It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
EU shows us that centralised structure is a disaster.
A cellular alliance of anglosphere sister sovereign states is the way forward.
After a few years of Trump the US congress might even come to their senses and agree a return to legality with Her Majesty.....
Less likely in the US, a plurality of Americans are of German origin (although British and Irish combined are more) and Hispanics are a rising percentage of the US population too. Plus it was independent from the UK 150 years before the other 3
The majority of what we think of as the modern US was never British to begin with.
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
I disagree, however, re: James and Ukip. Providing that May delivers Brexit, I would expect almost no Tory MPs to be at risk from the purples.
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I agree. UKIP on the right for WWC. Tories on the right for cities and middle classes, Left split Lab and Lib. Tories win.
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
And people wondered why May came out with the Grammar School wheeze.
Right now UKIP are probably the only realistic impediment to a large Conservative majority at the next election. Had half of kippers voted Tory in 2015 they would have got 43.1% of the UK vote and had a majority similar to Thatchers in 1983.
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
I disagree, however, re: James and Ukip. Providing that May delivers Brexit, I would expect almost no Tory MPs to be at risk from the purples.
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I agree. UKIP on the right for WWC. Tories on the right for cities and middle classes, Left split Lab and Lib. Tories win.
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
It was good to see her interviewed on bbcsp today. Refusing to participate in the hustlings during the contest and refusing all interviews on the day of her election was all a little strange.
So, having read your (generally excellent) commentary over the last few weeks.
- The LibDems are facing complete extinction - The Labour Party will top out at 25% in 2020 - UKIP won't pose a threat to anyone except (possibly) a few Northern Labourites
So, Tories 450 seats nailed on in 2020?
This may take more than one post, so forgive my verbosity...
Lib Dems: Depends on whether or not mass reselection battles prompt an outright Labour split. If Labour divides then I could easily envisage the yellows throwing their lot in with SDP Mark 2. Farron is soft left and so are most of the activists: it would make more sense, in the context of a fragmented left-wing, for the Lib Dems to throw in the towel and join SDP Mark 2.
If Labour somehow holds together, then there's every reason to suppose that the LDs will continue to bumble along at 8% in the polls as a zombie movement, dedicated primarily to self-perpetuation and living on in a handful of scattered strongholds just like the old Liberal Party did for decades. I know that you anticipate a very modest revival and you may well be proven right, but I remain to be convinced. In any event, the possibility of a Labour split obviously muddies the waters.
Labour: If it collapses then all bets are off, of course. If it holds together then I can see it topping 25%, but it will be doing very well to do significantly better. I see no reason for that element of the traditional Labour vote that has already deserted to Ukip to come back with Corbyn and McDonnell at the helm and the Marxist/metropolitan left-liberal alliance running rampant. Even if Ukip disappeared then I presume that all of its ex-Labour voters would either turn to Mrs May's Tories or stay at home.
Ukip needs to make heroic gains against Labour to make any progress at all in Parliament, and even then I don't see it getting that far - primarily because there are almost no marginals for it to target. If we look at the Wells spreadsheet for the revised boundaries, Ukip still hold Harwich and Clacton (but anything could happen re: Carswell over the next four years) and are very close in Thurrock and Thanet East (although the latter might look very flattering due to the Farage effect.) But they're more than 5,000 votes short of the notional winner in every single other seat, other than Stoke-on-Trent North where they are about 4,500 behind Labour in another three-way battle.
Regardless, it has no choice but to target Labour votes, because I see no prospect of anybody who hasn't already deserted the Tories for Ukip so doing, especially with May having replaced Cameron. If anything, there'll be movement of Tories coming back home after the Brexit vote.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
EU shows us that centralised structure is a disaster.
A cellular alliance of anglosphere sister sovereign states is the way forward.
After a few years of Trump the US congress might even come to their senses and agree a return to legality with Her Majesty.....
Less likely in the US, a plurality of Americans are of German origin (although British and Irish combined are more) and Hispanics are a rising percentage of the US population too. Plus it was independent from the UK 150 years before the other 3
The majority of what we think of as the modern US was never British to begin with.
And Britains insistence that it stayed that way and the native Americans were not driven into the sea was one of the causes of their UDI
This may take more than one post, so forgive my verbosity...
Lib Dems: Depends on whether or not mass reselection battles prompt an outright Labour split. If Labour divides then I could easily envisage the yellows throwing their lot in with SDP Mark 2. Farron is soft left and so are most of the activists: it would make more sense, in the context of a fragmented left-wing, for the Lib Dems to throw in the towel and join SDP Mark 2.
If Labour somehow holds together, then there's every reason to suppose that the LDs will continue to bumble along at 8% in the polls as a zombie movement, dedicated primarily to self-perpetuation and living on in a handful of scattered strongholds just like the old Liberal Party did for decades. I know that you anticipate a very modest revival and you may well be proven right, but I remain to be convinced. In any event, the possibility of a Labour split obviously muddies the waters.
Labour: If it collapses then all bets are off, of course. If it holds together then I can see it topping 25%, but it will be doing very well to do significantly better. I see no reason for that element of the traditional Labour vote that has already deserted to Ukip to come back with Corbyn and McDonnell at the helm and the Marxist/metropolitan left-liberal alliance running rampant. Even if Ukip disappeared then I presume that all of its ex-Labour voters would either turn to Mrs May's Tories or stay at home.
Ukip needs to make heroic gains against Labour to make any progress at all in Parliament, and even then I don't see it getting that far - primarily because there are almost no marginals for it to target. If we look at the Wells spreadsheet for the revised boundaries, Ukip still hold Harwich and Clacton (but anything could happen re: Carswell over the next four years) and are very close in Thurrock and Thanet East (although the latter might look very flattering due to the Farage effect.) But they're more than 5,000 votes short of the notional winner in every single other seat, other than Stoke-on-Trent North where they are about 4,500 behind Labour in another three-way battle.
Regardless, it has no choice but to target Labour votes, because I see no prospect of anybody who hasn't already deserted the Tories for Ukip so doing, especially with May having replaced Cameron. If anything, there'll be movement of Tories coming back home after the Brexit vote.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
EU shows us that centralised structure is a disaster.
A cellular alliance of anglosphere sister sovereign states is the way forward.
After a few years of Trump the US congress might even come to their senses and agree a return to legality with Her Majesty.....
Less likely in the US, a plurality of Americans are of German origin (although British and Irish combined are more) and Hispanics are a rising percentage of the US population too. Plus it was independent from the UK 150 years before the other 3
The majority of what we think of as the modern US was never British to begin with.
Indeed, unlike Australia, New Zealand and Canada (even Quebec was conquered by the British eventually). California and Texas were Spanish and then Mexican for instance, Louisiana was French
Fourteen Labour MPs who quit frontbench posts this summer in protest at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership have said they could return if the party re-elected him in the current leadership election.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
I disagree, however, re: James and Ukip. Providing that May delivers Brexit, I would expect almost no Tory MPs to be at risk from the purples.
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I agree. UKIP on the right for WWC. Tories on the right for cities and middle classes, Left split Lab and Lib. Tories win.
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
And people wondered why May came out with the Grammar School wheeze.
Right now UKIP are probably the only realistic impediment to a large Conservative majority at the next election. Had half of kippers voted Tory in 2015 they would have got 43.1% of the UK vote and had a majority similar to Thatchers in 1983.
Agree entirely which is why it is UKIP who May who is most focused on, who is more plausible as an alternative leader, Diane James or Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron? No contest
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
FPT: One aspect I rather like about Theresa May is that she won't be a slave to the rolling news media expectation of how fast decisions should be made. Obama has been the same. Whether either or both of them dither is actually a very separate consideration that should not be confused. Time will tell in Theresa May's case.
To demonstrate that they are separate answer the following (a) could Gordon Brown be a slave to rolling media? (b) could Gordon Brown dither?
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
I disagree, however, re: James and Ukip. Providing that May delivers Brexit, I would expect almost no Tory MPs to be at risk from the purples.
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I agree. UKIP on the right for WWC. Tories on the right for cities and middle classes, Left split Lab and Lib. Tories win.
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
It was good to see her interviewed on bbcsp today. Refusing to participate in the hustlings during the contest and refusing all interviews on the day of her election was all a little strange.
Indeed, she comes across well on TV, she actually seems more normal and likeable than Farage, even if she does not have quite his force of personality
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
I disagree, however, re: James and Ukip. Providing that May delivers Brexit, I would expect almost no Tory MPs to be at risk from the purples.
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I agree. UKIP on the right for WWC. Tories on the right for cities and middle classes, Left split Lab and Lib. Tories win.
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
It is possible for UKIP to morph into a conventional nationalist party with pro welfare state policies (bearing in mind that most WWC are very dependent on NHS and State Pensions so has core vote appeal) that is likely to lose them the Carswell and Hannan wing of the party.
As I have pointed out before (and at the time) 2014 Euros were peak Kipper.
No surprise Kinnock said this morning he did not expect to see another Labour government in his lifetime. May is clearly more worried about UKIP and Diane James than Labour, which next Satuday will confirm is riven by in-fighting and in the grip of the Corbynite hard left
The doom scenario for the Tories would be UKIP sweeping the Labour heartlands, forcing the Tories to fight on a UKIP agenda, while a revived liberal, orange-book/FDP style Lib Dems outflanked them on the respectable right.
I so wish the libs would do this, we would then have an electable opposition that half the PLP could join
I know that the right is in a state of rapture about how UKIP has captured the WWC but I haven't really seen a great deal of evidence that these voters support laissez faire economics. Once they get past pavlovian responses to symbols like flags and coins they will expect actual policies that work to their benefit, like a properly funded NHS and trains with enough seats and that run on time.
I think that the kippers have got as far as they can with the WWC vote.
They might have got a bit further with Phil Broughton, but James is too much the right wing southern Tory. Like Theresa May, but with better social skills and dress sense.
Even in the Euro elections in 2014 under optimal conditions the WWC Labour vote held up well. What do they offer now for that diminishing demographic?
Diane James is telegenic and presentable and given about 30% of Labour voters voted Leave she is perfectly poised to appeal to that demographic with a hardline immigration policy to compare to Corbyn's 'open borders' one. She might of course appeal to some hard Brexit backing Tories too
It was good to see her interviewed on bbcsp today. Refusing to participate in the hustlings during the contest and refusing all interviews on the day of her election was all a little strange.
Indeed, she comes across well on TV, she actually seems more normal and likeable than Farage, even if she does not have quite his force of personality
I agree, and I had a modest amount of money on her from the beginning. I do however wonder whether she is the right person for the strategy UKIP appears to be moving towards, of taking on Labour in the North. Nuttall would have been a better choice, had he been willing to stand.
An interesting outcome in the Berlin local elections. SPD remain the biggest party but SPD+CDU isn't a majority so it looks like there will be a Red-Green-Red coalition. AfD below 12%.
A formal union would be as big a mistake as the EU. It would also reverse the Statute of Westminster.
There is already an institute in place - the commonwealth - and you would just build on that with trade deals, movement agreements reciprocal citizenship rights etc while not undermining the parliaments.
In time the four would increasingly act as one on the international stage, but voluntarily with no loss of sovereignty.
Interesting from the article that Her Majesties Kingdom is still the largest entity in the world, bigger even than Russia.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
In 1987 I stayed in Queensland in a hospital where the nurses home had a curfew, and no male visitors allowed upstairs. All the nurses were female of course. At that time under Premier Joe Homosexuality was illegal too.
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
Yes, rural Australia is more like Texas in attitude than a 1950s English village
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Enoch Powell favoured closer ties to the Soviet Union/Russia (like Michael Foot but for different reasons) and not to the USA or continental Europe.
Outcome will probably be a red-red-green coalition in Berlin.
Berlin is like London, ie not favourable territory for a populist anti immigration party like UKIP or the Afd and the Afd score was still about within the 10-15% range most polls gave them. The big score there is Die Linke score showing again that even in Germany populist parties are not only on the right but on the left too. Again establishment parties being hit, both the SDP and CDU down 5% on the last election. The fact the AfD beat the FDP even in Berlin suggests too that the days of CDU-FDP deals are over for the foreseeable future
So, having read your (generally excellent) commentary over the last few weeks.
- The LibDems are facing complete extinction - The Labour Party will top out at 25% in 2020 - UKIP won't pose a threat to anyone except (possibly) a few Northern Labourites
So, Tories 450 seats nailed on in 2020?
Second post as promised. Apologies for delay - dinner break.
Now, as for the Tories, I am willing to stick my neck out. For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory. I also don't see that there won't be some bleed of homecoming Tories from Ukip, and some defections of remaining swing voters who backed Miliband running away screaming from Corbyn and towards the relative safety of May. I view it as likely that the Conservatives will make the magic 40%.
Assuming that I am right and the LDs remain becalmed, then even a leakage of 2% of the vote from each of Labour and Ukip would give the Tories a majority close to a hundred under the revised boundaries - and such a scenario would envisage Corbyn's Labour winning a marginally higher vote share than Brown's, which I find incredible.
Therefore, I reckon that the Tories will win the next election with a majority of about 100, which would of course put them on around 350 - unless Labour splits, in which case things become a lot muddier, but one would have to assume that they would get closer to the 360-370 mark. I don't see them doing any better than that, simply because the remaining seats are unavailable or are too hostile to them (deep Labour heartland, most of Scotland and all of Northern Ireland.) I can envisage no realistic scenarios under which the Tories can reach 400 seats in a 600 seat Commons.
So, having read your (generally excellent) commentary over the last few weeks.
- The LibDems are facing complete extinction - The Labour Party will top out at 25% in 2020 - UKIP won't pose a threat to anyone except (possibly) a few Northern Labourites
So, Tories 450 seats nailed on in 2020?
Second post as promised. Apologies for delay - dinner break.
Now, as for the Tories, I am willing to stick my neck out. For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory. I also don't see that there won't be some bleed of homecoming Tories from Ukip, and some defections of remaining swing voters who backed Miliband running away screaming from Corbyn and towards the relative safety of May. I view it as likely that the Conservatives will make the magic 40%.
Assuming that I am right and the LDs remain becalmed, then even a leakage of 2% of the vote from each of Labour and Ukip would give the Tories a majority close to a hundred under the revised boundaries - and such a scenario would envisage Corbyn's Labour winning a marginally higher vote share than Brown's, which I find incredible.
Therefore, I reckon that the Tories will win the next election with a majority of about 100, which would of course put them on around 350 - unless Labour splits, in which case things become a lot muddier, but one would have to assume that they would get closer to the 360-370 mark. I don't see them doing any better than that, simply because the remaining seats are unavailable or are too hostile to them (deep Labour heartland, most of Scotland and all of Northern Ireland.) I can envisage no realistic scenarios under which the Tories can reach 400 seats in a 600 seat Commons.
So, with the Tories on 40%, how does the remaining 60% pan out?
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
Is it true that BME cultures are more misogynist and homophobic than "evil whitey" culture?
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
52% v 48% was more than that 51% v 49% margin by which Quebec voted to stay part of Canada back in 1995.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
Wasn't it good enough for your lot in 2005?
? 2005 was equally scandalous
The problem is that the Left - politicians and commentators alike - didn't see it that way. The Left think that they ought to be running the country and any system that delivers them power is a good one. Unfortunately they were very shortsighted and didn't realise that one day things would change. Furthermore, the Left (not you) are completely shameless when it comes to complaining about an electoral system being unfair.
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
Is it true that BME cultures are more misogynist and homophobic than "evil whitey" culture?
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Enoch Powell favoured closer ties to the Soviet Union/Russia (like Michael Foot but for different reasons) and not to the USA or continental Europe.
In early 1989, he made a programme (broadcast in July) on his visit to Russia and his impressions on that country. The BBC originally wanted him to do a programme on India but the Indian high commission in London refused him a visa. When he visited Russia, Powell went to the graves of 600,000 people who died during the siege of Leningrad and saying that he could not believe a people who had suffered so much would willingly start another war. He also went to a veterans' parade (wearing his own medals) and talked with Russian soldiers with the aid of an interpreter. However, the programme was criticised by those who believed that Powell had dismissed the Soviet Union's threat to the West since 1945 and that he had been too impressed with Russia's sense of national identity.[6]:925 When German reunification was on the agenda in mid-1989, Powell claimed that Britain urgently urgently needed to create an alliance with the Soviet Union in view of Germany's effect on the balance of power in Europe.[6]
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
FPTP is the worst system - except for all the others that have been tried.
The problem with PR in a pluralistic party system is that it poses too much of a risk of one of two outcomes: constant instability (think Italy for most of the period since 1945) or a permanent Grand Coalition of the centre, encouraging cosy nepotism and graft. The latter scenario is exactly what has happened in Austria, and seems likely to happen in Germany.
Look at what we already have in the Bundestag, with the CDU and SPD already locked together in Government because they and their usual junior coalition partners cannot achieve a majority. Already, nobody will work with die Linke (the ex-communist Left Party,) which polls about 10% of the vote. After the next election we're liable to see both them and the AfD, with another 10-15% of the vote, in Parliament. Hence the conventional centre-left and centre-right coalitions will become all but impossible, and the Grand Coalition will keep slogging onwards indefinitely. Federal elections will cease to mean anything.
To put it crudely but succinctly, substitute CDU, SPD, Linke and AfD for Tories, moderate Labour/SDP Mk2. Corbyn Labour/New Socialists, and Ukip, and that's the future that PR would also threaten to visit upon Britain. A cosy and totally immovable centrist consensus, which puts all of the power in the hands of the politicians and makes them completely invulnerable to the electorate - unless we were to vote in massive numbers for unsuitable extremist candidates, as has happened in the Austrian presidential election.
I don't want to end up with an oligarchy, so I'll keep supporting FPTP.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
If we lived under a PR electoral system this would be relevant, but we don't so it isn't. The Tories are liable to poll somewhere in the low 40s (and possibly better) against a deeply fractured opposition, and with a very efficiently distributed vote: that would secure them a landslide in any realistic electoral scenario.
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
Wasn't it good enough for your lot in 2005?
? 2005 was equally scandalous
The problem is that the Left - politicians and commentators alike - didn't see it that way. The Left think that they ought to be running the country and any system that delivers them power is a good one. Unfortunately they were very shortsighted and didn't realise that one day things would change. Furthermore, the Left (not you) are completely shameless when it comes to complaining about an electoral system being unfair.
Absolutely agree. Labour made a firm promise to change the system and had a full enquiry under Jenkins to come up with an alternative. It was shameful that the whole thing got shelved.
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
He also said he did not expect a mass exodus from London to Frankfurt and warned the EU to learn the lessons of rising anti globalisation and anti migration feeling across Europe and warned of growing tensions between the northern and southern areas of the Eurozone
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
Is it true that BME cultures are more misogynist and homophobic than "evil whitey" culture?
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
52% v 48% was more than that 51% v 49% margin by which Quebec voted to stay part of Canada back in 1995.
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
I travelled around Australia seven years back, and enjoyed my visit immensely. It did seem to be the case, however, that outside the big cities attitudes made 1950s England seem progressive by comparison.
You make that sound like it's somehow a bad thing.
Whenever throughout history has it been a good thing for a community to have held onto attitudes from sixty years prior?
Is it true that BME cultures are more misogynist and homophobic than "evil whitey" culture?
You are one sad case. And I rest mine.
Is it true that BME cultures are more misogynist and homophobic than "evil whitey" culture?
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide is less than half that of Australia as a whole. The last time Australia voted on anything like the issue it voted by 55% to 45% to keep the British monarch as its head of state which was more than the 52% to 48% margin by which the UK voted to leave the EU
52% v 48% was more than that 51% v 49% margin by which Quebec voted to stay part of Canada back in 1995.
Indeed, more Quebecois feel an affinity to the EU than to Britons, it is the only area of CANZUK which might have reservations
If that referendum had gone the other way, I wonder how long it would have been before some Quebecois version of Archbishop Makarious would be agitating for enosis with France.
Yawn. We have heard these sort of threats so often. Remember how the City was going to become a backwater if we didn't join the Euro.
And there have already been stories of companies in the City backtracking on moving whole divisions to Paris or Frankfurt. The City will not just cope, it will thrive, no matter what the regulatory framework. It always has done.
All this stuff about the Tories being dominant presupposes we do not have a re-run of the 2008 Crash.
The world economy is weak. Interest rates are at all time lows. The EU is screwing up its weaker economies. China has a HUGE debt mountain http://tinyurl.com/heg6jz9 and it is growing...
All Labour need is another crash, blame the Tories and a "jam today" policy makes complete sense to disaffected voters..
Don't count unhatched chickens.
Even if none of those bad things happens, it's quite possible that we'll have a recession before 2020, simply because of the economic cycle.
It seems unlikely that wouldn't affect some voters minds.
But they won't see Corbyn as the answer.
SO far I am unimpressed with Mrs May. I may of course be completely wrong but a micromanager is likely to make some big economic and political mistakes. See Gordon Brown.
But, she's vastly better than her main opponent. You don't become PM, when your ratings are worse than Michael Foot's.
The Tories probably do have the next election nailed on. But there is clearly a ceiling - probably well below 50% - for the proportion of UK voters that are willing to put their X against the Tories (and May won't have the breadth of appeal that Cammo had) which does mean that, in whatever scenario you choose to paint, the remaining majority of voters do have to plump for someone else....
A sad commentary on the miserable state of democracy in our country, to be sure.
FPTP is the worst system - except for all the others that have been tried.
The problem with PR in a pluralistic party system is that it poses too much of a risk of one of two outcomes: constant instability (think Italy for most of the period since 1945) or a permanent Grand Coalition of the centre, encouraging cosy nepotism and graft. The latter scenario is exactly what has happened in Austria, and seems likely to happen in Germany.
Look at what we already have in the Bundestag, with the CDU and SPD already locked together in Government because they and their usual junior coalition partners cannot achieve a majority. Already, nobody will work with die Linke (the ex-communist Left Party,) which polls about 10% of the vote. After the next election we're liable to see both them and the AfD, with another 10-15% of the vote, in Parliament. Hence the conventional centre-left and centre-right coalitions will become all but impossible, and the Grand Coalition will keep slogging onwards indefinitely. Federal elections will cease to mean anything.
To put it crudely but succinctly, substitute CDU, SPD, Linke and AfD for Tories, moderate Labour/SDP Mk2. Corbyn Labour/New Socialists, and Ukip, and that's the future that PR would also threaten to visit upon Britain. A cosy and totally immovable centrist consensus, which puts all of the power in the hands of the politicians and makes them completely invulnerable to the electorate - unless we were to vote in massive numbers for unsuitable extremist candidates, as has happened in the Austrian presidential election.
I don't want to end up with an oligarchy, so I'll keep supporting FPTP.
Well said. FPTP usually delivers a majority government,rather than have the politicians throw away their manifestos in coalition talks after the election.
I'm also with you on 350-360 Tory seats in 2020. Have ordered a crate of popcorn for the Labour conference next week. Does anyone know of any markets on MP defections? I'm positive we'll see at least a couple over the conference season, in one direction or another.
He also said he did not expect a mass exodus from London to Frankfurt and warned the EU to learn the lessons of rising anti globalisation and anti migration feeling across Europe and warned of growing tensions between the northern and southern areas of the Eurozone
I don't know off the top of my head what proportion of the CIty's business is domestic and would therefore not be directly affected by Brexit. but even focussing only on the international aspect about 60% is non-EU, and a significant chunk of the EU-based business will be attracted at least as much by global networks, concentrations of expertise, the English legal system and advantageous regulatory and tax frameworks as by the single market (which has never been completed for services at any rate.) The Government can also do more to attract and keep business by further regulatory and tax reform.
Leaving the EU is bound to have negative effects but they have to be viewed in proportion, and also taken in the round. If the City were the sole consideration in the Brexit vote them we would never have voted the way we did. But it wasn't.
It'd be ironical if the Cold War was finally ended by lots of nationalists agreeing that their rival patriotisms were a reason to cuddle up.
Perhaps a James led government would ferment and finance ethnic British seccessionist movements in Canada, Australia and South Africa, then invade in their support.
The PB League of Empire Loyalists would be in rapture.
Why would they need to do that. Three of them already are clone UKs in ethnic political and cultural terms and the fourth has the most anglophile government since Jan Smuts was defeated by the National Party in 1948.
To keep them in line. Putin likes neighbours that are afraid of him.
The Old Commonwealth is neither as ethnically British nor as Anglophile as it once was...
Too right. I travelled extensively in Oz four years ago, and going back this Xmas. It was telling how the rural boonies (think New England tablelands) did feel a little bit like 1970s Britain but the big cities were not at all. Had a uniquely Australian character and worldview. They look to Asia for their future, not us, and the empirists would do well to understand it.
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my m
The same was said about the UK and Europe! Even the combined populations of Melbourne, Sy
52% v 48% was more than that 51% v 49% margin by which Quebec voted to stay part of Canada back in 1995.
Indeed, more Quebecois feel an affinity to the EU than to Britons, it is the only area of CANZUK which might have reservations
If that referendum had gone the other way, I wonder how long it would have been before some Quebecois version of Archbishop Makarious would be agitating for enosis with France.
Not long I imagine, De Gaulle was cheered to the rafters on his visit there, the Queen was once booed (which has almost never happened to her before or since). Chirac was certainly ready to welcome them with open arms had they voted for divorce from Anglophile Canada
For those who still think that the cold war is going on a cracking article by Peter Hitchens (aimed at an American audience) on why it is folly to monster Russia. In the UK we are very ignorant about Russia.
He also said he did not expect a mass exodus from London to Frankfurt and warned the EU to learn the lessons of rising anti globalisation and anti migration feeling across Europe and warned of growing tensions between the northern and southern areas of the Eurozone
I don't know off the top of my head what proportion of the CIty's business is domestic and would therefore not be directly affected by Brexit. but even focussing only on the international aspect about 60% is non-EU, and a significant chunk of the EU-based business will be attracted at least as much by global networks, concentrations of expertise, the English legal system and advantageous regulatory and tax frameworks as by the single market (which has never been completed for services at any rate.) The Government can also do more to attract and keep business by further regulatory and tax reform.
Leaving the EU is bound to have negative effects but they have to be viewed in proportion, and also taken in the round. If the City were the sole consideration in the Brexit vote them we would never have voted the way we did. But it wasn't.
Indeed but as the City is the biggest earner for our economy we certainly want to avoid doing too much damage to it post-Brexit and as you suggest hopefully that will be the case
Incidentally, having watched her interview earlier, I think Diane James is rather impressive. She manages the "sweet spot" of sounding professional and competent, but at the same time not sounding overly posh or talking in Establishment gobbledygook. I think she'll do well as leader.
Yawn. We have heard these sort of threats so often. Remember how the City was going to become a backwater if we didn't join the Euro.
And there have already been stories of companies in the City backtracking on moving whole divisions to Paris or Frankfurt. The City will not just cope, it will thrive, no matter what the regulatory framework. It always has done.
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it could quite easily happen. People vote for one particular political party at one election, but that does not follow that they will do the same at the next.
For a start,Mr Cameron adopted the "nice Conservative" continuity-Coalition line, and that persuaded many people to give the Conservatives their vote last time. As has already been mentioned, many people were stampeded into voting Tory when threatened by the prospect of a Milliband-Sturgeon government. And thirdly we had the Tory dirty tricks (still being investigated by the police, I understand).
I don`t think any of these three factors will come into play next time.
On top of that, you PB Tories are putting a lot of your hopes on the opinion polls. Without going into the question of whether these are right or wrong overall, in terms of how each individual elector might vote, there is also the question of by how much.
For example, if an elector thinks that all politicians are rubbish, but that the Tory candidate is the best of a bad bunch, his voting intention is scored as a point for the Tories - even though he dislikes them almost as much as the rest.
Similarly, if an elector is keen on the Tories (and then there is another tick in the Tory column) but thinks that the Lib Dems are also fairly sound and decent, it might not take very much for him to cast his vote for the Lib Dem candidate on the actual day.
So there could be a lot of movement on polling day, despite the opinion polls currently giving the Tories a large lead over Labour.
And despite the constant repetition from the PB Tories, the Lib Debs are by no means dead in the water - as recent local government byelections show.
Incidentally, having watched her interview earlier, I think Diane James is rather impressive. She manages the "sweet spot" of sounding professional and competent, but at the same time not sounding overly posh or talking in Establishment gobbledygook. I think she'll do well as leader.
Yes, certainly she is more of an opposition leader than Corbyn and Farron
Washoe County Nevada is the swing county in a swing state (the county voted Obama 50.79% in 2012). Two weeks ago it had 6000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, today it was 2500 more.
In 2012 by close of registration it had 1132 more republicans (Dems win state by 6.7%). In 2008 it had 1278 more Democrats in 2004 (Dems win state by 12.5%) In 2004 it had 17543 more Republicans (Republican win state by 2.6%) In 2000 it had 14858 more Republicans (Republicans win state by 3.5%)
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it could quite easily happen. People vote for one particular political party at one election, but that does not follow that they will do the same at the next.
For a start,Mr Cameron adopted the "nice Conservative" continuity-Coalition line, and that persuaded many people to give the Conservatives their vote last time. As has already been mentioned, many people were stampeded into voting Tory when threatened by the prospect of a Milliband-Sturgeon government. And thirdly we had the Tory dirty tricks (still being investigated by the police, I understand).
I don`t think any of these three factors will come into play next time.
On top of that, you PB Tories are putting a lot of your hopes on the opinion polls. Without going into the question of whether these are right or wrong overall, in terms of how each individual elector might vote, there is also the question of by how much.
For example, if an elector thinks that all politicians are rubbish, but that the Tory candidate is the best of a bad bunch, his voting intention is scored as a point for the Tories - even though he dislikes them almost as much as the rest.
Similarly, if an elector is keen on the Tories (and then there is another tick in the Tory column) but thinks that the Lib Dems are also fairly sound and decent, it might not take very much for him to cast his vote for the Lib Dem candidate on the actual day.
So there could be a lot of movement on polling day, despite the opinion polls currently giving the Tories a large lead over Labour.
And despite the constant repetition from the PB Tories, the Lib Debs are by no means dead in the water - as recent local government byelections show.
One of the things that's missing in all the PBTory spaffing at Theresa May's personal ratings and the Tories' poll ratings -- approval ratings for the GOVERNMENT as a whole are still pretty poor. In the latest IPSOS-MORI poll, government approval is a net -13 (39% satisfied, 52% dissatisfied).
One-fifth of people who currently intend to vote Tory say they are "dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country". That is hardly a sign of the Tory voteshare being rock-solid and invulnerable to any decline, when May's honeymoon ends.
Incidentally, having watched her interview earlier, I think Diane James is rather impressive. She manages the "sweet spot" of sounding professional and competent, but at the same time not sounding overly posh or talking in Establishment gobbledygook. I think she'll do well as leader.
Yes, certainly she is more of an opposition leader than Corbyn and Farron
Her problem being leader isn't the TV bit I suspect, but the party management. Seems to be getting a bit vicious in UKIP these days.
Actually I thought the observations from the head of the Bundesbank were fairly nuanced. They were also about Hard vs Soft Brexit rather than Brexit it's self which he appeared to take as a given. You can compare them to the weekend analysis of Mario Monti the former Italian PM and EU Commissioner. But as I think we've established a certain sort of Brexiteer doesn't want policy detail or nuance. Fortunately the City it's self is rather more responsible hence the massive lobbying operation it's launched.
Incidentally, having watched her interview earlier, I think Diane James is rather impressive. She manages the "sweet spot" of sounding professional and competent, but at the same time not sounding overly posh or talking in Establishment gobbledygook. I think she'll do well as leader.
Yes, certainly she is more of an opposition leader than Corbyn and Farron
Her problem being leader isn't the TV bit I suspect, but the party management. Seems to be getting a bit vicious in UKIP these days.
She generally made a good start, welcoming both Farage and Carswell to the platform, Suzanne Evans tweeted her congratulations, she gets on with Steven Woolfe and Aaron Banks likes her too
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it could quite easily happen. People vote for one particular political party at one election, but that does not follow that they will do the same at the next.
...
So there could be a lot of movement on polling day, despite the opinion polls currently giving the Tories a large lead over Labour.
And despite the constant repetition from the PB Tories, the Lib Debs are by no means dead in the water - as recent local government byelections show.
I am not a Tory. I don't belong to any party. If there was an election tomorrow I would vote for them, but that's not the same thing.
My conviction is based on the fact that there is nowhere else for people who picked Cameron over Miliband to go in 2020. None of the Tory voters who resisted Ukip the last time are liable to defect this time around: if anything there'll be a flow back in the opposite direction. Labour and the Greens are both too far Left to be appealing. This only leaves the Lib Dems, but (a) they have gone leftwards as well, (b) they are a minor party which struggles to gain a hearing nationally, and (c) they are always vulnerable to the "Vote Farron, get Corbyn" line of attack in a Parliamentary election. Beyond which, we should not confuse moderate successes in some local and devolved elections (and, just as they've made modest net local councillor gains and picked up a couple of Holyrood constituencies, they've gone backwards in London and performed catastrophically in Wales,) with any likelihood of a marked improvement in the next General Election. People simply don't vote in identical ways in every different kind of election.
My assessment of the Tories' ability to hold on to Cameron's voters is not based primarily on the voting intention numbers, but for what it's worth they were reasonably accurate in all but one respect last year: they overestimated Labour by about 3%, and underestimated the Tories by a similar amount. Even if the pollsters have successfully corrected their biases, the Tories are still miles ahead of Labour - extraordinary for this stage in a Parliament - and the Lib Dems are becalmed on the 8% or so of the vote which the polls accurately predicted they would win in GE 2015.
In short, the Conservatives' position is, at present, close to invulnerable. Until a party comes along that can prize large numbers of Yellow Tory votes from their grip then it will remain so.
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it could quite easily happen. People vote for one particular political party at one election, but that does not follow that they will do the same at the next.
For a start,Mr Cameron adopted the "nice Conservative" continuity-Coalition line, and that persuaded many people to give the Conservatives their vote last time. As has already been mentioned, many people were stampeded into voting Tory when threatened by the prospect of a Milliband-Sturgeon government. And thirdly we had the Tory dirty tricks (still being investigated by the police, I understand).
I don`t think any of these three factors will come into play next time.
On top of that, you PB Tories are putting a lot of your hopes on the opinion polls. Without going into the question of whether these are right or wrong overall, in terms of how each individual elector might vote, there is also the question of by how much.
For example, if an elector thinks that all politicians are rubbish, but that the Tory candidate is the best of a bad bunch, his voting intention is scored as a point for the Tories - even though he dislikes them almost as much as the rest.
Similarly, if an elector is keen on the Tories (and then there is another tick in the Tory column) but thinks that the Lib Dems are also fairly sound and decent, it might not take very much for him to cast his vote for the Lib Dem candidate on the actual day.
So there could be a lot of movement on polling day, despite the opinion polls currently giving the Tories a large lead over Labour.
And despite the constant repetition from the PB Tories, the Lib Debs are by no means dead in the water - as recent local government byelections show.
One of the things that's missing in all the PBTory spaffing at Theresa May's personal ratings and the Tories' poll ratings -- approval ratings for the GOVERNMENT as a whole are still pretty poor. In the latest IPSOS-MORI poll, government approval is a net -13 (39% satisfied, 52% dissatisfied).
One-fifth of people who currently intend to vote Tory say they are "dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country". That is hardly a sign of the Tory voteshare being rock-solid and invulnerable to any decline, when May's honeymoon ends.
39% is quite a good rating for a government (government ratings are almost always negative)
Well said. FPTP usually delivers a majority government,rather than have the politicians throw away their manifestos in coalition talks after the election.
I'm also with you on 350-360 Tory seats in 2020. Have ordered a crate of popcorn for the Labour conference next week. Does anyone know of any markets on MP defections? I'm positive we'll see at least a couple over the conference season, in one direction or another.
Not that I'm aware of (although I'm not the best person to ask - I come to this site entirely to try to get a handle of what's going on in politics, rather than for the gambling aspect.)
You raise an interesting point though. I wonder if there are any fed up Labour MPs, just waiting for Corbyn to be re-elected before announcing their intention either to defect, or to sit as independents whilst they wait to see how things play out?
If any desperadoes are going to jump ship then one assumes they will come from amongst members who decline to run the gauntlet of Momentum activists at conference. Look out for anyone who is conspicuous by their absence on day one.
(PS Have had a quick web browse - Paddy Power offering 5/4 on five or more Labour MPs leaving to found a new party before the next election.)
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it couovernment byelections show.
I am not a Tory. I don't belong to any party. If there was an election tomorrow I would vote for them, but that's not the same thing.
My conviction is based on the fact that there is nowhere else for people who picked Cameron over Miliband to go in 2020. None of the Tory voters who resisted Ukip the last time are liable to defect this time around: if anything there'll be a flow back in the opposite direction. Labour and the Greens are both too far Left to be appealing. This only leaves the Lib Dems, but (a) they have gone leftwards as well, (b) they are a minor party which struggles to gain a hearing nationally, and (c) they are always vulnerable to the "Vote Farron, get Corbyn" line of attack in a Parliamentary election. Beyond which, we should not confuse moderate successes in some local and devolved elections (and, just as they've made modest net local councillor gains and picked up a couple of Holyrood constituencies, they've gone backwards in London and performed catastrophically in Wales,) with any likelihood of a marked improvement in the next General Election. People simply don't vote in identical ways in every different kind of election.
My assessment of the Tories' ability to hold on to Cameron's voters is not based primarily on the voting intention numbers, but for what it's worth they were reasonably accurate in all but one respect last year: they overestimated Labour by about 3%, and underestimated the Tories by a similar amount. Even if the pollsters have successfully corrected their biases, the Tories are still miles ahead of Labour - extraordinary for this stage in a Parliament - and the Lib Dems are becalmed on the 8% or so of the vote which the polls accurately predicted they would win in GE 2015.
In short, the Conservatives' position is, at present, close to invulnerable. Until a party comes along that can prize large numbers of Yellow Tory votes from their grip then it will remain so.
Exactly. Disgruntled lifelong wets have nowhere to go regardless of what Theresa decides to do. Look at the grammar debacle (for it was that). P****d off a bunch of Cons voters, had plenty of others scratching their heads, but...what on earth are they going to do about it? Nada. They sure as hell ain't going to the LDs; Lab obvs not; UKIP? They are wet, not nutters...so that leaves Cons.
For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory.
You don`t, Mr Rook? I do, and it couovernment byelections show.
I am not a Tory. I don't belong to any party. If there was an election tomorrow I would vote for them, but that's not the same thing.
My conviction is based on the fact that there is nowhere else for people who picked Cameron over Miliband to go in 2020. None of the Tory voters who resisted Ukip the last time are liable to defect this time around: if anything there'll be a flow back in the opposite direction. Labour and the Greens are both too far Left to be appealing. This only leaves the Lib Dems, but (a) they have gone leftwards as well, (b) they are a minor party which struggles to gain a hearing nationally, and (c) they are always vulnerable to the "Vote Farron, get Corbyn" line of attack in a Parliamentary election. Beyond which, we should not confuse moderate successes in some local and devolved elections (and, just as they've made modest net local councillor gains and picked up a couple of Holyrood constituencies, they've gone backwards in London and performed catastrophically in Wales,) with any likelihood of a marked improvement in the next General Election. People simply don't vote in identical ways in every different kind of election.
My assessment of the Tories' ability to hold on to Cameron's voters is not based primarily on the voting intention numbers, but for what it's worth they were reasonably accurate in all but one respect last year: they overestimated Labour by about 3%, and underestimated the Tories by a similar amount. Even if the pollsters have successfully corrected their biases, the Tories are still miles ahead of Labour - extraordinary for this stage in a Parliament - and the Lib Dems are becalmed on the 8% or so of the vote which the polls accurately predicted they would win in GE 2015.
In short, the Conservatives' position is, at present, close to invulnerable. Until a party comes along that can prize large numbers of Yellow Tory votes from their grip then it will remain so.
Exactly. Disgruntled lifelong wets have nowhere to go regardless of what Theresa decides to do. Look at the grammar debacle (for it was that). P****d off a bunch of Cons voters, had plenty of others scratching their heads, but...what on earth are they going to do about it? Nada. They sure as hell ain't going to the LDs; Lab obvs not; UKIP? They are wet, not nutters...so that leaves Cons.
Hmmmm, seem to be getting some flashback about Labour and certain people pondering about their support having non other option.
Comments
https://twitter.com/aroberts_andrew/status/777526500346200064
Right now UKIP are probably the only realistic impediment to a large Conservative majority at the next election. Had half of kippers voted Tory in 2015 they would have got 43.1% of the UK vote and had a majority similar to Thatchers in 1983.
Looking at the game I can understand why it's brutal at times.
Lib Dems: Depends on whether or not mass reselection battles prompt an outright Labour split. If Labour divides then I could easily envisage the yellows throwing their lot in with SDP Mark 2. Farron is soft left and so are most of the activists: it would make more sense, in the context of a fragmented left-wing, for the Lib Dems to throw in the towel and join SDP Mark 2.
If Labour somehow holds together, then there's every reason to suppose that the LDs will continue to bumble along at 8% in the polls as a zombie movement, dedicated primarily to self-perpetuation and living on in a handful of scattered strongholds just like the old Liberal Party did for decades. I know that you anticipate a very modest revival and you may well be proven right, but I remain to be convinced. In any event, the possibility of a Labour split obviously muddies the waters.
Labour: If it collapses then all bets are off, of course. If it holds together then I can see it topping 25%, but it will be doing very well to do significantly better. I see no reason for that element of the traditional Labour vote that has already deserted to Ukip to come back with Corbyn and McDonnell at the helm and the Marxist/metropolitan left-liberal alliance running rampant. Even if Ukip disappeared then I presume that all of its ex-Labour voters would either turn to Mrs May's Tories or stay at home.
Ukip needs to make heroic gains against Labour to make any progress at all in Parliament, and even then I don't see it getting that far - primarily because there are almost no marginals for it to target. If we look at the Wells spreadsheet for the revised boundaries, Ukip still hold Harwich and Clacton (but anything could happen re: Carswell over the next four years) and are very close in Thurrock and Thanet East (although the latter might look very flattering due to the Farage effect.) But they're more than 5,000 votes short of the notional winner in every single other seat, other than Stoke-on-Trent North where they are about 4,500 behind Labour in another three-way battle.
Regardless, it has no choice but to target Labour votes, because I see no prospect of anybody who hasn't already deserted the Tories for Ukip so doing, especially with May having replaced Cameron. If anything, there'll be movement of Tories coming back home after the Brexit vote.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37400280
Off topic, if I'd been 15 years younger I'd have been looking for a job. The quality of life is great. Nowhere near the stress and a fab environment. As my mate who was an accountant said, I'm being paid one and a half times equiv wage for half the responsibility and nobody adheres to the last one out of the office is a cissy school of thought.
To demonstrate that they are separate answer the following (a) could Gordon Brown be a slave to rolling media? (b) could Gordon Brown dither?
I concede that Caracalla was a tosser.
As I have pointed out before (and at the time) 2014 Euros were peak Kipper.
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/berlin-wahl-hochrechnung-101.html
Outcome will probably be a red-red-green coalition in Berlin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/canzuk-after-brexit-canada-australia-new-zealand-and-britain-can/
A formal union would be as big a mistake as the EU. It would also reverse the Statute of Westminster.
There is already an institute in place - the commonwealth - and you would just build on that with trade deals, movement agreements reciprocal citizenship rights etc while not undermining the parliaments.
In time the four would increasingly act as one on the international stage, but voluntarily with no loss of sovereignty.
Interesting from the article that Her Majesties Kingdom is still the largest entity in the world, bigger even than Russia.
Edited extra bit: psychotic*, not psychopathic. A psychopath would not have been as stupid as Antoninus Caracalla.
Edited extra bit: sorry, misread your comment.
The reign of Marcus Aurelius?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/18/nation-state-marine-le-pen-global-mood-france-brexit-trump-front-national?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Now, as for the Tories, I am willing to stick my neck out. For reasons previously explained, I don't see how they can lose any significant proportion of the 37% of voters they won under Cameron last year, and that alone is enough for victory. I also don't see that there won't be some bleed of homecoming Tories from Ukip, and some defections of remaining swing voters who backed Miliband running away screaming from Corbyn and towards the relative safety of May. I view it as likely that the Conservatives will make the magic 40%.
Assuming that I am right and the LDs remain becalmed, then even a leakage of 2% of the vote from each of Labour and Ukip would give the Tories a majority close to a hundred under the revised boundaries - and such a scenario would envisage Corbyn's Labour winning a marginally higher vote share than Brown's, which I find incredible.
Therefore, I reckon that the Tories will win the next election with a majority of about 100, which would of course put them on around 350 - unless Labour splits, in which case things become a lot muddier, but one would have to assume that they would get closer to the 360-370 mark. I don't see them doing any better than that, simply because the remaining seats are unavailable or are too hostile to them (deep Labour heartland, most of Scotland and all of Northern Ireland.) I can envisage no realistic scenarios under which the Tories can reach 400 seats in a 600 seat Commons.
Perspectives, eh?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2016/sep/18/london-politics-hackney-just-keeps-on-getting-more-labour?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_referendum,_1995
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/18/hard-brexit-will-cost-city-of-london-its-hub-status-warns-bundesbank-boss?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell#Hola_Massacre_speech
The problem with PR in a pluralistic party system is that it poses too much of a risk of one of two outcomes: constant instability (think Italy for most of the period since 1945) or a permanent Grand Coalition of the centre, encouraging cosy nepotism and graft. The latter scenario is exactly what has happened in Austria, and seems likely to happen in Germany.
Look at what we already have in the Bundestag, with the CDU and SPD already locked together in Government because they and their usual junior coalition partners cannot achieve a majority. Already, nobody will work with die Linke (the ex-communist Left Party,) which polls about 10% of the vote. After the next election we're liable to see both them and the AfD, with another 10-15% of the vote, in Parliament. Hence the conventional centre-left and centre-right coalitions will become all but impossible, and the Grand Coalition will keep slogging onwards indefinitely. Federal elections will cease to mean anything.
To put it crudely but succinctly, substitute CDU, SPD, Linke and AfD for Tories, moderate Labour/SDP Mk2. Corbyn Labour/New Socialists, and Ukip, and that's the future that PR would also threaten to visit upon Britain. A cosy and totally immovable centrist consensus, which puts all of the power in the hands of the politicians and makes them completely invulnerable to the electorate - unless we were to vote in massive numbers for unsuitable extremist candidates, as has happened in the Austrian presidential election.
I don't want to end up with an oligarchy, so I'll keep supporting FPTP.
'I'm unconvinced Farron's EU-philia will play well.'
Agree, most Remainers have gone past it & accepted the vote as witnessed by the very poor turnout for the EU marches.
I'm also with you on 350-360 Tory seats in 2020. Have ordered a crate of popcorn for the Labour conference next week. Does anyone know of any markets on MP defections? I'm positive we'll see at least a couple over the conference season, in one direction or another.
Leaving the EU is bound to have negative effects but they have to be viewed in proportion, and also taken in the round. If the City were the sole consideration in the Brexit vote them we would never have voted the way we did. But it wasn't.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/10/the-cold-war-is-over
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/746355750289670144
For a start,Mr Cameron adopted the "nice Conservative" continuity-Coalition line, and that persuaded many people to give the Conservatives their vote last time. As has already been mentioned, many people were stampeded into voting Tory when threatened by the prospect of a Milliband-Sturgeon government. And thirdly we had the Tory dirty tricks (still being investigated by the police, I understand).
I don`t think any of these three factors will come into play next time.
On top of that, you PB Tories are putting a lot of your hopes on the opinion polls. Without going into the question of whether these are right or wrong overall, in terms of how each individual elector might vote, there is also the question of by how much.
For example, if an elector thinks that all politicians are rubbish, but that the Tory candidate is the best of a bad bunch, his voting intention is scored as a point for the Tories - even though he dislikes them almost as much as the rest.
Similarly, if an elector is keen on the Tories (and then there is another tick in the Tory column) but thinks that the Lib Dems are also fairly sound and decent, it might not take very much for him to cast his vote for the Lib Dem candidate on the actual day.
So there could be a lot of movement on polling day, despite the opinion polls currently giving the Tories a large lead over Labour.
And despite the constant repetition from the PB Tories, the Lib Debs are by no means dead in the water - as recent local government byelections show.
Washoe County Nevada is the swing county in a swing state (the county voted Obama 50.79% in 2012). Two weeks ago it had 6000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, today it was 2500 more.
In 2012 by close of registration it had 1132 more republicans (Dems win state by 6.7%).
In 2008 it had 1278 more Democrats in 2004 (Dems win state by 12.5%)
In 2004 it had 17543 more Republicans (Republican win state by 2.6%)
In 2000 it had 14858 more Republicans (Republicans win state by 3.5%)
One-fifth of people who currently intend to vote Tory say they are "dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country". That is hardly a sign of the Tory voteshare being rock-solid and invulnerable to any decline, when May's honeymoon ends.
My conviction is based on the fact that there is nowhere else for people who picked Cameron over Miliband to go in 2020. None of the Tory voters who resisted Ukip the last time are liable to defect this time around: if anything there'll be a flow back in the opposite direction. Labour and the Greens are both too far Left to be appealing. This only leaves the Lib Dems, but (a) they have gone leftwards as well, (b) they are a minor party which struggles to gain a hearing nationally, and (c) they are always vulnerable to the "Vote Farron, get Corbyn" line of attack in a Parliamentary election. Beyond which, we should not confuse moderate successes in some local and devolved elections (and, just as they've made modest net local councillor gains and picked up a couple of Holyrood constituencies, they've gone backwards in London and performed catastrophically in Wales,) with any likelihood of a marked improvement in the next General Election. People simply don't vote in identical ways in every different kind of election.
My assessment of the Tories' ability to hold on to Cameron's voters is not based primarily on the voting intention numbers, but for what it's worth they were reasonably accurate in all but one respect last year: they overestimated Labour by about 3%, and underestimated the Tories by a similar amount. Even if the pollsters have successfully corrected their biases, the Tories are still miles ahead of Labour - extraordinary for this stage in a Parliament - and the Lib Dems are becalmed on the 8% or so of the vote which the polls accurately predicted they would win in GE 2015.
In short, the Conservatives' position is, at present, close to invulnerable. Until a party comes along that can prize large numbers of Yellow Tory votes from their grip then it will remain so.
I'm also with you on 350-360 Tory seats in 2020. Have ordered a crate of popcorn for the Labour conference next week. Does anyone know of any markets on MP defections? I'm positive we'll see at least a couple over the conference season, in one direction or another.
Not that I'm aware of (although I'm not the best person to ask - I come to this site entirely to try to get a handle of what's going on in politics, rather than for the gambling aspect.)
You raise an interesting point though. I wonder if there are any fed up Labour MPs, just waiting for Corbyn to be re-elected before announcing their intention either to defect, or to sit as independents whilst they wait to see how things play out?
If any desperadoes are going to jump ship then one assumes they will come from amongst members who decline to run the gauntlet of Momentum activists at conference. Look out for anyone who is conspicuous by their absence on day one.
(PS Have had a quick web browse - Paddy Power offering 5/4 on five or more Labour MPs leaving to found a new party before the next election.)