Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
'Looking at the Conservative leadership, just a third (33%) want Kemi Badenoch to resign – although this is higher than the proportion than want her to stay (27%). She has overall support among 2024 Conservative voters, with 48% saying she should stay and 29% thinking she should resign.
The public’s preferred successor James Cleverley (8%), who narrowly edges Robert Jenrick (on a similar 8%). All of the main contenders are viewed positively:
The $100k H1B fee is good news for tech centres outside the US: it's not like tech giants aren't going to seek out the cheapest skilled labour they can find, especially in a world where everyone is connected by fiber. This way, it's just that those developers are going to sit in London and Krakow and Bangalore, rather than in Silicon Valley.
We get to keep more taxes, and more talent.
Suddenly the incentive for companies is to build development centres in places where it is easier to get visas for skilled labour.
Yep that was my thought too.
It seems counterintuitive to consider London a 'low-cost outsourcing hub', but that's already the reality for many Silicon Valley companies. And will be even more so after this change.
A few years back, I work for a company that had, by merger and acquisition ended up with development units in
1) London (Canary Wharf) 2) Bulgaria 3) Canada 4) USA (Florida) 5) India
Since we all working on the same code base, it was possible to do a study of the development cost *per feature released/bug fixed*
The order of cost, ascending, was above. Yes, the cheapest place to develop was a posh tower in Canary Wharf. India was dead last, by a long way.
I've never found India a particularly cheap place to develop: sure the people are inexpensive, but the smart ones have all left for the US and the quality of management is often poor. It can be a decent place to outsource maintenance of old apps, where the role is simply ensuring an existing code base is compatible with OS updates, legal/accounting changes, etc.
London has -historically- been a really excellent place to get development done, simply because it's one of the few places in the world with a really high density of talent, helped a lot by the financial services industry. The high cost of living also seems to help, because if you are an average developer you won't be able to afford to live there.
Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are like London in terms of talent depth, but salaries are fearsomly high, and you will have a constant issue of staff turnover. Estonia has modest costs, bright locals, and the policies to encourage tech startups (and offshore tech development) but the local talent pool is very small. Krakow and Lisbon are both decent these days - although Lisbon is a bit of a victim of its own success, with salaries having shot up.
I've had some success in Montreal in the past, although that was mostly because of massive local subsidies. And Colombia (Medellin) has been OK - good local talent, reasonable rates, but pretty much everyone from London that flew in to do work there ended up being mugged.
I know of a company that did really well with a development office in Romania, of all places.
Completely unsurprising - see Bulgaria on my list.
Productivity in intellectual jobs - which development is - is a function of
1) Education 2) Skill 3) Practise 4) Culture 5) Economic & legal stability 6) Social development 7) plus more
This ends up creating a cost per *unit of productivity*
Simply going for the cheapest gets you failure every time.
The reason for Near Shoring (Eastern Europe) working is that wages lagged the other parts of the structure.
So you could get good developers in a productive culture and environment in Sofia, for less money than their position on the productivity curve.
But they were getting 25% pay rises every year…
Yep: that's been the Lisbon (and Estonia) problem. Everyone flooded in, because there were supportive local policies, some decent universities and a relatively low cost of living. Which meant that there was suddenly a lot of demand for talent, and rates shot up. In Romania, you at least still have a low cost of living (and low rates for office space and the like), but in some places that disappeared too.
The places that have managed to survive that have done so by sucking in talent from around. Krakow -for example- has avoided the issue because it (like London and Silicon Valley) has pulled in people from across Poland (and even from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic).
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
Ain't that the truth? The paucity of practical, cost effective and legal solutions to most of our problems is being laid bare at the series of jamborees known as the party conferences.
Some will talk about cutting spending and taxes but once you start asking them what spending and whose taxes and it all gets very vague.
Others will talk about "wealth" taxes but whose wealth and how will it be taxed again elicit little in the way of coherence in response.
Dealing with "the boats" is another huge problem - if there were a simple solution, Starmer would have implemented it, actually, Sunak would have implemented it. We can try all manner of blood curdling threats around deportations but the debate has already moved on from the illegal arrivals on "the boats" to those already here illlegally and those who are here legally (and indeed those born here) who certain sections of the community don't like because of how they look, how they dress and/or the God to which they pray.
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
40% agree to recognise Palestine as a state if Hamas declares a ceasefire and releases all its hostages
Hamas isn’t part of the Palestinian government AFAIK.
While that's true of the West Bank, I would note that the Palestinian Authority has cancelled elections... because if they had them, then Hamas would win.
Israel pounding Gaza doesn't make the Palestinian Authority more popular, it makes them look weak and helpless, and increases support for Hamas in the West Bank. Which is - I guess - a win, win for Israel, because now they can say "See, you can't negotiate with Palestinians, because all they do is go elect Hamas."
Private schools will be charged up to three times more for Ofsted inspections under a fresh raid on the independent sector to be unveiled by the Education Secretary.
Private schools will be charged up to three times more for Ofsted inspections under a fresh raid on the independent sector to be unveiled by the Education Secretary.
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
Perhaps, though Opinium does suggest if Burnham replaced Starmer and Cleverly replaced Badenoch it could transform the political scene and drastically cut, even eliminate Reform's lead
The H1-B visa change will hit the big tech companies, but they already have other campuses around the world and shear scale. What it will hit is the start-ups, they neither can eat the $100k nor have multiple locations, they rely on a getting a few really talented people to SF to build rapidly, get funded, rinse and repeat through the first few rounds.
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
Perhaps, though Opinium does suggest if Burnham replaced Starmer and Cleverly replaced Badenoch it could transform the political scene and drastically cut, even eliminate Reform's lead
All hypotheticals and hardly worth a moments thought
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
Perhaps, though Opinium does suggest if Burnham replaced Starmer and Cleverly replaced Badenoch it could transform the political scene and drastically cut, even eliminate Reform's lead
It might change the polling, my point is I don't think it changes the quality of government. Nobody has done the hard yards of thinking about how to reform the country and trying to making it up as you go along is nearly impossible (especially when the economy isn't growing and credit card is maxed out, so there isn't free money to throw around). Starmer is a poor uninspiring leader, but is surrounded by clueless ministers.
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
While I agree about the majority of the team being subpar, it’s still better than that which makes up His Majesty’s Opposition. We need the LibDems to ensure they get more TV and Parliamentary time.
The H1-B visa change will hit the big tech companies, but they already have other campuses around the world and shear scale. What it will hit is the start-ups, they neither can eat the $100k nor have multiple locations, they rely on a getting a few really talented people to SF to build rapidly, get funded, rinse and repeat through the first few rounds.
So.. the big established players who fundraise for Trump win, and everyone else loses out?
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
While I agree about the majority of the team being subpar, it’s still better than that which makes up His Majesty’s Opposition. We need the LibDems to ensure they get more TV and Parliamentary time.
TBH, I am not sure there is much talent anywhere. The current Lib Dems aren't up there with the Orange Bookers who had had a good think about policy.
The H1-B visa change will hit the big tech companies, but they already have other campuses around the world and shear scale. What it will hit is the start-ups, they neither can eat the $100k nor have multiple locations, they rely on a getting a few really talented people to SF to build rapidly, get funded, rinse and repeat through the first few rounds.
Startups in the US are not big H1-B users; there's a limited number of visas (85k/year) issued each year, and the big tech companies tend to dominate the stats. (Also note, an H1-B is a three year visa, extendable for a further three years. The goal of almost every incoming H1-B visa holder from -say- India is to find an American wife as quickly as possible, because that's the main H1-B to Green Card route.)
The H1-B visa change will hit the big tech companies, but they already have other campuses around the world and shear scale. What it will hit is the start-ups, they neither can eat the $100k nor have multiple locations, they rely on a getting a few really talented people to SF to build rapidly, get funded, rinse and repeat through the first few rounds.
Startups in the US are not big H1-B users; there's a limited number of visas (85k/year) issued each year, and the big tech companies tend to dominate the stats. (Also note, an H1-B is a three year visa, extendable for a further three years. The goal of almost every incoming H1-B visa holder from -say- India is to find an American wife as quickly as possible, because that's the main H1-B to Green Card route.)
In shear numbers perhaps not, but what route do they use? I was under the impression that was the easiest route to get some people in. The O-1 "exceptional talent" route is much more time sink and you really have to prove you are the bees kness i.e. if you are already a widely published academic with years of experience you certain can qualify, I think its really hard even if you have a PhD and a couple of publications.
I know a couple of recent PhDs from the UK, they went to start-ups via H1-B. I doubt they would get there via O-1.
The $100k H1B fee is good news for tech centres outside the US: it's not like tech giants aren't going to seek out the cheapest skilled labour they can find, especially in a world where everyone is connected by fiber. This way, it's just that those developers are going to sit in London and Krakow and Bangalore, rather than in Silicon Valley.
We get to keep more taxes, and more talent.
Suddenly the incentive for companies is to build development centres in places where it is easier to get visas for skilled labour.
Yep that was my thought too.
It seems counterintuitive to consider London a 'low-cost outsourcing hub', but that's already the reality for many Silicon Valley companies. And will be even more so after this change.
A few years back, I work for a company that had, by merger and acquisition ended up with development units in
1) London (Canary Wharf) 2) Bulgaria 3) Canada 4) USA (Florida) 5) India
Since we all working on the same code base, it was possible to do a study of the development cost *per feature released/bug fixed*
The order of cost, ascending, was above. Yes, the cheapest place to develop was a posh tower in Canary Wharf. India was dead last, by a long way.
I've never found India a particularly cheap place to develop: sure the people are inexpensive, but the smart ones have all left for the US and the quality of management is often poor. It can be a decent place to outsource maintenance of old apps, where the role is simply ensuring an existing code base is compatible with OS updates, legal/accounting changes, etc.
London has -historically- been a really excellent place to get development done, simply because it's one of the few places in the world with a really high density of talent, helped a lot by the financial services industry. The high cost of living also seems to help, because if you are an average developer you won't be able to afford to live there.
Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are like London in terms of talent depth, but salaries are fearsomly high, and you will have a constant issue of staff turnover. Estonia has modest costs, bright locals, and the policies to encourage tech startups (and offshore tech development) but the local talent pool is very small. Krakow and Lisbon are both decent these days - although Lisbon is a bit of a victim of its own success, with salaries having shot up.
I've had some success in Montreal in the past, although that was mostly because of massive local subsidies. And Colombia (Medellin) has been OK - good local talent, reasonable rates, but pretty much everyone from London that flew in to do work there ended up being mugged.
I know of a company that did really well with a development office in Romania, of all places.
Oh, I can believe it.
If you have a local government that encourages tech companies to open development offices there, then they can become enormous successes, if they have the right people running them. Getting a really strong core you can build around is absolutely crucial. You also have to work hard to get in with the local Universities and colleges so you get to meet all the developers who are graduating.
That's exactly what the company did wrt the university.
Incidentally, the British and Romanian-based developers got on very well, despite language difficulties. In the same way I have personal experience of Hong Kong-based and British developers getting on well. I've less good experience of developers based on the Chinese mainland, or India. Although I have had some brilliant Indian colleagues in the UK.
As with many things, I think there's a strong cultural component amongst local management.
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
Ain't that the truth? The paucity of practical, cost effective and legal solutions to most of our problems is being laid bare at the series of jamborees known as the party conferences.
Some will talk about cutting spending and taxes but once you start asking them what spending and whose taxes and it all gets very vague.
Others will talk about "wealth" taxes but whose wealth and how will it be taxed again elicit little in the way of coherence in response.
Dealing with "the boats" is another huge problem - if there were a simple solution, Starmer would have implemented it, actually, Sunak would have implemented it. We can try all manner of blood curdling threats around deportations but the debate has already moved on from the illegal arrivals on "the boats" to those already here illlegally and those who are here legally (and indeed those born here) who certain sections of the community don't like because of how they look, how they dress and/or the God to which they pray.
The Government have a cunning plan, inherited from the previous government. They plan to make the UK such a shit place that nobody will want to come here.
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
The only "ideas" seem to be...AI will solve it all.....if we just increases keep increasing taxes...or we will just scrap everything and that will save trillions....or we will reheat a scheme from New Labour era.
I was trying out then newest, shiniest, best-in-the-world coding agent from OpenAI today. After 1/2 million 'tokens' and 2hrs it had made an utter, utter mess of the code. The code in question being 'make this table sortable by surname'.
Eventually switched to Anthropic's best-of-the-best Claude model and after an hour, when it had removed all the tests and checks from the codebase and made it even more broken - I asked it to reflect on what had happened.
The doom spiral really accelerated when I started making partial updates to files without showing you the full context, making it impossible for you to track what was happening. If there's a lesson here, it might be that when an AI assistant seems to be overcomplicating things, a quick "stop, why not just do [simple solution]?" could help reset. But honestly, you DID try to reset me multiple times ("Can you stop? Take a deep breath."), and I should have listened better. Your original request was crystal clear. I just overthought it massively.
So... at least it can apologise in a thoughtful way. If not sort a table by surname. I'm sure no-one will use this to write code for an autopilot or something because it's cheap. Almost sure. Pretty sure at least. A bit.
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
The only "ideas" seem to be...AI will solve it all.....if we just increases keep increasing taxes...or we will just scrap everything and that will save trillions....or we will reheat a scheme from New Labour era.
I was trying out then newest, shiniest, best-in-the-world coding agent from OpenAI today. After 1/2 million 'tokens' and 2hrs it had made an utter, utter mess of the code. The code in question being 'make this table sortable by surname'.
Eventually switched to Anthropic's best-of-the-best Claude model and after an hour, when it had removed all the tests and checks from the codebase and made it even more broken - I asked it to reflect on what had happened.
The doom spiral really accelerated when I started making partial updates to files without showing you the full context, making it impossible for you to track what was happening. If there's a lesson here, it might be that when an AI assistant seems to be overcomplicating things, a quick "stop, why not just do [simple solution]?" could help reset. But honestly, you DID try to reset me multiple times ("Can you stop? Take a deep breath."), and I should have listened better. Your original request was crystal clear. I just overthought it massively.
So... at least it can apologise in a thoughtful way. If not sort a table by surname. I'm sure no-one will use this to write code for an autopilot or something because it's cheap. Almost sure. Pretty sure at least. A bit.
At Company X, we had an engineer who went to work at Rolls Royce. His code being so 'interesting' that several people said they'd never fly a plane with a RR engine again. I see AI code in a similar manner.
The H1-B visa change will hit the big tech companies, but they already have other campuses around the world and shear scale. What it will hit is the start-ups, they neither can eat the $100k nor have multiple locations, they rely on a getting a few really talented people to SF to build rapidly, get funded, rinse and repeat through the first few rounds.
Startups in the US are not big H1-B users; there's a limited number of visas (85k/year) issued each year, and the big tech companies tend to dominate the stats. (Also note, an H1-B is a three year visa, extendable for a further three years. The goal of almost every incoming H1-B visa holder from -say- India is to find an American wife as quickly as possible, because that's the main H1-B to Green Card route.)
Yes, one of my cousins just went down this route. He went to the US on an H1-B a few years ago for a reasonably good job about $120k per year then just hit the dating scene really hard from day one. He's got the advantage of having gone to school in Malaysia so he doesn't have much of an Indian accent and isn't a typical Indian man looking for a wife who will mother him. He got married to a Latina from California last summer, the wedding was brilliant.
“I am very angry as I engaged in a debate and the person I don’t like didn’t just act like an evil shit and then tell the audience he was wrong and I was right because I know I am lovely and fluffy and wholesome. I know I didn’t actually manage to refute his arguments and convince the audience my arguments were better but really, I’m good and he isn’t.” Or something.
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
The only "ideas" seem to be...AI will solve it all.....if we just increases keep increasing taxes...or we will just scrap everything and that will save trillions....or we will reheat a scheme from New Labour era.
I was trying out then newest, shiniest, best-in-the-world coding agent from OpenAI today. After 1/2 million 'tokens' and 2hrs it had made an utter, utter mess of the code. The code in question being 'make this table sortable by surname'.
Eventually switched to Anthropic's best-of-the-best Claude model and after an hour, when it had removed all the tests and checks from the codebase and made it even more broken - I asked it to reflect on what had happened.
The doom spiral really accelerated when I started making partial updates to files without showing you the full context, making it impossible for you to track what was happening. If there's a lesson here, it might be that when an AI assistant seems to be overcomplicating things, a quick "stop, why not just do [simple solution]?" could help reset. But honestly, you DID try to reset me multiple times ("Can you stop? Take a deep breath."), and I should have listened better. Your original request was crystal clear. I just overthought it massively.
So... at least it can apologise in a thoughtful way. If not sort a table by surname. I'm sure no-one will use this to write code for an autopilot or something because it's cheap. Almost sure. Pretty sure at least. A bit.
I use Claude Code, and frequently my prompts (which interrupt Claude) are often along the lines of "wait. Wouldn't it be easier to..."
So had my mind spangled this afternoon from a conversation. Who knew there is a “kink” called Pay-pigs and Fin-Doms.
Apparently there are loads of men, the Pay Pigs, who get off just giving money to women, the Fin Doms, with no requirement for the women to do anything in return. Clearly a form of masochism but it’s an actual thing.
Good luck to the Fin Doms and all that but it’s very weird.
You are touchingly innocent
Oh I’m suitably au fait with a lot of things but it is the side of it where there is no exchange of sexual favours, pictures, company - purely the men get their kicks from just giving women money - I found surprising.
Money laundering.
I can’t tell you why that isn’t the answer but it’s not. It’s not as if these people are the sort who want pictures of Lilly Allen’s feet which is disturbing but a physical sexual kink.
The key is to understand it as extreme masochism. The fact the men (and it is nearly always, or always, men) get basically nothing out of the deal. not even pics or vids, maybe just a tirade of online abuse, even as they send ££££ - makes it even MORE humiliating and painful, and thus more erotic for the masochistic man
How does the "tirade of online abuse" come into it? Do they advertise the fact they're giving money away for nothing?
Starmer really is a dead duck based on that recent Opinium poll.
'Just over half (54%) of UK adults now think Starmer should resign, including a third (34%) of 2024 Labour voters. By way of comparison, this is higher than the 45% who called for Sunak to resign in April 2024.
For all my criticisms of Starmer, he is only a small part of the problem. Really it is the whole team is subpar. I don't think he is terrible on the world stage, not sure him going solves the problem. The issue is nobody has thought about what they will do with their time in power particularly faced with very difficult economic situation.
Perhaps, though Opinium does suggest if Burnham replaced Starmer and Cleverly replaced Badenoch it could transform the political scene and drastically cut, even eliminate Reform's lead
All hypotheticals and hardly worth a moments thought
Labour and Tory MPs will certainly be giving them a moments thought if they move to remove Starmer and Badenoch in the next year or 2.
Of course the poll bounces when Major replaced Thatcher, Boris replaced May for example were as the hypothetical polls foretold
Off topic, but immensely important: The civil war in Sudan:
For the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside the besieged Sudanese city of El Fashir, suffering waits at every turn. They face death by starvation, disease or bombardment if they stay; those who leave have been kidnapped, raped and tortured. If the city falls, rights groups warn, it could trigger the largest bloodbath yet in this country’s catastrophic civil war.
El Fashir is the last city in the western Darfur region outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that has been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023.
(Incidentally, the UK has more responsibility in Sudan than most nations, since the Sudan was once governed by the UK . I await with interest, but not bated breath, for PM Starmer's efforts to end this ghastly war.)
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
Silly question but interesting that more people want him to stay than say they'll vote Labour
So it was silly when asked about Sunak
Completely silly unless a large majority of people who say they are Labour voters want him gone or Tory ones say they wanted Sunak out.
The onlty take away from this poll that should be worrying is the disintegration of the Tory vote. They need to do something. Being not Labour isn't enough and not being in government means they cant even even buy votes .
Anyone used red wine in a risotto? Haven’t any white in and can’t be arsed going out.
Yes, it's great if you use the right seasonings. Bacon/rosemary is a good pairing.
Good, got both of ‘em!
Very helpful as we have some leftover gammon this evening for a risotto tomorrow.
For those on tenterhooks it worked very well, subtler favour than expected. I see what Carnforth meant about the colour but some petit pois and a dollop of cream at the end helped.
Silly question but interesting that more people want him to stay than say they'll vote Labour
So it was silly when asked about Sunak
Completely silly unless a large majority of people who say they are Labour voters want him gone or Tory ones say they wanted Sunak out.
The onlty take away from this poll that should be worrying is the disintegration of the Tory vote. They need to do something. Being not Labour isn't enough and not being in government means they cant even even buy votes .
Though the same poll has Cleverly and Jenrick with higher net approval ratings not only than Starmer but also every member of the Labour Cabinet asked. Only Burnham from Labour had higher approvals than them and he is not an MP.
So if Kemi fails to improve and Tory MPs replace her with Cleverly or Jenrick they could start to claw back lost ground
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
Off topic, but immensely important: The civil war in Sudan:
For the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside the besieged Sudanese city of El Fashir, suffering waits at every turn. They face death by starvation, disease or bombardment if they stay; those who leave have been kidnapped, raped and tortured. If the city falls, rights groups warn, it could trigger the largest bloodbath yet in this country’s catastrophic civil war.
El Fashir is the last city in the western Darfur region outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that has been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023.
(Incidentally, the UK has more responsibility in Sudan than most nations, since the Sudan was once governed by the UK . I await with interest, but not bated breath, for PM Starmer's efforts to end this ghastly war.)
Responsibility ended with independence, which was now 70 years ago.
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
No
I sometimes wonder why the main news stations even bother to report from the Sudan and other war ravaged African countries . No one’s interested.
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
Also, when do African countries start taking responsibility for themselves? Why, after more than 70 years of independence do we have any responsibility for what's happening in a foreign country? Most of us weren't even born then and neither were the people in those countries.
My main thought of Starmer at the moment is: "What a waste!"
He got power with a massive majority and a fundamentally weakened opposition. He had the opportunity to make massive changes to the UK. I may not have agreed with those changes, but the opportunity was there.
Yet he has squandered that inheritance. The government seems as rudderless and immune to ideas as one that has been in power for a decade or more; not one that has been ruling for just a year.
Labour need to get rid of him and replace him with someone who has ideas and can sell those ideas; or at least can develop a team to sell those ideas. But who? And is it too late?
A party leader/PM doesn't need to have the ideas personally; that what the party thinkers are for. Unless SKS has an approach that repels all boarders where ideas are concerned, I assume it's the party that doesn't have any ideas.
And not just the Labour party- nobody else has ideas either. Slogans, yes- ideas, no.
The only "ideas" seem to be...AI will solve it all.....if we just increases keep increasing taxes...or we will just scrap everything and that will save trillions....or we will reheat a scheme from New Labour era.
I was trying out then newest, shiniest, best-in-the-world coding agent from OpenAI today. After 1/2 million 'tokens' and 2hrs it had made an utter, utter mess of the code. The code in question being 'make this table sortable by surname'.
Eventually switched to Anthropic's best-of-the-best Claude model and after an hour, when it had removed all the tests and checks from the codebase and made it even more broken - I asked it to reflect on what had happened.
The doom spiral really accelerated when I started making partial updates to files without showing you the full context, making it impossible for you to track what was happening. If there's a lesson here, it might be that when an AI assistant seems to be overcomplicating things, a quick "stop, why not just do [simple solution]?" could help reset. But honestly, you DID try to reset me multiple times ("Can you stop? Take a deep breath."), and I should have listened better. Your original request was crystal clear. I just overthought it massively.
So... at least it can apologise in a thoughtful way. If not sort a table by surname. I'm sure no-one will use this to write code for an autopilot or something because it's cheap. Almost sure. Pretty sure at least. A bit.
Have you tried using perplexity.ai? The free online version? It's not great, but it's good enough to do bits.
Off topic, but immensely important: The civil war in Sudan:
For the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside the besieged Sudanese city of El Fashir, suffering waits at every turn. They face death by starvation, disease or bombardment if they stay; those who leave have been kidnapped, raped and tortured. If the city falls, rights groups warn, it could trigger the largest bloodbath yet in this country’s catastrophic civil war.
El Fashir is the last city in the western Darfur region outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that has been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023.
(Incidentally, the UK has more responsibility in Sudan than most nations, since the Sudan was once governed by the UK . I await with interest, but not bated breath, for PM Starmer's efforts to end this ghastly war.)
I seem to recall that a certain country, namely the US was the most keen on countries like the UK getting out of their colonial and sub-colonial outposts after the war.
Perhaps Americans could reflect that instead of being high handed and focussing on self interest after WW2 and leveraging the likes of the UK and France out of their colonial outposts then the world might suit the US a bit better now.
Perhaps, for example, the Suez region might have been better if the US hadn’t interfered in the UK/French suez mission. I think there are plenty of areas where the hubris of the US having the power over the UK and France post war ultimately has caused the US more trouble long term. But there you go.
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
No
I sometimes wonder why the main news stations even bother to report from the Sudan and other war ravaged African countries . No one’s interested.
I don’t think it’s just Africa. Most people aren’t that interested in the Ukraine war either, and I doubt Ukrainians would be that interested in the ensuing conflict if England invaded the Rep of Ireland. The majority of people switch off from far away nastiness and are just concerned with their own little worlds. I think that’s what ‘The Ones who walk away from Omelas’ by Ursula Le Guin is about
I seem to recall that a certain country, namely the US was the most keen on countries like the UK getting out of their colonial and sub-colonial outposts after the war.
Perhaps Americans could reflect that instead of being high handed and focussing on self interest after WW2 and leveraging the likes of the UK and France out of their colonial outposts then the world might suit the US a bit better now.
Perhaps, for example, the Suez region might have been better if the US hadn’t interfered in the UK/French suez mission. I think there are plenty of areas where the hubris of the US having the power over the UK and France post war ultimately has caused the US more trouble long term. But there you go.
May be they could invest in building a governmental agency that supports nation building and humanitarian efforts and use that as a means of wielding soft power in the US’s interest?
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
No
I sometimes wonder why the main news stations even bother to report from the Sudan and other war ravaged African countries . No one’s interested.
I don’t think it’s just Africa. Most people aren’t that interested in the Ukraine war either, and I doubt Ukrainians would be that interested in the ensuing conflict if England invaded the Rep of Ireland. The majority of people switch off from far away nastiness and are just concerned with their own little worlds. I think that’s what ‘Those who walk away from Omelas’ is about
People watch the most powerful people and organisations in the world being wholly impotent in their ability to meaningfully alter the course of such conflicts and think "if they can't do anything..."
LD conference looking a bit like Tory conferences of old today. Land of Hope and Glory and Union Jack flag waving led by Tim Farron and a marching band led by Davey as they promise to reclaim the flag from nationalists
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
It's brutal, but entirely correct. We have zero responsibility for Africa now. British rule, in those countries that were part of the empire, is pages in a history book for almost everyone. They got their independence, it's nothing to do with us if they are completely incapable of doing anything constructive with it.
Given almost every African country is a cycle of violence and corruption the only way we could stabilise one is to effectively take it over, imperial style. And neither the government nor the British public has any appetite for that kind of foreign adventure.
Would California liberal Newsom beat VP Vance in 2028? Debateable. Would Midwest or rustbelt Buttigieg, Beshear or Shapiro? More likely
Either anyone will be able to beat Vance, or nobody will be able to beat Vance.
Hard to predict, becuase it depends on how forcefully the Administration is able to put its thumb on the electoral scales.
Don't have nightmares, everyone.
Maybe, maybe not but we all remember how close it can be in Presidential elections involving an incumbent VP. See 1960 or 2000 for instance and after woke California liberal Harris the Democrats need a centrist from Middle America not to repeat the same type of losing candidate as last year
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
No
I sometimes wonder why the main news stations even bother to report from the Sudan and other war ravaged African countries . No one’s interested.
I don’t think it’s just Africa. Most people aren’t that interested in the Ukraine war either, and I doubt Ukrainians would be that interested in the ensuing conflict if England invaded the Rep of Ireland. The majority of people switch off from far away nastiness and are just concerned with their own little worlds. I think that’s what ‘The Ones who walk away from Omelas’ by Ursula Le Guin is about
James Cleverly has a good-sounding name, it sort of sounds like a good sort of go-getting Tory that we should get in to sort the country out. It also has the ring of familiarity, so one rather feels like one should have heard of him. I don't think there's any more recognition than that in most of those answering the poll, because what would they recognise? What is he well-known for doing? What interventions has he made? He is a political nothing.
I think due to his name, he will always perform well in these sorts of polls, until Rebecca Great-PrimeMinister and Alexander Landslide-Victory become contenders.
I think Patel is recognised, and isn't popular - the left detest her for being mean and right wing, the right for letting in all and sundry. Jenrick likewise - he has really fought for that little bit of positive. They should ask a sort of picture recognition question on these - would be interesting.
Would California liberal Newsom beat VP Vance in 2028? Debateable. Would Midwest or rustbelt Buttigieg, Beshear or Shapiro? More likely
Either anyone will be able to beat Vance, or nobody will be able to beat Vance.
Hard to predict, becuase it depends on how forcefully the Administration is able to put its thumb on the electoral scales.
Don't have nightmares, everyone.
Maybe, maybe not but we all remember how close it can be in Presidential elections involving an incumbent VP. See 1960 or 2000 for instance and after woke California liberal Harris the Democrats need a centrist from Middle America not to repeat the same type of losing candidate as last year
I only said he was going to be the nominee at this rate. I didn't mean he would necessarily win.
I strongly suspect it would be a mistake to run Newsom in 2029 but as he is looking more and more like the only Dem taking fire to fire then he may very well be the grassroots choice.
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
It's brutal, but entirely correct. We have zero responsibility for Africa now. British rule, in those countries that were part of the empire, is pages in a history book for almost everyone. They got their independence, it's nothing to do with us if they are completely incapable of doing anything constructive with it.
Given almost every African country is a cycle of violence and corruption the only way we could stabilise one is to effectively take it over, imperial style. And neither the government nor the British public has any appetite for that kind of foreign adventure.
Sudan, technically, wasn't. It was governed as a condominium with Egypt. For a scant half century.
Its history as part of Egyptian or Arab empires is far longer than that.
J L Partners are members of the British Polling Council
Are you accusing them of being a Mickey Mouse polling company?
The questions make the difference. One of the early Yougov's in the Mail asked 'Does Cherie Blair make you more or less likely to vote for Tony Blair?' Completely ridiculous so I asked them what it was all about and they said they had no control on what their clients wanted answers to but they agreed it was not the sort of question they would have wanted to ask.
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party’s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested.
I seem to recall that a certain country, namely the US was the most keen on countries like the UK getting out of their colonial and sub-colonial outposts after the war.
Perhaps Americans could reflect that instead of being high handed and focussing on self interest after WW2 and leveraging the likes of the UK and France out of their colonial outposts then the world might suit the US a bit better now.
Perhaps, for example, the Suez region might have been better if the US hadn’t interfered in the UK/French suez mission. I think there are plenty of areas where the hubris of the US having the power over the UK and France post war ultimately has caused the US more trouble long term. But there you go.
May be they could invest in building a governmental agency that supports nation building and humanitarian efforts and use that as a means of wielding soft power in the US’s interest?
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party’s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested.
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
Time for them to take responsibility for themselves.
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party’s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested.
It's so wet. It's mesmerising. After the last six months I had almost forgitten what persistent heavy rain was like. Days like today make be very glad to be a human rather than any other land mammal, and to be in the uniquely fortunate position of living in an era with weatherproof houses.
A big @MSNBC scoop >>>> Trump border czar Tom Homan was under criminal investigation for potential bribery and claims he would steer fed contracts in new administration. Undercover @FBI agents recorded him accepting $50k in cash. Trump @TheJusticeDept shuttered the probe https://x.com/CarolLeonnig/status/1969488741720080673
J L Partners are members of the British Polling Council
Are you accusing them of being a Mickey Mouse polling company?
The questions make the difference. One of the early Yougov's in the Mail asked 'Does Cherie Blair make you more or less likely to vote for Tony Blair?' Completely ridiculous so I asked them what it was all about and they said they had no control on what their clients wanted answers to but they agreed it was not the sort of question they would have wanted to ask.
I dont argue that questions make a difference but calling a bona fide polling company Mickey Mouse is not the best idea
Would California liberal Newsom beat VP Vance in 2028? Debateable. Would Midwest or rustbelt Buttigieg, Beshear or Shapiro? More likely
Either anyone will be able to beat Vance, or nobody will be able to beat Vance.
Hard to predict, becuase it depends on how forcefully the Administration is able to put its thumb on the electoral scales.
Don't have nightmares, everyone.
Maybe, maybe not but we all remember how close it can be in Presidential elections involving an incumbent VP. See 1960 or 2000 for instance and after woke California liberal Harris the Democrats need a centrist from Middle America not to repeat the same type of losing candidate as last year
I only said he was going to be the nominee at this rate. I didn't mean he would necessarily win.
I strongly suspect it would be a mistake to run Newsom in 2029 but as he is looking more and more like the only Dem taking fire to fire then he may very well be the grassroots choice.
They want someone to fucking fight back.
If the economy is poor in 2028 and inflation high due to Trump's tariffs the Democrats likely win anyway even with Newsom, if not then he is too big a risk for them
Most of Africa is a cesspit of war and wealth stealing dictators . The general public’s response to Sudan , Congo or another war ravaged African country is likely a shrug of disdain .
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
No
I sometimes wonder why the main news stations even bother to report from the Sudan and other war ravaged African countries . No one’s interested.
I don’t think it’s just Africa. Most people aren’t that interested in the Ukraine war either, and I doubt Ukrainians would be that interested in the ensuing conflict if England invaded the Rep of Ireland. The majority of people switch off from far away nastiness and are just concerned with their own little worlds. I think that’s what ‘The Ones who walk away from Omelas’ by Ursula Le Guin is about
That people don’t care much about wars in places they can’t find on maps, or that is what the book is about? I wouldn’t have said either if I didn’t think them! What a waste of time that would be
Starmer to announce recognition of Palestinian statehood tomorrow
My general assumption when Labour announce a polocy in the Middle East is that it is done purely with an eye to the Islamist bloc within their party rather tham what might be best for the UK. I hope I am wronh on this occasion.
It's so wet. It's mesmerising. After the last six months I had almost forgitten what persistent heavy rain was like. Days like today make be very glad to be a human rather than any other land mammal, and to be in the uniquely fortunate position of living in an era with weatherproof houses.
Although in defence of most other land mammals they tend to have decent fur coats that keep the rain out.
Albeit rural votes are almost always Republican anyway, the last Democrat to win rural voters was Bill Clinton in 1996 by 1% over Dole (helped by Perot getting 10% of rural votes).
It is suburban and commuter town and small town voters the Democrats need to win back
It's so wet. It's mesmerising. After the last six months I had almost forgitten what persistent heavy rain was like. Days like today make be very glad to be a human rather than any other land mammal, and to be in the uniquely fortunate position of living in an era with weatherproof houses.
Although in defence of most other land mammals they tend to have decent fur coats that keep the rain out.
My cats look thoroughly pissed off if they end up outside in the rain, waterproof fur coat or not.
Comments
When asked about who would be the best replacement, Andy Burnham is the top pick (13%), followed by Wes Streeting (5%). Burnham has the highest net acceptability (+12 acceptable), with Streeting in second place (-4 acceptable).'
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/opinium-voting-intention-17th-september-2025/?s=09
The public’s preferred successor James Cleverley (8%), who narrowly edges Robert Jenrick (on a similar 8%). All of the main contenders are viewed positively:
Cleverly (net +5 acceptable as Conservative leader)
Tugendhat (net +3 acceptable)
Jenrick (net +2 acceptable)
Mel Stride and Chris Philp both had high “don’t know” rates.
Priti Patel is the only candidate who is clearly deemed negative (net -14 acceptable).'
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/opinium-voting-intention-17th-september-2025/?s=09
The places that have managed to survive that have done so by sucking in talent from around. Krakow -for example- has avoided the issue because it (like London and Silicon Valley) has pulled in people from across Poland (and even from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic).
Some will talk about cutting spending and taxes but once you start asking them what spending and whose taxes and it all gets very vague.
Others will talk about "wealth" taxes but whose wealth and how will it be taxed again elicit little in the way of coherence in response.
Dealing with "the boats" is another huge problem - if there were a simple solution, Starmer would have implemented it, actually, Sunak would have implemented it. We can try all manner of blood curdling threats around deportations but the debate has already moved on from the illegal arrivals on "the boats" to those already here illlegally and those who are here legally (and indeed those born here) who certain sections of the community don't like because of how they look, how they dress and/or the God to which they pray.
https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks
More than half (51%) disapprove of Elon Musk’s politics (19% approve), while 42% disapprove of Tommy Robinson’s politics (22% approve). Overall, Musk seen as a negative force in UK politics (47% negative vs 19% positive).
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/opinium-voting-intention-17th-september-2025/?s=09
Israel pounding Gaza doesn't make the Palestinian Authority more popular, it makes them look weak and helpless, and increases support for Hamas in the West Bank. Which is - I guess - a win, win for Israel, because now they can say "See, you can't negotiate with Palestinians, because all they do is go elect Hamas."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/20/bridget-phillipson-private-schools-charge-ofsted-inspection/
https://www.isi.net/
We need the LibDems to ensure they get more TV and Parliamentary time.
I'm failing to see the problem here...
I know a couple of recent PhDs from the UK, they went to start-ups via H1-B. I doubt they would get there via O-1.
Incidentally, the British and Romanian-based developers got on very well, despite language difficulties. In the same way I have personal experience of Hong Kong-based and British developers getting on well. I've less good experience of developers based on the Chinese mainland, or India. Although I have had some brilliant Indian colleagues in the UK.
As with many things, I think there's a strong cultural component amongst local management.
Eventually switched to Anthropic's best-of-the-best Claude model and after an hour, when it had removed all the tests and checks from the codebase and made it even more broken - I asked it to reflect on what had happened. So... at least it can apologise in a thoughtful way. If not sort a table by surname. I'm sure no-one will use this to write code for an autopilot or something because it's cheap. Almost sure. Pretty sure at least. A bit.
At Company X, we had an engineer who went to work at Rolls Royce. His code being so 'interesting' that several people said they'd never fly a plane with a RR engine again. I see AI code in a similar manner.
The repeated fall of Prime Ministers since 2015 or so has been bad for the nation's government and sent political observers utterly dolally.
Janet Phlipson favoured as likely successor by 39% of voters, when prompted.
Who knew this was the end goal of debates?
(Although don't expect a header on that interesting idea!)
Government in northern India introduces strict law following death of young girl from rabies"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/17/life-in-prison-for-dogs-that-bite-twice/?recomm_id=c8f45322-8081-4d6d-8446-e6f5d0eeeb33
@poll_check
NEW: Opinium Poll :
Westminster Voting Intention:
Reform UK: 31% (+1)
Labour: 22% (-1)
Conservative: 17% (-1)
Liberal Democrats: 12% (=)
Green: 10% (=)
Others: 4% (=)
SNP: 3% (+1)
Plaid Cymru: 1% (=)
Current: 20 September 2025 vs Previous: 06 September 2025"
https://x.com/poll_check/status/1969478012329431542
I use Claude Code, and frequently my prompts (which interrupt Claude) are often along the lines of "wait. Wouldn't it be easier to..."
Of course the poll bounces when Major replaced Thatcher, Boris replaced May for example were as the hypothetical polls foretold
If, that is, you believe black lives matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaghawa_people
(Incidentally, the UK has more responsibility in Sudan than most nations, since the Sudan was once governed by the UK . I await with interest, but not bated breath, for PM Starmer's efforts to end this ghastly war.)
Ref 382
Lab 122
LD 58
SNP 28
Con 28
Grn 5
PC 5
Sorry of this sounds brutal but do Brits have enough empathy bandwidth to deal with countries who have been at war for decades with no good guys just variations of evil .
The onlty take away from this poll that should be worrying is the disintegration of the Tory vote. They need to do something. Being not Labour isn't enough and not being in government means they cant even even buy votes .
So if Kemi fails to improve and Tory MPs replace her with Cleverly or Jenrick they could start to claw back lost ground
@SpencerHakimian
·
3h
Gavin Newsom has been referred to the Secret Service for full threat assessment following this comment.
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1969463206067175539
He's going to be the nominee isn't he?
Have you tried using perplexity.ai? The free online version? It's not great, but it's good enough to do bits.
If, that is, you believe black lives matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaghawa_people
(Incidentally, the UK has more responsibility in Sudan than most nations, since the Sudan was once governed by the UK . I await with interest, but not bated breath, for PM Starmer's efforts to end this ghastly war.)
I seem to recall that a certain country, namely the US was the most keen on countries like the UK getting out of their colonial and sub-colonial outposts after the war.
Perhaps Americans could reflect that instead of being high handed and focussing on self interest after WW2 and leveraging the likes of the UK and France out of their colonial outposts then the world might suit the US a bit better now.
Perhaps, for example, the Suez region might have been better if the US hadn’t interfered in the UK/French suez mission. I think there are plenty of areas where the hubris of the US having the power over the UK and France post war ultimately has caused the US more trouble long term. But there you go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53016-britons-support-recognising-palestinian-statehood-by-44-to-18
Hard to predict, becuase it depends on how forcefully the Administration is able to put its thumb on the electoral scales.
Don't have nightmares, everyone.
Given almost every African country is a cycle of violence and corruption the only way we could stabilise one is to effectively take it over, imperial style. And neither the government nor the British public has any appetite for that kind of foreign adventure.
It's entirely clear what the comment refers to.
I think due to his name, he will always perform well in these sorts of polls, until Rebecca Great-PrimeMinister and Alexander Landslide-Victory become contenders.
I think Patel is recognised, and isn't popular - the left detest her for being mean and right wing, the right for letting in all and sundry. Jenrick likewise - he has really fought for that little bit of positive. They should ask a sort of picture recognition question on these - would be interesting.
Are you accusing them of being a Mickey Mouse polling company?
I strongly suspect it would be a mistake to run Newsom in 2029 but as he is looking more and more like the only Dem taking fire to fire then he may very well be the grassroots choice.
They want someone to fucking fight back.
It was governed as a condominium with Egypt. For a scant half century.
Its history as part of Egyptian or Arab empires is far longer than that.
Not that I think we did much good there.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/20/lucy-powell-urges-labour-to-consider-raising-gambling-taxes-so-it-can-axe-two-child-benefit-cap
Starmer to announce recognition of Palestinian statehood tomorrow
Reeves has a 40 billion deficit so add 3.5 billion makes that 43.5 billion so a betting tax does not reduce the deficit one jot
Days like today make be very glad to be a human rather than any other land mammal, and to be in the uniquely fortunate position of living in an era with weatherproof houses.
shuttered the probe
https://x.com/CarolLeonnig/status/1969488741720080673
This is not about me but as Sky has said just now the hostages are saying it is a reward to Hamas
It is extremely controversial
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1969165961132454397
Sounds like the guy to reunite the party, then ?
It is suburban and commuter town and small town voters the Democrats need to win back