Anything less than 60% plus puts you very much in the running.
In these fragmented times, it depends whether tactical voting against you, in individual constituencies, overwhelms tactical voting for you. So really, it is the favourability splits in the *other parties* that count.
Maybe you can apply those "average" splits on a constituency-by-constituency basis, with some weighting for "propensity to vote tactically"? That sounds like a model worth experimenting with.
Sir Keir needs to announce he's setting up an 'Office for Value for Money' then just sit back and watch the Reform voters stampede to Labour. I can promise you that would absolutely happen and no one on the Right would take the piss.
Except that SKS would think of the creation of the office as the end in itself, and not the means to save a significant chunk of cash from the budget.
He’d staff it with lawyers and diversity managers, and it’ll be about as successful as when Rachel from accounts asked regulators to identify savings.
I would be more drastic. I would fire all senior civil servants, and make them apply for their own jobs. The interview panel would consist of ordinary voters, with the proviso that public school alumni and HR professionals would not be considered.
You have obviously not encountered the JoyJoy of HR run by non-professionals.
Good call! This is why Farage is doomed. Far too woke and squeamish on capital sentences for climate protestors.
The people involved may be climate protestors, but the people egging on acts of sabotage may have far more malign intents and may not even be in the UK.
It’s not as if there isn’t a long history of unfriendly nation states funding and supporting fringe groups such as climate protestors in the West.
If it’s not Russia then it’s going to be China or Iran, the same people responsible for ships dragging their anchors in very specific locations around the world at the moment.
We've all seen that documentary with Lewis Collins. We know how it works. One minute, it's the members of Fairport Convention playing protest songs in a church. The next minute, they're holding US diplomats hostage.
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
And all Jeremy Corby's policies were incredibly popular when polled, as far as I remember.
Yeah, and we can see in Venezuela what happens when you enact Jeremy Corbyn’s policies
Now, we get to see what happens when you enact Donald Trump’s policies, because they are being enacted. By Donald Trump
Quite a lot hinges on this. If Trump is perceived as even halfway successful I expect another, even stronger surge to the hard/far right in Europe. Certainly enough to put Le Pen in the Elysee, for instance
Farage's popularity is currently 34%, 16% are neutral, and 47% dislike. The Nigel probably wouldn't be unhappy with those figures at this stage, with the possibility of getting the first of those up to 40% over the next couple of years. As I said earlier, most politicians are disliked by half the electorate anyway, that isn't untypical. Blair being so popular in 1997 to 1999 was very unusual.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
I think there is a decent risk - perhaps 40% - that Reform take off in the polls during this parliament. All of the factors are in place: Labour doing little and the economy not improving Tories led by bonkers refusing to accept the mess they made Reform connecting with left behind voters and so far not saying anything crazy
The scenario is simple - Farage shows leadership, and points to the Trumpian successes in deporting migrants and clamping down on law and order issues and says we can have that. Labour wail about how nasty it is, the Tories cry about how they already did all that (stop laughing) and could do again. And the LibDems say Trump is awful we need to reverse course.
Farage PM would need various scenarios to play out. A leading one being that the rarely or non voters turn out and say they're backing him. We all know that non-voters don't vote, but they have occasionally and there is polling suggesting they are backing Reform now. Add them to the voting roll and all bets are off.
The others are that Labour meander along and fail the red wall as badly as the Tories did, the Tories leave bonkers in place or better still replace her with Jenrick (stop laughing) - both are diabolically bad for Tory prospects. And that the Davey "we can do better than this" message resonates and builds its own quiet momentum.
Result? Reform sweep the red wall, midlands and broken towns, LibDems add another slew of seats - into midlands and northern places they once held. Tories collapse still further, shrieking into their copies of the Daily Telegraph.
The Times is now the Tory house journal. The Telegraph is full of Reformers now anyway.
The LDs are now a party of posh Remainers and win few seats north of Watford
As a LibDem myself I love being referred to as a Posh Remainder. Also if you look at history, apart from Scotland the Lib Dem record has never been the best above Watford, though the Cambridgeshire, Stockport, Cumbria and Harrogate seats are quite pleasing.
As far as I can see the Lib Dems have substantially more seats north of Watford just in England alone than their entire set before the Election - it looks like a dozen or more. Though we need to quibble about eg Chesham and Amersham.
I'll give you that most of the ones North of Watford are effectively bits of "South of Watford" translated North, eg Harrogate (ducks).
Having a meal out with visiting family last night, and it turns out that a relation has an Alzheimer's diagnosis at age 60.
Can anyone comment on experience of what happens with this condition, and what I can gently do now to help prepare for the future?
One impression I have is that instantiating memories is important as memory is lost progressively, so things like making sure that there are copies of childhood photo albums, familiar objects from earlier in life, and similar, around, may be beneficial.
Alzheimers at 60. So sorry to hear that. That is terribly young. One always thinks it is an oldpersons condition.
With my Mother she gets angry as she cannot remember.
I find it helps to go through old pictures with her. When I was down at Xmas she dug out lots of pics of her parents and family when young and I reminisced with her. She thought it was the first time I had seen them. It wasn't.
Yes. One of the things the person mentioned was turning old photo albums (their dad compiled one) into scanned photos via an app. I could not do it as it is still buried somewhere in the leftovers from their parent's estate, some of which I still have, and the dealing-with-the-will process has been somewhat disputaceous and has continued through COVID with various complicated circumstances.
It sounds like it is time to give it some focus this year.
Thanks.
I would advise against turning it into an app, my father now has no ability to use either phone or computer or indeed even recognise a phone, he now often tries to make calls on the tv remote. Make sure there is an album
OTOH my late MIL got a great deal of pleasure from live streaming the church services she was not well enough to get to. Someone had to do it for her, of course.
As it happens my relative is a senior PM with TFL, installing traffic type things, so quite au fait with technology.
I seem to recall an incident where someone was complaining about getting a camera fine, and the relative remarked "that was one of my projects" . A good deal less radical that I am these days, however.
As it happens I could do an album, as I have commercial quality printing facilities at home, in A3 (laser) or A2 (pigment inkjet) sizes, from my picture printing days.
We'll see.
I did recognise @Pagan2's description of trying to answer the phone with the TV remote however. Also trying to get the TV on with the phone. One thing that is worth investing in is as simple a phone as you can find with large, clear buttons. Although she was having problems by the end this kept my MIL in touch for much longer than anything more complex would have.
Yes - it's the simple things.
Like my mum was able to use her upstairs for an extra decade or so, simply because the stairs were designed as a 35 degree slope (by the Jacobeans), not the maximum 42 degrees, and had two half landings with chairs for taking a rest.
It's a long time ago now, but a guy I knew online had a father with Alzheimer's. While it moved rapidly, his father never had the anger that some (like my grandpa) developed, and even jokingly blamed the Alzheimer's for not doing chores etc so their relationship didn't suffer at all. While this seems, anecdotally, uncommon, it does at least suggest the irritation/anger aspect isn't universal.
It definitely isn't. My mum (89) has it but at least so far has retained her fundamentally sweet nature.
That was my experience with my father. As everything else went, he retained his essential character.
Same with my mother. She got vascular dementia aged 90 and died at 94. She was still sweet and never got angry. But she lost her inhibitions.
She had been a very respectable member of the community. Led the local Mother's Union as a Mary Whitehouse figure. She even looked a bit like her. But towards the end, when I went out with her for a walk, she was prone to say, in a very loud voice, "Look at that fat woman. Isn't she fat!" and other inappropriate comments.
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
Whether those who are seeking power are likely to be competent hardly matters to an ordinary voter. We can only vote for those who are up for election. The electorate can vote out a government but only by installing a different party or coalition.
I was very grateful not to be a US citizen offered the choice between Biden/Harris and Trump.
Having a meal out with visiting family last night, and it turns out that a relation has an Alzheimer's diagnosis at age 60.
Can anyone comment on experience of what happens with this condition, and what I can gently do now to help prepare for the future?
One impression I have is that instantiating memories is important as memory is lost progressively, so things like making sure that there are copies of childhood photo albums, familiar objects from earlier in life, and similar, around, may be beneficial.
To be honest, it depends how aggressive it is. I had a former housemate who was diagnosed with it in his mid-fifties. It was viciously aggressive and he was gone within two years. Hopefully your relative has a more sedate form.
My friend was the same. At some point your relative will probably need to move into care so have a look round at what is available, considering their facilities but also how easy they are to visit, because visiting might become a PITA towards the end as they forget who the visitor is, or become angry they cannot remember things that never happened, so on top of that you do not want to have to change bus three times to get there.
Agree re memories. It might be worth having a look on YouTube or their own websites to see if his old school, workplace, whatever, has helpfully uploaded drone footage of the buildings that might jog some memories. Do friends have phone footage of the 2013 Christmas Party? With still photos, can you make a presentation he can keep on his phone?
ETA if you go out together, keep an eye on him as you would a lively toddler who might at any moment dart off to stroke a cat or go into a shop that has caught their eye.
ETA and you will start to notice how many funeral notices in the local press or wherever end no flowers by request – donations to MentalHealthCharity.
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
And all Jeremy Corby's policies were incredibly popular when polled, as far as I remember.
Yeah, and we can see in Venezuela what happens when you enact Jeremy Corbyn’s policies
Now, we get to see what happens when you enact Donald Trump’s policies, because they are being enacted. By Donald Trump
Quite a lot hinges on this. If Trump is perceived as even halfway successful I expect another, even stronger surge to the hard/far right in Europe. Certainly enough to put Le Pen in the Elysee, for instance
However, Trump might be a disaster for the US…
Trump could be great for the US but really bad for a lot of the rest of us - see tariffs and defence policy, for example. But your central point is key: anyone who claims to know what the world and its politics will look like in four years' time is entirely deluded.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Its more complicated than a simple right/wrong answer. We have undoubtedly undergone a vast influx of people into the country, the vast majority entirely legally. This does come with needs - housing, schools, healthcare. Some of those who have come play a role in supporting that self-same healthcare. Arguably the NHS is a net beneficiary in this, and thus we would be worse off if there had been zero immigration (less demand, but less capacity too).
But its too trite to dismiss peoples concerns with a one word answer.
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
Presumable said strong leader must agree with everything said kids believe, in which case its all good...
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
I think what is coming in the west generally is something like this - and Trump will lead the way.
Border control will become much much more fierce. Other countries will follow the example of USA repatriation of illegals. The criteria for asylum will becomes much tighter.
And finally, the most important one, it will become the norm that the basic rights of refugees/asylum seekers the world over are the same: a place in a tented city in the desert (Chad) or an island (Ascension) or Greenland (!), three meals a day provided by the UN, and basic education for children. with passage home as soon as possible. With all countries free to offer more if they wish to whom they wish.
In other words what is already the case in the poorest world will be what is offered to all.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
And all Jeremy Corby's policies were incredibly popular when polled, as far as I remember.
Yeah, and we can see in Venezuela what happens when you enact Jeremy Corbyn’s policies
Now, we get to see what happens when you enact Donald Trump’s policies, because they are being enacted. By Donald Trump
Quite a lot hinges on this. If Trump is perceived as even halfway successful I expect another, even stronger surge to the hard/far right in Europe. Certainly enough to put Le Pen in the Elysee, for instance
However, Trump might be a disaster for the US…
Trump could be great for the US but really bad for a lot of the rest of us - see tariffs and defence policy, for example. But your central point is key: anyone who claims to know what the world and its politics will look like in four years' time is entirely deluded.
Let's see which way the hard right goes. Until about last week, the AfD, for example, was telling us that Germany was effectively an American 'colony', that Americans had 'enslaved' Germans, and that all the other German parties were destroying the German economy on the orders of the US. If Trump's policies are seen to further impoverish Germany, will the AfD return to its anti-American rhetoric?
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
A family member, teaching in a northern England school with a huge proportion of WWC boys, in an area of high employment, confirms this is the case.
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
I am not entirely surprised.
For one thing, the political expression of the youth is often in opposition to their parent’s generation. Their parents will be of the generations that saw significant “liberalising” of society with all the good and bad that can be argued has come with it.
They also find themselves navigating a much more confusing world. Cost of living pressures make housing unaffordable for many. All the social pressures of the internet age are present. Higher education costs are substantial. Values are preached rather than organically developed. It can feel like very little seems to be done to resolve anything, or make it better.
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
And then he accepted the democratic verdict of the British people. It's notable that this is notable...
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
I am not entirely surprised.
For one thing, the political expression of the youth is often in opposition to their parent’s generation. For many their parents will be of the generations that saw significant “liberalising” of society with all the good and bad that can be argued has come with it.
They also find themselves navigating a much more confusing world. Cost of living pressures make housing unaffordable for many. All the social pressures of the internet age are present. Higher education costs are substantial. Values are preached rather than organically developed. It can feel like very little seems to be done to resolve anything, or make it better.
If you are 16 and think liberal democracy has not served you well then you are going to consider options. One of them is going to be the thoughts of Thomas Hobbes (the strong man theory of government) even if you have never heard of him.
We should not take for granted that they are wrong to do so.
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
And then he accepted the democratic verdict of the British people. It's notable that this is notable...
sounds pretty weak-minded if he completely changed his opinions because a majority voted for something else.
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
And then he accepted the democratic verdict of the British people. It's notable that this is notable...
Not for a few years he didn't. He was very much in favour of a best of three referendum and for a good while. His writing on this subject was heroic.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
They’re “meant” to be leading. This is polling these as manifesto policies, and thus testing for voter approval
The only surprising thing is the large numbers (23%-38%!!) who are nevertheless against things like 'free speech' 'merit' and reducing inflation.
Brits are bonkers.
I still haven’t recovered from the polling in 2020/21 where about a fifth of voters wanted nightclubs to remain closed even after the pandemic was over.
It was a weird age thing.
Some people like strictness, and/or being in control to an extent they can impose their own views on other people.
It's wretched. Freedom is worth having, even if it enables silly people who think Julius Caesar was a better general than Hannibal Barca to regurgitate their nonsense.
Caesar’s success led to his name becoming a word for emperor.
Hannibal led his nation to such an epic loss he committed suicide in shame as his nation was ultimately wiped from the map.
Caesar's 'success' led to him being killed by his own side within a year.
Hannibal became leader of Carthage. His suicide came decades later, when Antiochus III, fearing Hannibal would outshine him, kept the Carthaginian out of strategic decision-making in his own war against the Romans and refused the advice to invade Italy. Antiochus then gave up Hannibal after the Seleucid leader's poor tactics at Magnesia (like Cannae, this involved altering the standard military formation with an innovation that dramatically backfired).
Hannibal lost a single battlefield encounter, at Zama, when he led a a newer force against experienced soldiers in a battle he could not avoid. Caesar lost at Gergovia and Dyrrachium, the latter when his own vaunted Tenth fled.
Dyrrachium was a stunning performance, Caesar was outnumbered 2:1 and still inflicted double the number of casualties on the Pompeians, it allowed Caesar open an absolute can of whoop ass at Pharsalus.
Dyrrachium was an attack Caesar chose to make and which led to his defeat.
You're right he won at Pharsalus. Pompey allowed himself to be persuaded to needlessly follow Caesar, then had a tactical plan so predictably Caesar easily thwarted it by an extra line of infantry. That was the quality of opposition Caesar faced. Meanwhile, Hannibal dealt with the Romans at their peak, slew multiple consuls, and faced Marcellus, Quintus Fabius Maximus, and Scipio Africanus.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023) US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
It depends (in part) on the extent to which we think services are going to come under any tariff regime. Because most of those UK exports are services.
The unfortunate fact is that his fans are partly right about "Big Pharna".having their own reasons for trying to stop his confirmation, despite also being a bit of a loon, who thinks nearly all vaccines are bad.
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
There's a long, long history of young people wanting to get around all that stupid democracy rubbish. Get someone to impose the obviously right solution - no messing around.
{Kritias to the red courtesy phone, please. Kritias to the red courtesy phone, please...}
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
And then he accepted the democratic verdict of the British people. It's notable that this is notable...
Not for a few years he didn't. He was very much in favour of a best of three referendum and for a good while. His writing on this subject was heroic.
Wasn't it more one the lines of "Best of three.... hmmm after two, I think it should be best of five. No, best of seven......" ?
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Its more complicated than a simple right/wrong answer. We have undoubtedly undergone a vast influx of people into the country, the vast majority entirely legally. This does come with needs - housing, schools, healthcare. Some of those who have come play a role in supporting that self-same healthcare. Arguably the NHS is a net beneficiary in this, and thus we would be worse off if there had been zero immigration (less demand, but less capacity too).
But its too trite to dismiss peoples concerns with a one word answer.
If no-one on PB was allowed to be trite, discussion here would collapse by about 90%...
Your analysis is missing something important. The NHS is paid for by taxes. Immigrants generally pay more tax in than they cost the NHS in terms of extra demand.
In joint polling conducted by the advisory firm Nepean, we explored how much of a potential audience there is out there for a Trump style narrative and agenda – and potentially even some policies.
Gavin Davis, Managing Partner at Nepean, said “People dismiss Trumpian politics out of hand and assume we are miles apart, but this study shows we need to pay attention to how people think and feel about the UK. We are closer than we think.”
James Crouch, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Research at Opinium, said “While Trump’s policies are rightly scrutinised, it’s his mastery of narrative and storytelling that stands out – the polling suggests British politicians could benefit from taking a page from his playbook when advancing their own policy agenda.”
Apologies to @williamglenn if I have offended him/her by drawing attention to his/her nocturnal activities (assuming he/she is in this time zone) but his/her style is quite distinct. It's almost as if there is a bot somewhere in the background selecting pro-Trump messages and then posting them automatically. But perhaps I need to lie down and stop seeing bots everywhere.
However it begs the question about those championing right / left philosophies without asking the question of whether those in power are actually competent or is the championing of a view sufficient excuse to excuse the balls up (see previous governments in the UK)
Where does the question of a basic competency lie when looking at the offerings from Farage or Kemi when they will be in the spotlight like Labour now? Trump 2.0 is going to be interesting looking at his team and it may be instructive, if anyone is seeking to answer the competency question.
@williamglenn is an incredibly readable poster even if the majority of his work is completely bonkers.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
And then he accepted the democratic verdict of the British people. It's notable that this is notable...
Not for a few years he didn't. He was very much in favour of a best of three referendum and for a good while. His writing on this subject was heroic.
A denier of the most powerful democratic expression of the will of the British(sic) people in history? Surely not!
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Its more complicated than a simple right/wrong answer. We have undoubtedly undergone a vast influx of people into the country, the vast majority entirely legally. This does come with needs - housing, schools, healthcare. Some of those who have come play a role in supporting that self-same healthcare. Arguably the NHS is a net beneficiary in this, and thus we would be worse off if there had been zero immigration (less demand, but less capacity too).
But its too trite to dismiss peoples concerns with a one word answer.
If no-one on PB was allowed to be trite, discussion here would collapse by about 90%...
Your analysis is missing something important. The NHS is paid for by taxes. Immigrants generally pay more tax in than they cost the NHS in terms of extra demand.
Yes, that is a good point. The vast majority of those who are anti-immigrant fail to appreciate that point, I suspect.
The unfortunate fact is that his fans are partly right about "Big Pharna".having their own reasons for trying to stop his confirmation, despite also being a bit of a loon, who thinks nearly all vaccines are bad.
On food quality and treating addiction RFK Jr is pretty much correct.
It's a bit like Trump being right about the need for Europe to defend itself.
That doesn't make up for the other insane shit that he is doing right now.
In joint polling conducted by the advisory firm Nepean, we explored how much of a potential audience there is out there for a Trump style narrative and agenda – and potentially even some policies.
Gavin Davis, Managing Partner at Nepean, said “People dismiss Trumpian politics out of hand and assume we are miles apart, but this study shows we need to pay attention to how people think and feel about the UK. We are closer than we think.”
James Crouch, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Research at Opinium, said “While Trump’s policies are rightly scrutinised, it’s his mastery of narrative and storytelling that stands out – the polling suggests British politicians could benefit from taking a page from his playbook when advancing their own policy agenda.”
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
Well 90 years ago in Germany their great grandfathers felt the same, hence they elected the Nazis and Hitler to power.
Americans have just elected Trump who would probably like to be a dictator and dispense with Congress and further elections if he could.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! Though it does tend to be young men who are much more enthusiastic for rightwing populist strongmen than young women
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023) US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
It depends (in part) on the extent to which we think services are going to come under any tariff regime. Because most of those UK exports are services.
Services aren’t subject to customs duty. It’s possible the Republicans could expand the BEAT (a tax on outbound payments from the US to foreign affiliates) to include third party as well as intercompany transactions, but that would be a pretty radical move completely at odds with tax treaties.
Interesting video of how Trump operates based on his own limited knowledge and assumptions, rather than advice from practitioners and subject experts. It is an innate small-c conservatism taken too far, without the checks and balances, and an an exhibition of personal insecurity.
Now, having expelled experts from his circle of advisers, in preference for yes-men, he's setting himself up for a derailment. There's no one who can say "That's BS< Mr President".
This is him talking about how aircraft carriers need steam catapults, not electromagnetic ("electric") catapults which he seems to me to have in a dichotomy like his fossil fuels vs renewables contrast.
It reminds me of Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland declaring around 1940 that fighter aircraft did not need VHF radios because they can communicate by wiggling their wings - no idea of extra possibilities.
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023) US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
Not really, given we are not a major target for US tariffs unlike China, the EU and Mexico and Canada which the US has trade deficits with unlike here.
Germany however will face heavy tariffs precisely because of its high trade to GDP ratio and high surplus with the US.
There is not even a threat of new tariffs on the UK from any other nation than Trump's US either. By next year though the US will likely face retaliatory tariffs on its exporters from China, the EU, Mexico and Canada and any US consumers who buy goods from those nations will be facing higher prices, Trump's gamble is extra jobs will be created in US companies to compensate as they buy more US made good
If you want to browse all the videos produced by a channel in sequence (the "Play All" facility has been removed due to enshittification) then proceed as follows:
On Topic. Part 1 😊 Farage explained how he could become PM very soon, in his own words. “thing that really brings an early election is if we get an economic meltdown. that is not impossible for two reasons. the level of indebtedness is worse than it was in 2008 when we had the big meltdowns. And I think we’ve lived through rocketing stock markets for years. That can’t go on.” Talking up the UK being in crisis in many ways, and needing saving, will do Farage brand no harm at all - that’s why he’s saying it, he actually doesn’t believe it.
On Topic. Part 2😊 There’s crossover between Con and Ref voters, but not to the extent you can add both polling scores together. There’s also an effect, as Con rhetoric and policy goes one way (or other) it loses voters out the back to other parties. So without a shred of doubt in my mind, we still have three voting blocks - the seat numbers from 2024 election tell the true story of votes into seats, during this 3 block situation. Block 1 Lab 33.7% - 412 seats; LibDem 12.2% - 72 seats; Green 6.7% - 4 seats. Block 2 Conservatives 23.7% - 121 seats. Block 3 Reform 14.3% - 5 seats. It’s clear - our voting system is different than other countries with Populist Faragists in power, and Majority of electorate have come to loathe Farage’s Brexit, that block of votes will get bigger over the coming years. There’s more voters out to stop Ref than enable them. Under FPTP no Farage as PM.
On Topic. Part 3😊 Farage only route to power - and its long term - is kill the Tory Party. Under FPTP two big parties with similar views can not survive alongside each other in a ‘winner takes all’ system, it will always end with desire and need for one party crushed or a merger. Momentum is currently with Ref merely because it’s hard for Con to explain they are party of low controlled immigration, secure borders, economic competence, whilst in opposition, and so soon after being thrown out of power for being rubbish at all three of those. However, in this battle, the Tory Party hold all the aces over Reform, as they hold the media endorsement, donors and MPs. Whilst ref have this “Mo” right now, donors, media and a number of Tory MPs will need to shift support in a dramatic, and clearly not happening way, otherwise Farage and reform are on a road to absolute nowhere. 😇
The unfortunate fact is that his fans are partly right about "Big Pharna".having their own reasons for trying to stop his confirmation, despite also being a bit of a loon, who thinks nearly all vaccines are bad.
This is an area where there has been a vast amount of research that can inform approaches. RFK Jr, however, like all of the Trump cabinet, isn't interested in evidence, just in his own whims.
I wondered what the evidence does say here. A big Lancet review in 2022 concluded:
Key messages • The profit motives of actors inside and outside the health‑care system will continue to generate harmful over-provision of addictive pharmaceuticals unless regulatory systems are fundamentally reformed. • Opioids have a dual nature as both a benefit and a risk to health, function, and wellbeing. This dual nature should be taken into account in drug regulation, prescribing, and opioid stewardship. • Integrated evidence-based systems for the care of substance use disorders should be developed and supported financially on a permanent basis. • Policies are available that maximise the benefit and minimise the adverse effects of criminal justice system involvement with people who are addicted to opioids. • Fostering healthier environments (eg, through programmes for the safe disposal of opioid pills, substance use prevention, and childhood enrichment) could yield long-term declines in the incidence of addiction. • Innovations in biomedical research into pain relievers and medications for opioid use disorder treatment, supply control strategies, and the delivery of treatment for substance use disorder are urgently needed in response to the opioid crisis. • High-income nations have a responsibility to prevent their opioid manufacturers from fomenting opioid overprescribing in other countries, and all nations should consider how to strengthen regulatory systems to prevent domestically driven opioid crises.
"A leading German politician has unveiled a plan to crack down on migration, promising to table controversial motions that would immediately bring about a blanket ban on all illegal migrants entering the country.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), this weekend announced the shocking move which will bring about a parliamentary vote to 'end illegal immigration'.
The motion, if passed, would trigger an immediate declaration of a national emergency and enact a lockdown across all of Germany's land borders, with guards instructed to repel 'all attempts at illegal entry, without exception', even from neighbouring 'safe' countries."
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
This is the biggest failure of our political class without a doubt. Allowing young people to reach a stage where they believe this nonsense.
Well 90 years ago in Germany their great grandfathers felt the same, hence they elected the Nazis and Hitler to power.
Americans have just elected Trump who would probably like to be a dictator and dispense with Congress and further elections if he could.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! Though it does tend to be young men who are much more enthusiastic for rightwing populist strongmen than young women
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Its more complicated than a simple right/wrong answer. We have undoubtedly undergone a vast influx of people into the country, the vast majority entirely legally. This does come with needs - housing, schools, healthcare. Some of those who have come play a role in supporting that self-same healthcare. Arguably the NHS is a net beneficiary in this, and thus we would be worse off if there had been zero immigration (less demand, but less capacity too).
But its too trite to dismiss peoples concerns with a one word answer.
If no-one on PB was allowed to be trite, discussion here would collapse by about 90%...
Your analysis is missing something important. The NHS is paid for by taxes. Immigrants generally pay more tax in than they cost the NHS in terms of extra demand.
Yes, that is a good point. The vast majority of those who are anti-immigrant fail to appreciate that point, I suspect.
It is only a good point if those against immigration base their position on a cost-benefit analysis. They probably don't, so it isn't.
I think that at18 or so I would have supported the dictatorship of the proletariat. By my mid twenties I was all for democratic elections! Long time ago now of course. Don’t think my 21 year old grandson voted.
"A leading German politician has unveiled a plan to crack down on migration, promising to table controversial motions that would immediately bring about a blanket ban on all illegal migrants entering the country.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), this weekend announced the shocking move which will bring about a parliamentary vote to 'end illegal immigration'.
The motion, if passed, would trigger an immediate declaration of a national emergency and enact a lockdown across all of Germany's land borders, with guards instructed to repel 'all attempts at illegal entry, without exception', even from neighbouring 'safe' countries."
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023) US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
Not really, given we are not a major target for US tariffs unlike China, the EU and Mexico and Canada which the US has trade deficits with unlike here.
Germany however will face heavy tariffs precisely because of its high trade to GDP ratio and high surplus with the US.
There is not even a threat of new tariffs on the UK from any other nation than Trump's US either. By next year though the US will likely face retaliatory tariffs on its exporters from China, the EU, Mexico and Canada and any US consumers who buy goods from those nations will be facing higher prices, Trump's gamble is extra jobs will be created in US companies to compensate as they buy more US made good
He’s also hoping that getting energy prices down mean that the additional tariffs won’t feed into general inflation, and that domestic goods such as groceries might even start to fall in price over time.
Don't you get any sleep? 1:00 am / 4:00 am / 7:00 am and then all of yesterday.
Is there more than one of you?
Interesting question. Did we get an answer from @williamglenn?
We've been patting ourselves on the back for the ease with which we spot the Russian trolls. But maybe it's like cross-dressers - you only spot the bad ones!
Phew, thank goodness Putin's desire to influence Western politics and culture is a recent flash-in-the-pan kinda thing.
Well, you arrived in 2013.
Advocating breaking up the U.K. - which is a stated aim of the Putin snugglers on Russian TV.
I suggest you look at every card in a deck - just to see if you get a funny reaction to the Queen of Hearts, say.
The hosting/platform changed then, I was here a while before that. Unlike you.
Anyway, back to 2013. What are the chances?!!!
'Office of trolls Main article: Trolls from Olgino
From the summer of 2013, there was a base of at least hundred internet trolls in Olgino, who were paid for distributing messages via Internet to support Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5][6] In October 2014 it became known that the trolls had moved to Savushkina street (Primorskiy district in St. Petersburg).'
In joint polling conducted by the advisory firm Nepean, we explored how much of a potential audience there is out there for a Trump style narrative and agenda – and potentially even some policies.
Gavin Davis, Managing Partner at Nepean, said “People dismiss Trumpian politics out of hand and assume we are miles apart, but this study shows we need to pay attention to how people think and feel about the UK. We are closer than we think.”
James Crouch, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Research at Opinium, said “While Trump’s policies are rightly scrutinised, it’s his mastery of narrative and storytelling that stands out – the polling suggests British politicians could benefit from taking a page from his playbook when advancing their own policy agenda.”
On Topic. Part 3😊 Farage only route to power - and its long term - is kill the Tory Party. Under FPTP two big parties with similar views can not survive alongside each other in a ‘winner takes all’ system, it will always end with desire and need for one party crushed or a merger. Momentum is currently with Ref merely because it’s hard for Con to explain they are party of low controlled immigration, secure borders, economic competence, whilst in opposition, and so soon after being thrown out of power for being rubbish at all three of those. However, in this battle, the Tory Party hold all the aces over Reform, as they hold the media endorsement, donors and MPs. Whilst ref have this “Mo” right now, donors, media and a number of Tory MPs will need to shift support in a dramatic, and clearly not happening way, otherwise Farage and reform are on a road to absolute nowhere. 😇
Not true.
Under PR of course both could easily stay separate with post election Reform and Tory governments.
Though even under FPTP if the Tories and Labour both got 20% with Reform on 35% you get a Reform majority government with 413 seats to 57 Labour and 76 LD and 40 Tory.
If Reform got 28% and the Tories and Labour got 25% you would get Labour with 210, Reform with 163, the Tories on 154 and LDs on 71 so a possible Reform minority government supported by the Tories and DUP/TUV
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
Indeed.
@bondegezou - not for the first time - needs to Show His Working. I imagine it as robust as his assertions on lab leak
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
"A leading German politician has unveiled a plan to crack down on migration, promising to table controversial motions that would immediately bring about a blanket ban on all illegal migrants entering the country.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), this weekend announced the shocking move which will bring about a parliamentary vote to 'end illegal immigration'.
The motion, if passed, would trigger an immediate declaration of a national emergency and enact a lockdown across all of Germany's land borders, with guards instructed to repel 'all attempts at illegal entry, without exception', even from neighbouring 'safe' countries."
That would be incredibly disruptive for many people. I lived in Aachen, close to Germany's western border, for 10 years. People would cross the border with the Netherlands and Belgium on a regular basis, even commuting to work over the border. Our nearest IKEA, for example, was in the Netherlands, and that's where we shop for stuff. If Germany were to actually try to check everyone crossing the border, it would have a major effect on the economies and living standards of everywhere near the borders, and Germany has a lot of borders.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
Are you comparing the total NHS costs versus the total tax paid? If so, that's not entirely useful as other costs (education for kids, benefits, etc) are also incurred.
On Topic. Part 3😊 Farage only route to power - and its long term - is kill the Tory Party. Under FPTP two big parties with similar views can not survive alongside each other in a ‘winner takes all’ system, it will always end with desire and need for one party crushed or a merger. Momentum is currently with Ref merely because it’s hard for Con to explain they are party of low controlled immigration, secure borders, economic competence, whilst in opposition, and so soon after being thrown out of power for being rubbish at all three of those. However, in this battle, the Tory Party hold all the aces over Reform, as they hold the media endorsement, donors and MPs. Whilst ref have this “Mo” right now, donors, media and a number of Tory MPs will need to shift support in a dramatic, and clearly not happening way, otherwise Farage and reform are on a road to absolute nowhere. 😇
Labour, the Lib Dems, to a large extent the Nationalist Parties, and to some extent the Green Party have all been sharing 'similar views' and surviving quite nicely thank you. So it's idiotic to assume that all right of centre parties must coalesce or die.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
Abstract This paper analyzes the effects of immigration on waiting times for the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Linking administrative records from Hospital Episode Statistics (2003–2012) with immigration data drawn from the UK Labour Force Survey, we find that immigration reduced waiting times for outpatient referrals and did not have significant effects on waiting times in accident and emergency departments (A&E) and elective care. The reduction in outpatient waiting times can be explained by the fact that immigration increases natives’ internal mobility and that immigrants tend to be healthier than natives who move to different areas. Finally, we find evidence that immigration increased waiting times for outpatient referrals in more deprived areas outside of London. The increase in average waiting times in more deprived areas is concentrated in the years immediately following the 2004 EU enlargement and disappears in the medium term (e.g., 3–4 years).
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
In answer to the question posed in the header, one consistency in Nigel Farage's long career is he's never right. It is quite extraordinary. Sometimes he's been quarter right about something, but it just means he's three quarters wrong ...
Trump would never be popular in the UK.....his policies, on the other hand....
Fascinating new polling from @OpiniumResearch & Nepean testing Trump policy positions in UK - even 'end Net Zero' and 'only two genders' get public support (and much higher support for deportations, merit-based society, restoring free speech and, er, tariffs...)
Those are obviously very loaded questions, but then perhaps that's the point, to test out Trumpian rhetoric. How do parties containing rational individuals respond to that rhetoric?
"Do you support raising tariffs so that the things you buy in the shops are more expensive?" would get very different numbers.
Indeed, we will see how tariffs affect Trump's popularity in a year or so. Fine if they increase US made production and US jobs, less fine if their main impact is to increase prices on US consumers.
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
Tariffs are potentially a lot more damaging for the UK than for the USA, I would have thought.
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023) US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
Not really, given we are not a major target for US tariffs unlike China, the EU and Mexico and Canada which the US has trade deficits with unlike here.
Germany however will face heavy tariffs precisely because of its high trade to GDP ratio and high surplus with the US.
There is not even a threat of new tariffs on the UK from any other nation than Trump's US either. By next year though the US will likely face retaliatory tariffs on its exporters from China, the EU, Mexico and Canada and any US consumers who buy goods from those nations will be facing higher prices, Trump's gamble is extra jobs will be created in US companies to compensate as they buy more US made good
He’s also hoping that getting energy prices down mean that the additional tariffs won’t feed into general inflation, and that domestic goods such as groceries might even start to fall in price over time.
Longer term yes, short term though the biggest global trade war since the 1930s now seems inevitable and that will push up groceries prices unless you can find enough of your own nation's produce and goods to buy
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
Are you comparing the total NHS costs versus the total tax paid? If so, that's not entirely useful as other costs (education for kids, benefits, etc) are also incurred.
"The director of The Brutalist has defended his lead actors' performances after it emerged that artificial intelligence had been used to "refine" their Hungarian accents.
Brady Corbet insisted that the performances of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were "completely their own"."
On Topic. Part 1 😊 Farage explained how he could become PM very soon, in his own words. “thing that really brings an early election is if we get an economic meltdown. that is not impossible for two reasons. the level of indebtedness is worse than it was in 2008 when we had the big meltdowns. And I think we’ve lived through rocketing stock markets for years. That can’t go on.” Talking up the UK being in crisis in many ways, and needing saving, will do Farage brand no harm at all - that’s why he’s saying it, he actually doesn’t believe it.
Isn't that bit already a bit "fantasy maps in the Berlin bunker"? If there's an economic meltdown, the next election will be as late as possible (15 August 2029, fact fans... OK, maybe not quite that late, but you never know.)
Farage's problem (and hence Reform's problem, because Reform still is Farage) is that he probably needs to make decent progress in 2028/9 to look at winning in 2023/4. The jump is too big for one electoral cycle. But he doesn't really have time for that. What if he had made it into Parliament in 2019?
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
It's notable that Chinese development of high-efficiency AI seems to have been driven, at least in part, by restrictions on the export of high-performance chips from the US. The law of unintended consequences strikes again!
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
40% of the spending is on over-65s, who make up <20% of the population. So unless you think that immigration to the UK is predominantly people over 65, you'd be wrong. What the UK needs is more young taxpayers with low healthcare requirements.
Treasury borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level since the turn of the year as the sharp sell-off in tech stocks pushed investors towards safe haven assets.
The yield on 10-year UK gilts - a benchmark of government borrowing costs - has fall seven basis points today to 4.56pc
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
I might hold off on that 4060 then...
It might be a year or so until this filters through to consumer pricing... I'm eyeing up a 5080 but will probably wait it out now.
Treasury borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level since the turn of the year as the sharp sell-off in tech stocks pushed investors towards safe haven assets.
The yield on 10-year UK gilts - a benchmark of government borrowing costs - has fall seven basis points today to 4.56pc
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
I might hold off on that 4060 then...
It might be a year or so until this filters through to consumer pricing... I'm eyeing up a 5080 but will probably wait it out now.
Treasury borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level since the turn of the year as the sharp sell-off in tech stocks pushed investors towards safe haven assets.
The yield on 10-year UK gilts - a benchmark of government borrowing costs - has fall seven basis points today to 4.56pc
Telegraph blog
MaxPB please explain.
Etc.
Government incompetence is one of a number of factors that affects government borrowing costs.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
That seems ... unlikely.
It isn't just unlikely; it's been completely debunked.
Treasury borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level since the turn of the year as the sharp sell-off in tech stocks pushed investors towards safe haven assets.
The yield on 10-year UK gilts - a benchmark of government borrowing costs - has fall seven basis points today to 4.56pc
Telegraph blog
MaxPB please explain.
Etc.
Government incompetence is one of a number of factors that affects government borrowing costs.
Ofcourse and I know, and I'm just being a bit on the facetious side.
But I do think the gilt doom seems to have not quite been borne out, so far.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
40% of the spending is on over-65s, who make up <20% of the population. So unless you think that immigration to the UK is predominantly people over 65, you'd be wrong. What the UK needs is more young taxpayers with low healthcare requirements.
Absolute carnage. Big wake up call for Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI. If the gains in efficiency are legit and not phantom then Nvidia is absolutely fucked, we're looking at a 90% reduction in demand for their highest margin products. Good news for gamers though who might finally get reasonably priced GPUs.
I might hold off on that 4060 then...
It might be a year or so until this filters through to consumer pricing... I'm eyeing up a 5080 but will probably wait it out now.
The fact it's 2024 and it costs £300+ to get a decent mid-range card is so disappointing. Fingers crossed that changes now.
In answer to the question posed in the header, one consistency in Nigel Farage's long career is he's never right. It is quite extraordinary. Sometimes he's been quarter right about something, but it just means he's three quarters wrong ...
Translation: In answer to the question posed in the header, one consistency in Nigel Farage's long career is he's never agreed with me. It is quite extraordinary. Sometimes he's been a quarter in agreement with me about something, but it just means he's three quarters in disagreement with me ...
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
The poll asks “within the next four years”, but Labour don’t need to hold an election for four and a half years. So the probably of Farage becoming PM in the next four years is much lower than in the next five years. Poorly phrased polling!
Fpt
“Number of migrants living in hotels soars under Labour as asylum costs top £5bn
The number of migrants living in hotels has risen by 20 per cent in three months, official data shows”
This is where expectation is so important in politics. Migrant hotels and high taxes simply does not matter for Labour's polling in the same way it does for the Conservatives.
Labour will be judged primarily on the NHS. And possibly economic growth given the rhetoric.
You think Labour voters - especially poor and wwc voters - don’t care that we are spending 5, 6, 9 billion a year on housing unwanted foreigners, who all get private health care?
You don’t think they might say Fuck this, I’m voting Farage?
Well, it’s a view. It’s a suicidally complacent view but a view nonetheless
There is a definite anti establishment mood in the country right now but many progressives seem deaf to it.
Tony Blair arguably still holds the best electoral mind in the country. Within days of the 2024 election he warned labour leadership that they were vulnerable on the flanks from Reform. But some anon acct on the internet probably knows better.
It's not just getting private healthcare, it's getting NHS healthcare - sometimes priority treatment. So Eabhall's 'Labour will be judged on the NHS' ties directly into immigration - as does housing.
Some voters thing immigration is to blame for NHS problems. They are wrong.
Unless you think that the NHS' problems aren't remotely due to being overburdened/underfunded, you can't possibly support the above notion.
I refer you to the discussion above. Immigrants mostly increase tax revenues, and thus funding, more than they increase burden.
That seems ... unlikely.
It isn't just unlikely; it's been completely debunked.
Comments
In these fragmented times, it depends whether tactical voting against you, in individual constituencies, overwhelms tactical voting for you. So really, it is the favourability splits in the *other parties* that count.
Maybe you can apply those "average" splits on a constituency-by-constituency basis, with some weighting for "propensity to vote tactically"? That sounds like a model worth experimenting with.
Because uniform swing is going to get us nowhere.
Not to get too entagled in you tediously orotund knots, but how does me thinking I can't be a Russian bot work?
Now, we get to see what happens when you enact Donald Trump’s policies, because they are being enacted. By Donald Trump
Quite a lot hinges on this. If Trump is perceived as even halfway successful I expect another, even stronger surge to the hard/far right in Europe. Certainly enough to put Le Pen in the Elysee, for instance
However, Trump might be a disaster for the US…
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
Anyway, Trump's war on woke, EDI, net zero, trans, immigrants and foreign imports will be interesting to watch from this side of the pond as an experiment.
If it works we could well end up with PM Farage here too and the populist right will surge in Europe and across the West, if it flops in whole or in part that will hit Reform too and the other populist right parties
I'll give you that most of the ones North of Watford are effectively bits of "South of Watford" translated North, eg Harrogate (ducks).
Like my mum was able to use her upstairs for an extra decade or so, simply because the stairs were designed as a 35 degree slope (by the Jacobeans), not the maximum 42 degrees, and had two half landings with chairs for taking a rest.
She had been a very respectable member of the community. Led the local Mother's Union as a Mary Whitehouse figure. She even looked a bit like her. But towards the end, when I went out with her for a walk, she was prone to say, in a very loud voice, "Look at that fat woman. Isn't she fat!" and other inappropriate comments.
I was very grateful not to be a US citizen offered the choice between Biden/Harris and Trump.
Good morning, everybody.
Agree re memories. It might be worth having a look on YouTube or their own websites to see if his old school, workplace, whatever, has helpfully uploaded drone footage of the buildings that might jog some memories. Do friends have phone footage of the 2013 Christmas Party? With still photos, can you make a presentation he can keep on his phone?
ETA if you go out together, keep an eye on him as you would a lively toddler who might at any moment dart off to stroke a cat or go into a shop that has caught their eye.
ETA and you will start to notice how many funeral notices in the local press or wherever end no flowers by request – donations to MentalHealthCharity.
And miles to go before you sleep.
Damn, shouldn't have done that.
'52% of Gen Z think UK would be better with 'strong leader' not worrying about 'parliament or elections', finds poll'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jan/27/gen-z-authoritarian-leader-uk-kemi-badenoch-covid-inquiry-conservatives-labour-uk-politics-latest-updates?page=with:block-6797397c8f08082cd7ef1e33#block-6797397c8f08082cd7ef1e33
I suppose this is because, as Nazism and Communism fade into history, the kids today have no particular grip on what dictatorship actually means. We need a WW3 in which they're either blitzed or sent to the trenches. See what good your TikTok videos do you then children!
Apart from anything else, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_trade-to-GDP_ratio
UK Exports %GDP 32.17 Imports %GDP 33.14 (2023)
US Exports %GDP 11.63 Imports %GDP 15.41 (2022)
Of the bigger economies Germany and South Korea have the highest trade-to-GDP ratio.
But its too trite to dismiss peoples concerns with a one word answer.
But it is very much the same plot.
Did you know he used to be a Eurofederalist and posted a pro-EU agenda on this board for a number of years?
Border control will become much much more fierce.
Other countries will follow the example of USA repatriation of illegals.
The criteria for asylum will becomes much tighter.
And finally, the most important one, it will become the norm that the basic rights of refugees/asylum seekers the world over are the same: a place in a tented city in the desert (Chad) or an island (Ascension) or Greenland (!), three meals a day provided by the UN, and basic education for children. with passage home as soon as possible. With all countries free to offer more if they wish to whom they wish.
In other words what is already the case in the poorest world will be what is offered to all.
For one thing, the political expression of the youth is often in opposition to their parent’s generation. Their parents will be of the generations that saw significant “liberalising” of society with all the good and bad that can be argued has come with it.
They also find themselves navigating a much more confusing world. Cost of living pressures make housing unaffordable for many. All the social pressures of the internet age are present. Higher education costs are substantial. Values are preached rather than organically developed. It can feel like very little seems to be done to resolve anything, or make it better.
We should not take for granted that they are wrong to do so.
You're right he won at Pharsalus. Pompey allowed himself to be persuaded to needlessly follow Caesar, then had a tactical plan so predictably Caesar easily thwarted it by an extra line of infantry. That was the quality of opposition Caesar faced. Meanwhile, Hannibal dealt with the Romans at their peak, slew multiple consuls, and faced Marcellus, Quintus Fabius Maximus, and Scipio Africanus.
"Detox wellness farns to combat the opioid crisis."
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1883612730738823182
The unfortunate fact is that his fans are partly right about "Big Pharna".having their own reasons for trying to stop his confirmation, despite also being a bit of a loon, who thinks nearly all vaccines are bad.
{Kritias to the red courtesy phone, please. Kritias to the red courtesy phone, please...}
Your analysis is missing something important. The NHS is paid for by taxes. Immigrants generally pay more tax in than they cost the NHS in terms of extra demand.
In joint polling conducted by the advisory firm Nepean, we explored how much of a potential audience there is out there for a Trump style narrative and agenda – and potentially even some policies.
Gavin Davis, Managing Partner at Nepean, said “People dismiss Trumpian politics out of hand and assume we are miles apart, but this study shows we need to pay attention to how people think and feel about the UK. We are closer than we think.”
James Crouch, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Research at Opinium, said “While Trump’s policies are rightly scrutinised, it’s his mastery of narrative and storytelling that stands out – the polling suggests British politicians could benefit from taking a page from his playbook when advancing their own policy agenda.”
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/tump-in-a-uk-context/
Includes link to tables.
It's a bit like Trump being right about the need for Europe to defend itself.
That doesn't make up for the other insane shit that he is doing right now.
Americans have just elected Trump who would probably like to be a dictator and dispense with Congress and further elections if he could.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! Though it does tend to be young men who are much more enthusiastic for rightwing populist strongmen than young women
Now, having expelled experts from his circle of advisers, in preference for yes-men, he's setting himself up for a derailment. There's no one who can say "That's BS< Mr President".
This is him talking about how aircraft carriers need steam catapults, not electromagnetic ("electric") catapults which he seems to me to have in a dichotomy like his fossil fuels vs renewables contrast.
It reminds me of Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland declaring around 1940 that fighter aircraft did not need VHF radios because they can communicate by wiggling their wings - no idea of extra possibilities.
https://youtu.be/t23y2PM6TjU?t=286
(The following segment is a Carrier Captain explaining to him why his statements about faults are actually teething troubles.)
Germany however will face heavy tariffs precisely because of its high trade to GDP ratio and high surplus with the US.
There is not even a threat of new tariffs on the UK from any other nation than Trump's US either. By next year though the US will likely face retaliatory tariffs on its exporters from China, the EU, Mexico and Canada and any US consumers who buy goods from those nations will be facing higher prices, Trump's gamble is extra jobs will be created in US companies to compensate as they buy more US made good
If you want to browse all the videos produced by a channel in sequence (the "Play All" facility has been removed due to enshittification) then proceed as follows:
- Go to the video channel home page (eg "The Chieftain's Hatch" at https://www.youtube.com/@TheChieftainsHatch)
- Right Click -> View Page Source
- Find the text "browseID"
- Copy the ID (eg UCp4j9Y9L6jie44iZroCb99A)
- Change the UC to a UU
- Put that UU at the end of the string "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=" (eg https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUp4j9Y9L6jie44iZroCb99A )
- Cut and paste that string into your browser
That will produce an automatically generated playlistFarage explained how he could become PM very soon, in his own words. “thing that really brings an early election is if we get an economic meltdown. that is not impossible for two reasons. the level of indebtedness is worse than it was in 2008 when we had the big meltdowns. And I think we’ve lived through rocketing stock markets for years. That can’t go on.”
Talking up the UK being in crisis in many ways, and needing saving, will do Farage brand no harm at all - that’s why he’s saying it, he actually doesn’t believe it.
There’s crossover between Con and Ref voters, but not to the extent you can add both polling scores together. There’s also an effect, as Con rhetoric and policy goes one way (or other) it loses voters out the back to other parties. So without a shred of doubt in my mind, we still have three voting blocks - the seat numbers from 2024 election tell the true story of votes into seats, during this 3 block situation.
Block 1 Lab 33.7% - 412 seats; LibDem 12.2% - 72 seats; Green 6.7% - 4 seats.
Block 2 Conservatives 23.7% - 121 seats.
Block 3 Reform 14.3% - 5 seats.
It’s clear - our voting system is different than other countries with Populist Faragists in power, and Majority of electorate have come to loathe Farage’s Brexit, that block of votes will get bigger over the coming years. There’s more voters out to stop Ref than enable them. Under FPTP no Farage as PM.
Farage only route to power - and its long term - is kill the Tory Party. Under FPTP two big parties with similar views can not survive alongside each other in a ‘winner takes all’ system, it will always end with desire and need for one party crushed or a merger. Momentum is currently with Ref merely because it’s hard for Con to explain they are party of low controlled immigration, secure borders, economic competence, whilst in opposition, and so soon after being thrown out of power for being rubbish at all three of those. However, in this battle, the Tory Party hold all the aces over Reform, as they hold the media endorsement, donors and MPs. Whilst ref have this “Mo” right now, donors, media and a number of Tory MPs will need to shift support in a dramatic, and clearly not happening way, otherwise Farage and reform are on a road to absolute nowhere. 😇
I wondered what the evidence does say here. A big Lancet review in 2022 concluded:
Key messages
• The profit motives of actors inside and outside the health‑care system will continue to generate harmful over-provision of addictive pharmaceuticals unless regulatory systems are fundamentally reformed.
• Opioids have a dual nature as both a benefit and a risk to health, function, and wellbeing. This dual nature should be taken into account in drug regulation, prescribing, and opioid stewardship.
• Integrated evidence-based systems for the care of substance use disorders should be developed and supported financially on a permanent basis.
• Policies are available that maximise the benefit and minimise the adverse effects of criminal justice system involvement with people who are addicted to opioids.
• Fostering healthier environments (eg, through programmes for the safe disposal of opioid pills, substance use prevention, and childhood enrichment) could yield long-term declines in the incidence of addiction.
• Innovations in biomedical research into pain relievers and medications for opioid use disorder treatment, supply control strategies, and the delivery of treatment for substance use disorder are urgently needed in response to the opioid crisis.
• High-income nations have a responsibility to prevent their opioid manufacturers from fomenting opioid overprescribing in other countries, and all nations should consider how to strengthen regulatory systems to prevent domestically driven opioid crises.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), this weekend announced the shocking move which will bring about a parliamentary vote to 'end illegal immigration'.
The motion, if passed, would trigger an immediate declaration of a national emergency and enact a lockdown across all of Germany's land borders, with guards instructed to repel 'all attempts at illegal entry, without exception', even from neighbouring 'safe' countries."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14328861/Plan-ban-asylum-seekers-entering-Germany-sparks-uproar-survey-finds-two-thirds-country-support-it.html
By my mid twenties I was all for democratic elections!
Long time ago now of course. Don’t think my 21 year old grandson voted.
Under PR of course both could easily stay separate with post election Reform and Tory governments.
Though even under FPTP if the Tories and Labour both got 20% with Reform on 35% you get a Reform majority government with 413 seats to 57 Labour and 76 LD and 40 Tory.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=20&LAB=20&LIB=13&Reform=30&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
If Reform got 28% and the Tories and Labour got 25% you would get Labour with 210, Reform with 163, the Tories on 154 and LDs on 71 so a possible Reform minority government supported by the Tories and DUP/TUV
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=25&LAB=25&LIB=13&Reform=28&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
@bondegezou - not for the first time - needs to Show His Working. I imagine it as robust as his assertions on lab leak
Abstract
This paper analyzes the effects of immigration on waiting times for the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Linking administrative records from Hospital Episode Statistics (2003–2012) with immigration data drawn from the UK Labour Force Survey, we find that immigration reduced waiting times for outpatient referrals and did not have significant effects on waiting times in accident and emergency departments (A&E) and elective care. The reduction in outpatient waiting times can be explained by the fact that immigration increases natives’ internal mobility and that immigrants tend to be healthier than natives who move to different areas. Finally, we find evidence that immigration increased waiting times for outpatient referrals in more deprived areas outside of London. The increase in average waiting times in more deprived areas is concentrated in the years immediately following the 2004 EU enlargement and disappears in the medium term (e.g., 3–4 years).
A classic example of how not to introduce something which is merited but not properly implemented
North Wales councils asked which roads could revert from 20mph
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/north-wales-welsh-councils-asked-30869472#ICID=Android_DailyPostNewsApp_AppShare
Brady Corbet insisted that the performances of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were "completely their own"."
https://news.sky.com/story/the-brutalist-director-defends-use-of-ai-to-refine-his-lead-stars-performances-13293656
LOL.
Farage's problem (and hence Reform's problem, because Reform still is Farage) is that he probably needs to make decent progress in 2028/9 to look at winning in 2023/4. The jump is too big for one electoral cycle. But he doesn't really have time for that. What if he had made it into Parliament in 2019?
So unless you think that immigration to the UK is predominantly people over 65, you'd be wrong.
What the UK needs is more young taxpayers with low healthcare requirements.
https://fullfact.org/health/how-much-nhs-budget-spent-people-over-85/
The yield on 10-year UK gilts - a benchmark of government borrowing costs - has fall seven basis points today to 4.56pc
Telegraph blog
Etc.
They are down only 0.75% in pre-market
But I do think the gilt doom seems to have not quite been borne out, so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN5zw04WxCc
(Some great 1960s footage btw.)
See the improvements in phone cameras vs DSLRs