win outright; Ukraine is too large to be successfully overrun and occupied.
This ends either with a ceasefire and a de facto annexation by Russia of the territory it possesses, with both sides continuing to claim territory on the enemy side of the line of control; or in a bargain whereby Ukraine cedes the conquests outright, in exchange for freedom for the surviving four-fifths of the country to shift decisively into the western bloc and join NATO. My instinct is that it'll be the former outcome but I wouldn't bet real money on it.
I wonder if we'll get crossover between the Lib Dems and Labour at some point this year. Third could be the best Labour can hope for.
I have found Labour's polling surprisingly sticky. It has been tracking inexorably down, but not in the same way as Starmer's approval rating. I wouldn't know why that would be. Could be something in the re-allocation of don't knows? I know our own view is skewed by our media diet, and I am a right wing media consumer, but I don't think there's much of a Guardian/Mirror/The Rest is Politics alternative narrative bubble where everyone thinks it's going brilliantly well.
I am expecting Labour's losses to continue, and for them to fall behind Reform and the Tories in most polls. I think Ref, Cons, Lab in that order will solidify.
I was worried (politically) about the forthcoming Crime and Justice bill having some good popular measures in it. But judging from the recent bollocks about kitchen knives from Amazon, it'll just be more snooping on the law-abiding. It's just not in Labour to turn this around - their instincts oppose everything that they need to do.
The eclipse of the Tories by Reform will be very bad news for the right in this country, IMHO. The Tories has the most successful track record of any political party in Europe, while Reform are a ragtag collection of loonies and closet racists with an unfortunate record of attracting unsavoury candidates who depend completely on a single, ageing, politician for their popularity.
You’re in denial. Reform are taking the working class vote away from Labour and they’ve become much more than a Farage vehicle.
In many ways it is an action replay of France since about 2012. Remember France has a PR system which is less PR that FPTP by a long way. Anderson is much more telegenic that Farage. But the idea that it can be a commonplace on boards like this that the Right divided means more Marxism and it not be noticed either by the Conservatives or by Reform at a higher level is naive, and wrong.
Ummm:
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Is a hypothetical party that wants to hang murderers and increase taxes on the rich to fund the NHS right or left wing?
Left wing.
Socially conservative populists
Taxing the rich is definitely left-wing. Hanging murderers is neither left nor right.
Trump’s ‘ice maiden’ freezes Elon Musk out of West Wing
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
There was another sign of Wiles’s determination to put some distance between Musk and Trump in the executive order setting up Doge, which stated that its chief administrator must report to her.
Wiles showed her loyalty to Trump when indicted in the classified documents case, and entirely coincidentally got a big pay rise from Trump around the same time...
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
That's speculative and implies that juries are currently convicting people where they have doubts because the stakes are lower.
No it is based on actual experience, there’s also a reason why voir dire is so important and why some jurisdictions a lot of money is spent on it by the legal teams.
For potential death penalty cases the jurors would move to more than beyond a reasonable doubt test, there’s different thresholds.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
I think its fair that past miscarriages of justice mitigate against the death penalty, but its not the reason for every opponent. Take the current example, I don't think their can be any doubt that he did it- apprehended at the scene etc. So objections on the basis of 'he could be innocent' fall away and we are left with objections such as ' the state shouldn't have the power to execute people' and 'life in prison is a better punishment'.
Personally I'd be happy if this person was executed but I understand not everyone will agree.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
Netanyahu's idea that the best way to delay his fraud trial further is best served by further oppressing and colonising also remains strong.
I think too that is the problem in the Russo-Ukranian war. The war only stops when Putin stops, and unless it is total subjugation of Ukraine with Zelensky replaced by a puppet government, then it looks like Putin has failed. A lot more Russians and Ukranians have to die to keep him unchallenged.
I am very interested to see the outcome of Trump's hardballing (at least publicly) of Putin. It will be quite hard to view 'making the deal' as anything other than the capitulation of one 'strong man' to another. On the other hand it gives Russia a much needed off-ramp to the invasion, and possibly with some of its ill-gotten gains.
Ever since the Russian army was successfully repulsed from Kyiv, the probable outcome has always been the partition of Ukraine. Russia is too large, and Putin is too invested in the war, for Ukraine to win outright; Ukraine is too large to be successfully overrun and occupied.
This ends either with a ceasefire and a de facto annexation by Russia of the territory it possesses, with both sides continuing to claim territory on the enemy side of the line of control; or in a bargain whereby Ukraine cedes the conquests outright, in exchange for freedom for the surviving four-fifths of the country to shift decisively into the western bloc and join NATO. My instinct is that it'll be the former outcome but I wouldn't bet real money on it.
I agree, and agree on the former being more probable.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
Autocorrect or typo ?
Autocorrect.
Naturally. And I was beginning to speculate whether they'd be dreadlocked by selection, or forcibly.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
That's speculative and implies that juries are currently convicting people where they have doubts because the stakes are lower.
No it is based on actual experience, there’s also a reason why voir dire is so important and why some jurisdictions a lot of money is spent on it by the legal teams.
For potential death penalty cases the jurors would move to more than beyond a reasonable doubt test, there’s different thresholds.
Which leads to the situation in the US, where some jurors can be selected only from the population totally ignorant of current affairs, a process which can take a great deal of time and expense. Which is perhaps not optimal for either the speedy or effective administration of justice.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
Pop the champagne, Israel not as genocidal as they might be.
I'm not optimistic, Mr TUD. For Palestinians in either Gaza or the West Bank. It would appear that s significant section of Israeli opinion believes in the 'promise' God is alleged to have given to their distant forefathers. I suspect that on that basis some at least of the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank have a better 'right' to be in the Land of Israel than some of those who have recently migrated there.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
I think its fair that past miscarriages of justice mitigate against the death penalty, but its not the reason for every opponent. Take the current example, I don't think their can be any doubt that he did it- apprehended at the scene etc. So objections on the basis of 'he could be innocent' fall away and we are left with objections such as ' the state shouldn't have the power to execute people' and 'life in prison is a better punishment'.
Personally I'd be happy if this person was executed but I understand not everyone will agree.
The most cowardly argument you come across is people hoping something happens to him in prison, as if they are passing the buck to the inmates to do their dirty work.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
I keep saying on here that Farage is against capital punishment.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
I think its fair that past miscarriages of justice mitigate against the death penalty, but its not the reason for every opponent. Take the current example, I don't think their can be any doubt that he did it- apprehended at the scene etc. So objections on the basis of 'he could be innocent' fall away and we are left with objections such as ' the state shouldn't have the power to execute people' and 'life in prison is a better punishment'.
Personally I'd be happy if this person was executed but I understand not everyone will agree.
The most cowardly argument you come across is people hoping something happens to him in prison, as if they are passing the buck to the inmates to do their dirty work.
You could make a moral case for that, if you thought being beaten up and murdered horribly by inmates provides a better deterrent than that of the state executioner.
REFUK are going to have the reintroduction of the death penalty as a policy, I suspect.
Will Farage be able to keep it just to hanging and lethal injection though? I suspect Lee Anderson could push for restoring hanging drawing and quartering and burnings at the stake
The way some opponents of the death penalty relish talking about life imprisonment as a form of mental torture that's actually a much harsher punishment, hanging could be presented as the more humane option.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
Well, if the one and only Jim Wells, with his 139 followers, says it, then I guess it must be true. You don't half link to some tripe.
The comments are just to illustrate an argument which is quite prevalent among ordinary people to justify their opposition to the death penalty.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
See this is where you’re talking utter bollocks, again.
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
I think its fair that past miscarriages of justice mitigate against the death penalty, but its not the reason for every opponent. Take the current example, I don't think their can be any doubt that he did it- apprehended at the scene etc. So objections on the basis of 'he could be innocent' fall away and we are left with objections such as ' the state shouldn't have the power to execute people' and 'life in prison is a better punishment'.
Personally I'd be happy if this person was executed but I understand not everyone will agree.
The most cowardly argument you come across is people hoping something happens to him in prison, as if they are passing the buck to the inmates to do their dirty work.
You could make a moral case for that, if you thought being beaten up and murdered horribly by inmates provides a better deterrent than that of the state executioner.
Anyway, thank God Trump was elected and the war in Ukraine has been over for 3 days.
Well the war in Gaza has been over for 3 days at least
Israel will be resuming hostilities pretty soon, I fear. The idea their security is best served by further oppressing and colonising seems to have taken hold.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
Pop the champagne, Israel not as genocidal as they might be.
I'm not optimistic, Mr TUD. For Palestinians in either Gaza or the West Bank. It would appear that s significant section of Israeli opinion believes in the 'promise' God is alleged to have given to their distant forefathers. I suspect that on that basis some at least of the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank have a better 'right' to be in the Land of Israel than some of those who have recently migrated there.
Optimism a rare thing in that geographical area, more so than ever. In a stroke of genius Bibi has radicalised a whole new generation of Hamas in Gaza & the West Bank. Given that he’s been furtively promoting them for the last 20 years one might think it’s deliberate.
Comments
He will likely need to square that circle and moderate himself on that topic somewhat if he wants to push into the 30%s, IMHO.
They say that 113% of 2024 Labour voters will vote for other parties...
This is the point where people who are intellectually invested in the Process State say things like "2 decades for planning a major river crossing is a sensible timescale".
The problem you have is that people travel. And see places where this isn't so.
The solution, obviously, is to reintroduce the Vagrancy Acts of Henry VIII. Any person discovered more than a few hours travel, on foot, who cannot explain a clear need to be away from home can be arrested as a vagrant. Exceptions for the NU10K & OG10K, of course.
So far they seem to have redirected their activities towards the West Bank. Although, so far, they're not as genocidal.
It was a pretty bleak conversation, but I didn't provoke or participate in it.
https://x.com/christopherhope/status/1882766102733730191
I believe you are right about people holding their noses. I think if Reform are able to point to something concrete that suggests they have eclipsed the Tories on the right* then a lot will hold their nose and shift over.
*that concrete event, I would suggest, is probably the Scottish/Welsh/local elections next year and whether Reform can beat the Tories on vote share in all 3.
I think the board agrees with you. The right will work out tactical voting, obviously, and it will become much more efficient over time.
But it is unlikely that the right wing vote in 2028 will be as efficient as the left wing one. For 2032/33, that is likely to be different.
Your analogy of France 2012 is a good one, albeit with the issue that we don't know how the world will pan out economically between now and 2032/33.
So... why do you think everyone disagrees with you?
Plus with over 50s the Tories are now first and Reform second, so they are directly in competition with each other, with Labour also rans in 3rd and even 4th behind the LDs with pensioners
One thing that I tremendously admire about Norway was that, with Breivik, they had every excuse to demand vengeance.
Instead, by giving his exact legal due, they shrank him back to what he really is. A malevolent, vicious, stupid clown who claims that the ballpoint pens he is given to write with hurt his hand.
The Washington Post reveals that an aide working for Mike Johnson persuaded Republicans not to issue a subpoena for former WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified to the Jan. 6 committee—fearing it could expose the sexual texts many of them had sent her...
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1882546569108718019
For a start, what's the point of flogging people *after* you've hung 'em?
It's this kind of basic failure in process engineering that makes this country second rate.... {old man starts shouting at clouds...}
Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, has denied the billionaire touted as ‘the real vice-president’ a permanent office in the heart of the White House
https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/susie-wiles-chief-of-staff-elon-musk-wp0pfkxrx
British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce has received its largest ever contract from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), valued at $11.1 billion, for the design, manufacture and support of Royal Navy nuclear submarine reactors.
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/01/uk-awards-rolls-royce-11b-nuclear-reactor-unity-contract/
On the other hand, with the alternatives being a brief stay for him in No.10, at the cost of PR, or another immediate election, it would depend on how good he saw his chances in a second ballot.
With PR, Reform would likely be a permanent contender for government.
We have, of course, been here before.
The truth is that modern medicine has become rather good at keeping very decrepit elderly people, often with multiple complex health needs, alive, along with various categories of sick and disabled people who would previously have died young, and they and their care are, in the main, an enormous drain on the public purse. This, at the same time as women have decided they'd rather like interesting lives and careers, rather than pumping out loads of babies and spending all their waking hours cooking and cleaning and wiping up snot. Hence, extremely difficult demographics. Nobody wants to hear any of this because it means that society essentially has two choices: pay an absolute bloody fortune in tax to equip the vulnerable with the necessities of life and pay enough people enough money to give them decent care; or shoot them.
Voters don't want to stump up the cash and they don't want a granny genocide either, so they revolt and throw tantrums and turn to snake oil salesmen peddling quackonomic nonsense. Misinformation, wilfully blinkered attitudes, anger and desperation, aided and abetted by a muddled Government: this is how we arrive with the pitiable notion that Nigel Farage (or the second coming of Boris Johnson) is the solution to the nation's ills.
There's an idea kicking around that president Donald J Trump will design and enforce a grand bargain involving the Saudis, the oil price, China, Putin, Kim, missiles and sanctions, out of which comes an end to the Ukraine war, peace in the Middle East, a secure Israel and a Palestinian state.
And he'll deserve that Nobel prize if so.
People like #AxelRudakubana are put on suicide watch. He wants an easy way out. To him the death penalty is preferable to spending his whole life in a tiny brick box, being brutally bullied by others in jail. For that reason, I believe he must be kept alive to serve his sentence
https://x.com/jimwells007/status/1882478611195957744
Just to clarify, a minimum of 52 years in prison is worse than a death sentence. No hope, no one to talk to, in fear of being attacked, he will never have a family, spend every day in a small cell. Death would be an escape.
For the last two months he had been getting steadily closer, and renting.an apartment in Mar-a-Lago.
As for the death penalty - it would be the end of the Labour Party if it ever went there.
Try actually listening to the people in the criminal justice system.
No doubt if Trump had been around in 1940 he'd have been telling Churchill to the "do a deal" with Hilter...
[Lewis] said he would never take on a "polemic party job" in politics because "my mental health is not robust enough to deal with it and I wouldn't put my family through it".
There was another sign of Wiles’s determination to put some distance between Musk and Trump in the executive order setting up Doge, which stated that its chief administrator must report to her.
You don't half link to some tripe.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2024
Quibble about where they have put the origin of their chart, but the relative positions look about right.
This single fact - ignore abstract moral claims for a moment despite their strength - means that it is irrational to make prisons expensive ways of making bad people worse, instead of expensive and tough minded educational and therapeutic communities for those who will one day live next door.
Find Out Now voting intention:
🟦 Reform UK: 26% (+1)
🔵 Conservatives: 23% (-2)
🔴 Labour: 22% (-2)
🟠 Lib Dems: 12% (-)
🟢 Greens: 10% (-)
Changes from 15th January
[Find Out Now, 22nd January, N=2,380]
The thing that sunrises me about that is the definition of Reform economics as right wing. They want lots of state spending on the “right” (ha!) things. Rather like the DUP.
The people in the criminal justice system to whom @TSE refers are more likely to use arguments based on personal vanity: we can't have the death penalty because it would make us as bad as them (where them can refer either to the criminals themselves or more often to foreigners who aren't as enlightened as us and still execute people).
My friends in the CPS and defence teams would tell you because of serious number of miscarriages in the past, juries would be reluctant to convict where there was a chance of the death penalty.
You’d have dreadlocked juries and guilty people getting away with is a major concern.
Dreadlocked juries would not be popular, I fear.
Your logic on this fails repeatedly.
This ends either with a ceasefire and a de facto annexation by Russia of the territory it possesses, with both sides continuing to claim territory on the enemy side of the line of control; or in a bargain whereby Ukraine cedes the conquests outright, in exchange for freedom for the surviving four-fifths of the country to shift decisively into the western bloc and join NATO. My instinct is that it'll be the former outcome but I wouldn't bet real money on it.
I am expecting Labour's losses to continue, and for them to fall behind Reform and the Tories in most polls. I think Ref, Cons, Lab in that order will solidify.
I was worried (politically) about the forthcoming Crime and Justice bill having some good popular measures in it. But judging from the recent bollocks about kitchen knives from Amazon, it'll just be more snooping on the law-abiding. It's just not in Labour to turn this around - their instincts oppose everything that they need to do.
https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-criminal-cases-witnesses-financial-benefits
For potential death penalty cases the jurors would move to more than beyond a reasonable doubt test, there’s different thresholds.
Personally I'd be happy if this person was executed but I understand not everyone will agree.
And I was beginning to speculate whether they'd be dreadlocked by selection, or forcibly.
Which is perhaps not optimal for either the speedy or effective administration of justice.
I suspect that on that basis some at least of the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank have a better 'right' to be in the Land of Israel than some of those who have recently migrated there.