On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
The Tories have embraced Trump and made Brexit their own.
Labour have embraced Brexit and their leadership is an embarrassment.
The Libs always do well when the Tories go nasty and Labour go loony and left.
What alternative has a middle of the road 'Remainer' got at the moment other than to vote Lib Dem?
That sounds pretty close, to me. I am a member of the Labour party. It won't get my vote until Corbyn has gone next year.
I look forward to your agonised rationalisation for why you are going to vote for a Corbyn-led Labour Party in 2020!
Don't build it up too much in your head ;-)
Of course Charles firmly supports both Cameron and May, who take largely contradictory positions on most issues.
We should pay off debt by 2020, until we shouldn't. Grammar schools are both an anachronism and the future.
Hope. I quite liked what Cameron and Osborne said they were going to do but became progressively disenchanted after about 2013/14 with their failure to deliver.
It pains me to admit it, but @Alanbrooke called it right
It was obvious those two charlatans were just snake oil salesmen. They had lying honed to perfection.
I do give people the benefit of the doubt. Possibly a weakness but I'd rather go through life in an optimistic frame of mind
I think Nuttall is emerging as a much more complex figure than I took him to be at first. The tweeds seem to indicate yearning for the lost days of the English country gentleman. It's not often that we encounter such an obvious Walter Mitty fantasist in politics. I now listen with greater interest to what he has to say.
His attire does seem more appropriate for rural Cumbria than Stoke. He's standing in the wrong seat.
Voters are much more pick and mix these days. Labour voters ignoring their Leadership in the Referendum for example. Local elections are increasingly fought and won on local issues, and that's a good thing.
On this particular thread, I think there is a tendency to over-analyse.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
I don't hate Paul Nuttall. I am merely pointing out he's a serial liar. But it is certainly true I dislike the hard right politics and policies he espouses. I think they would cause significant harm if ever enacted.
I think Nuttall is emerging as a much more complex figure than I took him to be at first. The tweeds seem to indicate yearning for the lost days of the English country gentleman. It's not often that we encounter such an obvious Walter Mitty fantasist in politics. I now listen with greater interest to what he has to say.
His attire does seem more appropriate for rural Cumbria than Stoke. He's standing in the wrong seat.
He hasn't quite pulled off the accessories yet: I'd suggest a walking cane, hip flask and pointer dog.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
The Tories have embraced Trump and made Brexit their own.
Labour have embraced Brexit and their leadership is an embarrassment.
The Libs always do well when the Tories go nasty and Labour go loony and left.
What alternative has a middle of the road 'Remainer' got at the moment other than to vote Lib Dem?
That sounds pretty close, to me. I am a member of the Labour party. It won't get my vote until Corbyn has gone next year.
I look forward to your agonised rationalisation for why you are going to vote for a Corbyn-led Labour Party in 2020!
Don't build it up too much in your head ;-)
Of course Charles firmly supports both Cameron and May, who take largely contradictory positions on most issues.
We should pay off debt by 2020, until we shouldn't. Grammar schools are both an anachronism and the future.
Hope. I quite liked what Cameron and Osborne said they were going to do but became progressively disenchanted after about 2013/14 with their failure to deliver.
It pains me to admit it, but @Alanbrooke called it right
It was obvious those two charlatans were just snake oil salesmen. They had lying honed to perfection.
I do give people the benefit of the doubt. Possibly a weakness but I'd rather go through life in an optimistic frame of mind
A good trait but wasted on those two. I am much the same myself , but those two were obviously chancers.
It seems obvious to me, low turn out local elections are attracting the hard core Remoaners still believing and hoping for the 2nd referendum fairy to appear, whilst the rest of the electorate in the ward do what they normally do at local elections.
Once the small number of residual Remoaners are polled against the rest of the population in national polls, the LibDem figure returns to is range of the last few years.
In Sunderland?!
Brexit probably played a big part in the Lib Dems doing well in Witney and undoubtedly played a huge part in them doing very well in Richmond Park. But I don't think those results are necessarily applicable nationwide. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing the patchiness in performance.
David - a couple of weeks ago you were saying the LDs had a better chance in Copeland than Stoke. Now you seem to have reversed that. Any reason?
Reports as to where the work was / is happening, Nuttall's weakness, and the Lib Dems' demonstrated ability to be more than Continuity Remain.
The Tories have embraced Trump and made Brexit their own.
Labour have embraced Brexit and their leadership is an embarrassment.
The Libs always do well when the Tories go nasty and Labour go loony and left.
What alternative has a middle of the road 'Remainer' got at the moment other than to vote Lib Dem?
The Lib Dems have only put on 2-3% since 2015. That is not 'doing well', except in relative terms. As I mentioned in the leader, it's still a lower ehare than the Liberals / Alliance / Lib Dems have won since 1970.
Similarly, the Con share is *up* by about 4%. True, some of that is 2015 Kippers switching ()and you can see from the figures that there's scope for more there), but there've also been swings from Lab and LD too, so the Tory recovery is much more broadly-based than you imply. The favourability figures also suggest tat it's deeper than some (including me) had given credit for.
Spot on. No good running a race in a new national record, if the guy in the other lane just ran a new world record..... And I still reckon there's a sizeable chunk of the UKIP vote to transfer over to the Tories, once Article 50 is triggered. If Nuttall can't get elected in Stoke, it is uphill all the way for UKIP from thereon in.
I guess it is not just that the Lib Dems are working, but that the Brexit issue is motivating certain kinds of voters in some unexpectedly strong ways. It may be difficult to pick up such polarised swings in relatively patchy areas. However, the Lib Dems are clearly strongly on the up in their former heartlands. Natonal polls may not be that predictive for May or for the next general election. I suspect we will see some big surprises over the coming weeks.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
I believe the main civil service scheme has been changed to career average salary in the last year or two.
The teachers' pension is now average salary as well (for younger teachers at least: the transition is too complicated for a short post and too boring for a long one).
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
I believe the main civil service scheme has been changed to career average salary in the last year or two.
The teachers' pension is now average salary as well (for younger teachers at least: the transition is too complicated for a short post and too boring for a long one).
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
I regard that a feature, not a bug, of democracy: vote for the candidate most likely to block the one you least want. The whole point is to be able to get rid of a bad government without having to shoot people. It's why the lack of credible opposition at the moment is so bad.
Final salary pensions were always going to be unsustainable with or without the dividend tax credit thanks to increasing life expectancy. Getting rid of it probably hastened their demise a little though.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
It seems obvious to me, low turn out local elections are attracting the hard core Remoaners still believing and hoping for the 2nd referendum fairy to appear, whilst the rest of the electorate in the ward do what they normally do at local elections.
Once the small number of residual Remoaners are polled against the rest of the population in national polls, the LibDem figure returns to is range of the last few years.
In Sunderland?!
Brexit probably played a big part in the Lib Dems doing well in Witney and undoubtedly played a huge part in them doing very well in Richmond Park. But I don't think those results are necessarily applicable nationwide. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing the patchiness in performance.
David - a couple of weeks ago you were saying the LDs had a better chance in Copeland than Stoke. Now you seem to have reversed that. Any reason?
Reports as to where the work was / is happening, Nuttall's weakness, and the Lib Dems' demonstrated ability to be more than Continuity Remain.
Hard to see the Lib Dems as anything other than a combination of Continuity Remain and None Of The Others.....how far that will take them will be interesting.
As a Cameron supporting Conservative I would have been far more tempted by a Clegg led Lib Dem party, Farron is far less appealing, mainly because he seems more left wing.
Final salary pensions were always going to be unsustainable with or without the dividend tax credit thanks to increasing life expectancy. Getting rid of it probably hastened their demise a little though.
The real inequity is not the value of the pensions (that can be factored into total comp) but the transfer of risk.
Public sector employees in a DB scheme can plan based on a certain outcome: DC private sector employees can not. This becomes even more stark when you include the lifetime allowance: at a £1m saving (which is beyond the possible for most people) you can expect about £35k income on retirement - not dissimilar to a head teacher on 2/3 salary. And the head teacher can be certain they will get this while the private sector employee can not.
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
We must be very different. In that case, seeing as it is so ridiculously easy to prove that he didn't ever play professional football, I would be inclined to believe that I was an error by a junior as he said. But maybe you are right and he is a complete fantasist.
All I know is that if someone said they were at an event were lots of people died, and they preferred not to talk about it, I wouldn't accuse them of not being there without very strong evidence that they weren't. Maybe Labour and the Guardian do have that evidence, in fact, to go so low I think they must have.
I thought you would be more careful what you posted after Blacking up Gina Miller with a bone through her nose. I understand you want this one to be true also, maybe 2nd time lucky
On the other hand, there is no possible way that his opponents could know that he is or isn't, so it comes across as a desperate, cheap and possibly grossly offensive insinuation
Ex-Tranmere Rovers professional Professor Paul Nuttall has history.
Sad
It sure is. Can a proven liar be believed when he says he has changed his mind on privatising the NHS?
If he wins in Stoke it will show just how catastrophically poor Corbyn Labour is.
You sure do hate the enemy more than show any positivity for your own cause, if there is one.
Why not deal with the point rather than attack the messenger?
The point is that smearing political opponents with no evidence is a cowardly act of desperation. You'd probably call it 'effective'
Paul Nuttall did not play for Tranmere Rovers. Liverpool Hope is not a university. He did not live in Stoke when he said he did. Not smears; statements of fact.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
It seems obvious to me, low turn out local elections are attracting the hard core Remoaners still believing and hoping for the 2nd referendum fairy to appear, whilst the rest of the electorate in the ward do what they normally do at local elections.
Once the small number of residual Remoaners are polled against the rest of the population in national polls, the LibDem figure returns to is range of the last few years.
In Sunderland?!
Brexit probably played a big part in the Lib Dems doing well in Witney and undoubtedly played a huge part in them doing very well in Richmond Park. But I don't think those results are necessarily applicable nationwide. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing the patchiness in performance.
David - a couple of weeks ago you were saying the LDs had a better chance in Copeland than Stoke. Now you seem to have reversed that. Any reason?
Reports as to where the work was / is happening, Nuttall's weakness, and the Lib Dems' demonstrated ability to be more than Continuity Remain.
A Labour Tory marginal is always the worst circumstance for the LibDems.
Final salary pensions were always going to be unsustainable with or without the dividend tax credit thanks to increasing life expectancy. Getting rid of it probably hastened their demise a little though.
The real inequity is not the value of the pensions (that can be factored into total comp) but the transfer of risk.
Public sector employees in a DB scheme can plan based on a certain outcome: DC private sector employees can not. This becomes even more stark when you include the lifetime allowance: at a £1m saving (which is beyond the possible for most people) you can expect about £35k income on retirement - not dissimilar to a head teacher on 2/3 salary. And the head teacher can be certain they will get this while the private sector employee can not.
Slight correction: maximum value of the teachers' pension was half the salary, which you only got if you did 40 years. However, for many heads this would put them well over £35k anyway...
Final salary pensions were always going to be unsustainable with or without the dividend tax credit thanks to increasing life expectancy. Getting rid of it probably hastened their demise a little though.
The real inequity is not the value of the pensions (that can be factored into total comp) but the transfer of risk.
Public sector employees in a DB scheme can plan based on a certain outcome: DC private sector employees can not. This becomes even more stark when you include the lifetime allowance: at a £1m saving (which is beyond the possible for most people) you can expect about £35k income on retirement - not dissimilar to a head teacher on 2/3 salary. And the head teacher can be certain they will get this while the private sector employee can not.
Slight correction: maximum value of the teachers' pension was half the salary, which you only got if you did 40 years. However, for many heads this would put them well over £35k anyway...
Thanks. Was guessing a comp to put it in perspective
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
Labour are going to lose votes to the Tories (May is more in touch with provincial England than Cameron could ever have hoped to be), UKIP (Nuttall is more in touch with provincial England and far attuned to it's natural social conservatism), Lib Dems (frothing Remainers etc) as well as the Independents that have eroded their vote in the past two decades.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
I think Nuttall is emerging as a much more complex figure than I took him to be at first. The tweeds seem to indicate yearning for the lost days of the English country gentleman. It's not often that we encounter such an obvious Walter Mitty fantasist in politics. I now listen with greater interest to what he has to say.
His attire does seem more appropriate for rural Cumbria than Stoke. He's standing in the wrong seat.
He hasn't quite pulled off the accessories yet: I'd suggest a walking cane, hip flask and pointer dog.
Nuttall should spend a bit more on his kit, he looks more M&S outlet than account at Gieves. Though perhaps he's identified a big phony aspiration demographic in Stoke that's worth going for.
On the subject of pensions, a big worry in schools at the moment is the Local Government scheme: this is a defined benefit scheme and, unlike the teachers' one, is funded. Or at least it is supposed to be funded: current interest rates mean it is in deficit and academies (which means most secondary schools) are going to have to take this into account in their budgets.
Final salary pensions were always going to be unsustainable with or without the dividend tax credit thanks to increasing life expectancy. Getting rid of it probably hastened their demise a little though.
The real inequity is not the value of the pensions (that can be factored into total comp) but the transfer of risk.
Public sector employees in a DB scheme can plan based on a certain outcome: DC private sector employees can not. This becomes even more stark when you include the lifetime allowance: at a £1m saving (which is beyond the possible for most people) you can expect about £35k income on retirement - not dissimilar to a head teacher on 2/3 salary. And the head teacher can be certain they will get this while the private sector employee can not.
Slight correction: maximum value of the teachers' pension was half the salary, which you only got if you did 40 years. However, for many heads this would put them well over £35k anyway...
Thanks. Was guessing a comp to put it in perspective
The pension is a lot less generous than it used to be: I got my present job back in the Nineties when the previous teacher took early retirement at 50. This used to be encouraged by councils to reduce their wage bill.
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
Simple: the Lib Dems care about these local by-elections and nobody else does. That's why they're meaningless.
Many of them have a party standing that didn't before, or not standing when they did before. That's why they're meaningless.
That is simply false . The Conservatives certainly cared about Thursday's Cotswold by election . Their candidate was their Parliamentary candidate in Exeter in 2015 . The voters certainly cared as the turnout was just over 50% . UKIP stood in the previous election but did not stand in the by election which in theory should help the Conservatives . Greens vice versa which should in theory have harmed the Lib Dems . By elections in Scotland are not meaningless , Conservatives like to point out ( rightly ) how well they are doing in most of them and how significant that is for Scottish politics .
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
'97 and '01 presumably? Unless you had the world's biggest polling station just south of the Thames, in Greenwich?
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
It's been nonsense for a while. If you come to the UK on almost any visa which lets you stay more than 6 months, you have to prepay for your NHS usage for the princely sum of £200 per year. You are given a biometric card to present to the hospital on request. You have to pay for the whole of your visa in advance, which make it absurdly expensive for non-EU people to apply for UK visas, between 7-900 pounds for the visa processing fee in many cases, and then an additional 600 for the NHS. You get the 600 back if your application fails (likely) but not the 7-900. If you are (for example) a Filipino nurse, that means fronting up 5 months pre tax salary to apply for a visa.
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
'97 and '01 presumably? Unless you had the world's biggest polling station just south of the Thames
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
Labour are going to lose votes to the Tories (May is more in touch with provincial England than Cameron could ever have hoped to be), UKIP (Nuttall is more in touch with provincial England and far attuned to it's natural social conservatism), Lib Dems (frothing Remainers etc) as well as the Independents that have eroded their vote in the past two decades.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
I don't think the Tories will get too many voting UKIP tactically in Stoke (and they probably don't want to). Tories are famously reluctant to tactically vote, they are up in the polls nationally, Leavers like May, and their candidate is a local councillor, albeit 25.
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
It seems obvious to me, low turn out local elections are attracting the hard core Remoaners still believing and hoping for the 2nd referendum fairy to appear, whilst the rest of the electorate in the ward do what they normally do at local elections.
Once the small number of residual Remoaners are polled against the rest of the population in national polls, the LibDem figure returns to is range of the last few years.
In Sunderland?!
Brexit probably played a big part in the Lib Dems doing well in Witney and undoubtedly played a huge part in them doing very well in Richmond Park. But I don't think those results are necessarily applicable nationwide. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing the patchiness in performance.
David - a couple of weeks ago you were saying the LDs had a better chance in Copeland than Stoke. Now you seem to have reversed that. Any reason?
Reports as to where the work was / is happening, Nuttall's weakness, and the Lib Dems' demonstrated ability to be more than Continuity Remain.
Hard to see the Lib Dems as anything other than a combination of Continuity Remain and None Of The Others.....
That might be because you're a Conservative supporter. Just a wild guess.
"Mind you I didn't know Nuttall was a muslim (or moslem). Here he is at Friday prayers."
Trying for the Muslim vote may not be as daft as it seems. Not all devout Muslims are ISIS fanatics. A Muslim colleague of mine went to a Catholic funeral for the first time when a friend of his died. He came back very impressed and thought the funeral had many similarities to a Muslim one. Although he does take after Ken Livingstone when it comes to the other "people of the book."
I read an article many years ago that during the Vietnam war, the Yanks avoided the worst of the oil embargo by pointing out to the Arabs that they were fighting against the Atheist communists on behalf of Theists. It could have been "fake news" though.
Teenagers always believe they invented sex, and the Guardian believes "fake news" is a recent innovation and restricted to people they don't like.
Labour will hold Stoke whatever. They only had a chance if the Remainers blocked Brexit.
Simple: the Lib Dems care about these local by-elections and nobody else does. That's why they're meaningless.
Many of them have a party standing that didn't before, or not standing when they did before. That's why they're meaningless.
They may not be especially meaningful, but that does not mean they are entirely meaningless, it is not a binary equation. Cmlativ impact on political narrative can be meaningful on its own. One of the LDs biggest problems is they became invisible or irrelevant to most people, and the prospect winning anywhere seemed hopeless even to some in its dwindling core no doubt. Winning enough local by-elections to truthfully poInt out they have been making big strides is perhaps not as significant as they will spin it, but as David says it gets them attention. It will encourage new members, fire up the old ones. This encourages them to try hard, to turn out, in other places, it gives the leadership something to build on. If they can then get increases in parliamentaries, even if Richmond is not a result easy to repeat, they can present a narrative of well, winning here. Or at least vastly improving here.
That is not nothing. It can solidify the modest increase they have had in national polls, make them seem more relevant again, and hopefully creep up once again. Now, if the may results are bad or static then this won't really have worked. But they have something now to encourage people to try, to tell them the lds can win from anywhere. That won't lead to victory in most places, when resources are spread, but an enthused base may make the difference between so progress and no progress.
And as someone who wants as many parties as possible to do well - bless you're the BNP or cpgb and the like - it'd be interesting to see if the effort they've put in works.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
Labour are going to lose votes to the Tories (May is more in touch with provincial England than Cameron could ever have hoped to be), UKIP (Nuttall is more in touch with provincial England and far attuned to it's natural social conservatism), Lib Dems (frothing Remainers etc) as well as the Independents that have eroded their vote in the past two decades.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
I don't think the Tories will get too many voting UKIP tactically in Stoke (and they probably don't want to). Tories are famously reluctant to tactically vote, they are up in the polls nationally, Leavers like May, and their candidate is a local councillor, albeit 25.
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
This Tory would encourage tactical voting in Stoke. Another Leaver in commons to drown out the frothing Remainerism would be useful.
But more seriously, I don't see how Labour can win and I don't see how UKIP can lose it.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
I agree, but joining the EEA/EFTA would be a plausible and popular policy, indeed quite a few PB leavers are in favour.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
It goes away before the general election, though.
It is a tactical masterstroke - but a strategic white elephant. A bit like joining the coalition was.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
I suspect there will be very little in the way of running commentary happening after A50. The negotiations will be held behind closed doors and will be largely confidential. Both sides will grandstand about the intransigence of their opponents, but they would do that on principle even if things were going well.
Plus as usual you are presupposing there will be any significant improvement on Hard Brexit on offer, what has been said so far by all the players on the EU side is that there wont be.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
Labour are going to lose votes to the Tories (May is more in touch with provincial England than Cameron could ever have hoped to be), UKIP (Nuttall is more in touch with provincial England and far attuned to it's natural social conservatism), Lib Dems (frothing Remainers etc) as well as the Independents that have eroded their vote in the past two decades.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
I don't think the Tories will get too many voting UKIP tactically in Stoke (and they probably don't want to). Tories are famously reluctant to tactically vote, they are up in the polls nationally, Leavers like May, and their candidate is a local councillor, albeit 25.
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
This Tory would encourage tactical voting in Stoke. Another Leaver in commons to drown out the frothing Remainerism would be useful.
But more seriously, I don't see how Labour can win and I don't see how UKIP can lose it.
Less than 20%? I'd want 50/1 on that.
I expect Labour to win in Stoke . Should they lose it will not be to UKIP but the Lib Dems . UKIP less than 20% at 8/1 is a decent bet .
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
True, but they've established themselves in many people's minds as a happy-clappy pro-Europe party and that will give many voters a positive reason to vote for them. (16 million people voted Remain and neither Labour nor Tories are doing a very good job at the moment at shoring up their support among that very large group.)
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
As someone once said "the only thing worse in life than being talked about is not being talked about".
Thank you for the piece, David, as always and plenty with which I disagree though I realise that's the point.
I'm puzzled as to why a Conservative activist is making such a song and dance over a couple of LD by-election gains. It's not as though the Conservative party can't afford to lose a few hundred Councillors as they have so many to spare.
As I've said before, the attrition of Councillors damaged the LDs more than the sudden loss of nearly 50 MPs. Years of losses have reduced three decades of gains and while we're not back to the 100 or so Liberal Councillors in 1977, we were as much back to our local bedrock as the Conservatives were in the mid 90s.
The Conservative local recovery began on GE day 1997 and continued throughout the Blair/Brown years while the Party languished in the futility of Opposition. Even under IDS, the Party made local gains.
The post-2015 LD recovery is curious - the surge in members has not only been in areas of pre-existing strength but in new areas where new groups of activists are joining together to take on moribund Labour and Conservative party machines who have enjoyed unchallenged dominance for decades. The truth is though the Party has a small army of mobile activists who can achieve transitory successes at local level and at constituency level (Richmond) under special circumstances.
I think the May elections will be interesting - I suspect the Conservative performance will be mixed with gains from UKIP being offset by losses to the LDs to produce a broadly neutral return.
It seems obvious to me, low turn out local elections are attracting the hard core Remoaners still believing and hoping for the 2nd referendum fairy to appear, whilst the rest of the electorate in the ward do what they normally do at local elections.
Once the small number of residual Remoaners are polled against the rest of the population in national polls, the LibDem figure returns to is range of the last few years.
In Sunderland?!
Brexit probably played a big part in the Lib Dems doing well in Witney and undoubtedly played a huge part in them doing very well in Richmond Park. But I don't think those results are necessarily applicable nationwide. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing the patchiness in performance.
David - a couple of weeks ago you were saying the LDs had a better chance in Copeland than Stoke. Now you seem to have reversed that. Any reason?
Reports as to where the work was / is happening, Nuttall's weakness, and the Lib Dems' demonstrated ability to be more than Continuity Remain.
Hard to see the Lib Dems as anything other than a combination of Continuity Remain and None Of The Others.....
That might be because you're a Conservative supporter. Just a wild guess.
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
True, but they've established themselves in many people's minds as a happy-clappy pro-Europe party and that will give many voters a positive reason to vote for them. (16 million people voted Remain and neither Labour nor Tories are doing a very good job at the moment at shoring up their support among that very large group.)
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
Probably some what less than half of that 16m are committed remainers, once you remove pretty much all the conservative voters that followed Cameron's lead and are now following May's lead, and those people that believed Project Fear, and now.... don't. Also the huge number that were playing it safe and saw Remain as the safety option, but will see Rejoin as the most risky option having left.
Which is not to say that those 4-6m committed remainers are not worth chasing for a party sitting on 8% of the vote!
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
It is not an either or question. The referendum absolutely requires control over our laws and our immigration policy but trade deals with be done with the EU and others.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
I suspect there will be very little in the way of running commentary happening after A50. The negotiations will be held behind closed doors and will be largely confidential. Both sides will grandstand about the intransigence of their opponents, but they would do that on principle even if things were going well.
Plus as usual you are presupposing there will be any significant improvement on Hard Brexit on offer, what has been said so far by all the players on the EU side is that there wont be.
Naive to think that the 2 years of Brexit talks won't be awash with statements (official and otherwise), leaks and speculation. Brexit has poisoned British politics for the foreseeable future, and the LDs are bound to benefit from that, except as and when any concrete positive news arises (e.g. stock market rising, exports increasing); uncertainty will be the dominant mood. If we move inexorably towards Hard Brexit this will also play into the LDs' hands.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
Not great I imagine. I suppose the thing with fptp is that it tough to break through or collapse, but when you do, when you rise enough in the right place and your opponents drop in the same,it is big. The lds dropped to distant fourth in a lot seats they either held or were the traditional second place in recent decades, and the tories are riding high end hold a lot of those seats. To regain swathes of seats in the sw, fir example, the lds need to hope my theory that many are blue liberals, and who might be put off by may in tone at the least heading right, to give them a shot. But the area is also euroskeptic.
Nevertheless, that people are generally more receptive to them again, for whatever reason, and so where they campaign hard they do well, seems true, and another reason they need a drip feed of good results to get volunteers pumped. In the absence of good polling, real votes, however localised, can inspire.
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
I suspect there will be very little in the way of running commentary happening after A50. The negotiations will be held behind closed doors and will be largely confidential. Both sides will grandstand about the intransigence of their opponents, but they would do that on principle even if things were going well.
Plus as usual you are presupposing there will be any significant improvement on Hard Brexit on offer, what has been said so far by all the players on the EU side is that there wont be.
Naive to think that the 2 years of Brexit talks won't be awash with statements (official and otherwise), leaks and speculation. Brexit has poisoned British politics for the foreseeable future, and the LDs are bound to benefit from that, except as and when any concrete positive news arises (e.g. stock market rising, exports increasing); uncertainty will be the dominant mood. If we move inexorably towards Hard Brexit this will also play into the LDs' hands.
In thing is, even if it is a Rock Hard BrExit, it will have happened come the next election, so the question is no longer can we stop a Hard BrExit, but, who is going to be best placed to make the best for the country out of it.
(and you sidestepped my point about the likelihood that it is the only thing on the menu)
As someone once said "the only thing worse in life than being talked about is not being talked about".
Thank you for the piece, David, as always and plenty with which I disagree though I realise that's the point.
I'm puzzled as to why a Conservative activist is making such a song and dance over a couple of LD by-election gains. It's not as though the Conservative party can't afford to lose a few hundred Councillors as they have so many to spare.
As I've said before, the attrition of Councillors damaged the LDs more than the sudden loss of nearly 50 MPs. Years of losses have reduced three decades of gains and while we're not back to the 100 or so Liberal Councillors in 1977, we were as much back to our local bedrock as the Conservatives were in the mid 90s.
The Conservative local recovery began on GE day 1997 and continued throughout the Blair/Brown years while the Party languished in the futility of Opposition. Even under IDS, the Party made local gains.
The post-2015 LD recovery is curious - the surge in members has not only been in areas of pre-existing strength but in new areas where new groups of activists are joining together to take on moribund Labour and Conservative party machines who have enjoyed unchallenged dominance for decades. The truth is though the Party has a small army of mobile activists who can achieve transitory successes at local level and at constituency level (Richmond) under special circumstances.
I think the May elections will be interesting - I suspect the Conservative performance will be mixed with gains from UKIP being offset by losses to the LDs to produce a broadly neutral return.
Pretty much agree with that Stodge . I have been somewhat surprised by the surge in Lib Dem membership over the last 12 months which has taken them to the highest figure this millenium . The new members do also seem not to be armchair members but keen to get stuck in . As you say many are in areas that the Lib Dems had no pre existing strength and could well lead to surprise gains over the next couple of years .
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I don't agree. Farron is as unimpressed by Corbyn as most people - May drove a stake through the heart of "liberal Conservatism" by the purging of the Cameroons and to be honest most of the Conservatives on here seemed quite happy with that (TSE excluded).
The era of divergence between the Orange Bookers and the Liberal Conservatives didn't long survive the coming of the Coalition in truth and with the EU Referendum, there is now a substantial wedge between the pro-Leave majority in the Conservative Party and the pro-Remain LDs.
That doesn't mean there is a progressive alliance out there for all the hubbub over a bit of LD-Green co-operation in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere. As I've said before, give me a forced choice between May and Corbyn and May wins every time but that doesn't mean I like her or support her because I don't.
The other unpalatable truth is the Coalition Experience wasn't wholly pleasant for the LDs and there is a wariness about a repetition at least based on the 2010-15 experience. Arguably, the over-hyped scale of the financial emergency and frankly the desire to be in a position to get something done made Clegg, Huhne and others agree to things that in the cold light of day they probably wish they hadn't.
Re local elections I have voted lib dem on several occassions as they did do 'local' very well but not at GE where I vote conservative apart from Blair in 97 and O2. More recently the conservatives have performed well in the Assembly and locally.
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
It is not an either or question. The referendum absolutely requires control over our laws and our immigration policy but trade deals with be done with the EU and others.
Fine, but we are discussing voters' behaviours, and not that many people will be weighing up the Europe issue in such fine detail. Infosar as people are following the debate at all, I doubt much more than hard v soft Brexit has filtered into consciousness.
Besides, just as the Brexit vote was not actually solely about the EU, so political trends aren't all about Brexit. Politics across the (western) world is becoming more nationalistic and (arguably) intolerant - if you wish to make a stand against what many see as a worrying trend, supporting the LibDems is by far the best (and outside Scotland the only) mainstream way of doing so, given that Labour is so heavily conflicted. If you look at the LibDem campaign literature from Richmond you will see that it plays heavily into this theme.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
I don't think the Tories will get too many voting UKIP tactically in Stoke (and they probably don't want to). Tories are famously reluctant to tactically vote, they are up in the polls nationally, Leavers like May, and their candidate is a local councillor, albeit 25.
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
This Tory would encourage tactical voting in Stoke. Another Leaver in commons to drown out the frothing Remainerism would be useful.
But more seriously, I don't see how Labour can win and I don't see how UKIP can lose it.
Less than 20%? I'd want 50/1 on that.
Activist Leavers possibly, but if you look over multiple elections you see the same picture. Tories rarely vote tactically, even where they cannot win, and risk putting in Labour. They have a high floor to their vote.
UKIP have a poor candidate and leader in Nuttall, and no reason to exist anymore. This is what the Stoke straw poll showed. Apathy and localism will decide this byelection. Brexit not really mentioned, and not really in Copeland either. These are going to be decided on more mundane and local issues.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
Pretty much agree with that Stodge . I have been somewhat surprised by the surge in Lib Dem membership over the last 12 months which has taken them to the highest figure this millenium . The new members do also seem not to be armchair members but keen to get stuck in . As you say many are in areas that the Lib Dems had no pre existing strength and could well lead to surprise gains over the next couple of years .
Indeed, Mark, and there are a couple of areas in London which may be particularly interesting in the 2018 locals.
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I don't agree. Farron is as unimpressed by Corbyn as most people - May drove a stake through the heart of "liberal Conservatism" by the purging of the Cameroons and to be honest most of the Conservatives on here seemed quite happy with that (TSE excluded).
No she didn't. She staked the Notting Hill Tories. Liberal Unionism lives in in the West, South and Cumbria/Derbyshire.
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I don't agree. Farron is as unimpressed by Corbyn as most people - May drove a stake through the heart of "liberal Conservatism" by the purging of the Cameroons and to be honest most of the Conservatives on here seemed quite happy with that (TSE excluded).
The era of divergence between the Orange Bookers and the Liberal Conservatives didn't long survive the coming of the Coalition in truth and with the EU Referendum, there is now a substantial wedge between the pro-Leave majority in the Conservative Party and the pro-Remain LDs.
That doesn't mean there is a progressive alliance out there for all the hubbub over a bit of LD-Green co-operation in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere. As I've said before, give me a forced choice between May and Corbyn and May wins every time but that doesn't mean I like her or support her because I don't.
The other unpalatable truth is the Coalition Experience wasn't wholly pleasant for the LDs and there is a wariness about a repetition at least based on the 2010-15 experience. Arguably, the over-hyped scale of the financial emergency and frankly the desire to be in a position to get something done made Clegg, Huhne and others agree to things that in the cold light of day they probably wish they hadn't.
Farron on may be wary of corbyn but what he might feel or say wasn't my point. Nor would it be sensible, as you say, to be keen to enter into a coalition period againoon, not that they have the chance. But my impression of the LD activists, particularly the new ones, is 'labour are disappointing us, let's join the lds' rather than 'the lds have a unique position I like', and the coalition is either ignored or seen as worthless, rather than 'maybe the balance was wrong and we should have asked for more, but we got some good stuff done'
Now that's just an impression and I may be wrong, but it makes me wary of automatically givving them my nota vote. I'd definitely pick May over corbyn, but in the sw it's not like I'm ever in a position to pick between the two.
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I don't agree. Farron is as unimpressed by Corbyn as most people - May drove a stake through the heart of "liberal Conservatism" by the purging of the Cameroons and to be honest most of the Conservatives on here seemed quite happy with that (TSE excluded).
No she didn't. She staked the Notting Hill Tories. Liberal Unionism lives in in the West, South and Cumbria/Derbyshire.
Certainly doesn't come off that way at first glance.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
Golly. At least La Fielding is an equal opportunities hater of Jews & Muslims, a true anti-semite.
It's a good way to remind ourselves that, no matter how fraught things might get here from time to time, we are all comparatively sane
Such people are needed to remind us all that our political opponents may be bad, but there's some things we all agree on, like how nuts those people are.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
I would agree on Copeland, but independents do well in Stoke:
Lab 40, UKIP 20, LD 15, Con 15, others 10.
It is quite possible that UKIP will not be in the top 2. Nuttall looks like Billy Nomates in his country tweeds there.
The FT article paints a different picture of Stoke, but we shall see
Who are the others that are going to get 10%?
The local independents always do well in Stoke. One got 6% at the GE, and they have 16 councillors.
From all that I can understand, this is entirely due to the weakness of Labour.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
I don't think the Tories will get too many voting UKIP tactically in Stoke (and they probably don't want to). Tories are famously reluctant to tactically vote, they are up in the polls nationally, Leavers like May, and their candidate is a local councillor, albeit 25.
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
This Tory would encourage tactical voting in Stoke. Another Leaver in commons to drown out the frothing Remainerism would be useful.
But more seriously, I don't see how Labour can win and I don't see how UKIP can lose it.
Less than 20%? I'd want 50/1 on that.
Activist Leavers possibly, but if you look over multiple elections you see the same picture. Tories rarely vote tactically, even where they cannot win, and risk putting in Labour. They have a high floor to their vote.
UKIP have a poor candidate and leader in Nuttall, and no reason to exist anymore. This is what the Stoke straw poll showed. Apathy and localism will decide this byelection. Brexit not really mentioned, and not really in Copeland either. These are going to be decided on more mundane and local issues.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
The logic of voting LibDem at the moment is to send a message to May that you don't want the hard nuts in the Tory Party to get free rein in putting immigration and their delusions about sovereignty before the interests of our economy. That isn't going to go away when A50 is served; probably the reverse.
I suspect there will be very little in the way of running commentary happening after A50. The negotiations will be held behind closed doors and will be largely confidential. Both sides will grandstand about the intransigence of their opponents, but they would do that on principle even if things were going well.
Plus as usual you are presupposing there will be any significant improvement on Hard Brexit on offer, what has been said so far by all the players on the EU side is that there wont be.
Naive to think that the 2 years of Brexit talks won't be awash with statements (official and otherwise), leaks and speculation. Brexit has poisoned British politics for the foreseeable future, and the LDs are bound to benefit from that, except as and when any concrete positive news arises (e.g. stock market rising, exports increasing); uncertainty will be the dominant mood. If we move inexorably towards Hard Brexit this will also play into the LDs' hands.
In thing is, even if it is a Rock Hard BrExit, it will have happened come the next election, so the question is no longer can we stop a Hard BrExit, but, who is going to be best placed to make the best for the country out of it.
(and you sidestepped my point about the likelihood that it is the only thing on the menu)
This is the Falklands School of politics I suppose. i.e. You (the Tories) got us into this mess but we trust you to get us out of it, and will even thank you for it at the ballot box. This is mostly true - at present I can't see any result at the next GE other than a Tory win. The point is only that the LDs have found a precious positive focus for their campaigning and they will secure significant support at the next GE because of that. I think many people think that politics isn't just about process, it's also about mood. Building good future relations with the EU requires a positive attitude about the EU - there's no way this can come effectively from a Tory party that bangs on about "getting the best deal for Britain" - there has to be genuine recognition that both sides want the best deal.
I'm not, and it is a potential concern. The impression I get from LDs and tories at the moment, or their most vocal supporters at present, is that I should forget the coalition entirely as some terrible dream, that it's back to being progressive alliance time and pure hard Toryism respectively. That the vote of someone who thought it reasonable government, should piss off. I doubt all feel that way, but the LDs look like they are back to wanting to be labour and that's it, and picking up nota votes by default.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
I don't agree. Farron is as unimpressed by Corbyn as most people - May drove a stake through the heart of "liberal Conservatism" by the purging of the Cameroons and to be honest most of the Conservatives on here seemed quite happy with that (TSE excluded).
No she didn't. She staked the Notting Hill Tories. Liberal Unionism lives in in the West, South and Cumbria/Derbyshire.
Certainly doesn't come off that way at first glance.
The key point is that Osborne didn't represent the tradition of liberalism in the Tory Party. Cameron was closer to it, hence the disappointment is all the greater.
DH: "Given Nuttall’s problems, I’d keep an eye on Stoke."
I really don't expect the Lie Dems to do very well in either by-election of the forthcoming by-elections. I would expect something close to the following percentage shares:
Pretty much agree with that Stodge . I have been somewhat surprised by the surge in Lib Dem membership over the last 12 months which has taken them to the highest figure this millenium . The new members do also seem not to be armchair members but keen to get stuck in . As you say many are in areas that the Lib Dems had no pre existing strength and could well lead to surprise gains over the next couple of years .
Indeed, Mark, and there are a couple of areas in London which may be particularly interesting in the 2018 locals.
SW London and Southwark. It would be interesting to see if the Lib Dems can recover lost ground in places like Haringey, Bromley, Harrow, Lambeth, and Islington.
We must be very different. In that case, seeing as it is so ridiculously easy to prove that he didn't ever play professional football, I would be inclined to believe that I was an error by a junior as he said. But maybe you are right and he is a complete fantasist.
All I know is that if someone said they were at an event were lots of people died, and they preferred not to talk about it, I wouldn't accuse them of not being there without very strong evidence that they weren't. Maybe Labour and the Guardian do have that evidence, in fact, to go so low I think they must have.
I thought you would be more careful what you posted after Blacking up Gina Miller with a bone through her nose. I understand you want this one to be true also, maybe 2nd time lucky
Professor Nuttall's problem is that a lot of what he has said - or which has been said on his behalf - turns out to be untrue. That opens the way for questions to be asked about other claims he has made. I don't know whether he was at Hillsbrough and have never said otherwise.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
True, but they've established themselves in many people's minds as a happy-clappy pro-Europe party and that will give many voters a positive reason to vote for them. (16 million people voted Remain and neither Labour nor Tories are doing a very good job at the moment at shoring up their support among that very large group.)
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
Probably some what less than half of that 16m are committed remainers, once you remove pretty much all the conservative voters that followed Cameron's lead and are now following May's lead, and those people that believed Project Fear, and now.... don't. Also the huge number that were playing it safe and saw Remain as the safety option, but will see Rejoin as the most risky option having left.
Which is not to say that those 4-6m committed remainers are not worth chasing for a party sitting on 8% of the vote!
Once we have Left, the support for Rejoin will be 15% at most. The Lib Dems are going to need a better USP.
Matthew Parris seems to have finally calmed down about Brexit (sorta) and has written an interesting, thoughtful piece.
I don't believe there is any way we can now *stay* in the EU, bar some amazing black swan (AND a new referendum), but I wonder if we might end up in a transitional deal which turns out to be really rather prolonged. Half in, half out.
Seems very possible to me. The White Paper is a masterpiece of smoke and mirrors. Friendship with Trump's America is not the strong negotiating point that some Tory Atlanticists had hoped. Blue passports, some cosmetic limits on EU immigration, a redefined role for the ECJ, reduced contributions, a special deal on customs, lots of grandstanding for domestic consumption, job done - a semi-detached relationship. Most will be able to live with that, a vocal, angry minority will not.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
True, but they've established themselves in many people's minds as a happy-clappy pro-Europe party and that will give many voters a positive reason to vote for them. (16 million people voted Remain and neither Labour nor Tories are doing a very good job at the moment at shoring up their support among that very large group.)
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
Probably some what less than half of that 16m are committed remainers, once you remove pretty much all the conservative voters that followed Cameron's lead and are now following May's lead, and those people that believed Project Fear, and now.... don't. Also the huge number that were playing it safe and saw Remain as the safety option, but will see Rejoin as the most risky option having left.
Which is not to say that those 4-6m committed remainers are not worth chasing for a party sitting on 8% of the vote!
Once we have Left, the support for Rejoin will be 15% at most. The Lib Dems are going to need a better USP.
What do you base that number on? Opposition to the EU is mostly concentrated in declining demographics and there are bound to be plenty of stories about how Brexit has adversely affected individuals and businesses. I would say rejoining is inevitable, it's just a question of when.
Matthew Parris seems to have finally calmed down about Brexit (sorta) and has written an interesting, thoughtful piece.
I don't believe there is any way we can now *stay* in the EU, bar some amazing black swan (AND a new referendum), but I wonder if we might end up in a transitional deal which turns out to be really rather prolonged. Half in, half out.
Seems very possible to me. The White Paper is a masterpiece of smoke and mirrors. Friendship with Trump's America is not the strong negotiating point that some Tory Atlanticists had hoped. Blue passports, some cosmetic limits on EU immigration, a redefined role for the ECJ, reduced contributions, a special deal on customs, lots of grandstanding for domestic consumption, job done - a semi-detached relationship. Most will be able to live with that, a vocal, angry minority will not.
Except May is in this week's Newstatesman repeating that Brexit means a hard and clean Brexit. She has spelt out what it means in recent speeches - we are leaving the single market.
I think one message from Herdson's piece is that the LDs will do well where they campaign well (which is back to Condition Normal after the 2015 hiccup), so their success at the next GE will depend almost entirely on the number of volunteers and leaflets they have in each seat. And judging by recent local by-elections the electorate is very open to persuasion, so they will pick up quite a few seats if they don't spread themselves too thinly. What are the current odds on them getting 30 seats?
They will need a new message by the next GE. We will have left, and rejoin is going to be much much less popular proposition on the doorsteps that remain was.
True, but they've established themselves in many people's minds as a happy-clappy pro-Europe party and that will give many voters a positive reason to vote for them. (16 million people voted Remain and neither Labour nor Tories are doing a very good job at the moment at shoring up their support among that very large group.)
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
Probably some what less than half of that 16m are committed remainers, once you remove pretty much all the conservative voters that followed Cameron's lead and are now following May's lead, and those people that believed Project Fear, and now.... don't. Also the huge number that were playing it safe and saw Remain as the safety option, but will see Rejoin as the most risky option having left.
Which is not to say that those 4-6m committed remainers are not worth chasing for a party sitting on 8% of the vote!
Once we have Left, the support for Rejoin will be 15% at most. The Lib Dems are going to need a better USP.
What do you base that number on? Opposition to the EU is mostly concentrated in declining demographics and there are bound to be plenty of stories about how Brexit has adversely affected individuals and businesses. I would say rejoining is inevitable, it's just a question of when.
Rejoining as we were may be palatable to some, but rejoining full no, Euro and all, much less, and they'd make sure we had to take it all or leave it - not that I think we'd be let back in, after this trouble. They'd be within their rights to ask if we'd change our minds again, and don't need the disruption. Some sort of associate level status might be possible one day, if the circumstances align.
I thought you would be more careful what you posted after Blacking up Gina Miller with a bone through her nose. I understand you want this one to be true also, maybe 2nd time lucky
Professor Nuttall's problem is that a lot of what he has said - or which has been said on his behalf - turns out to be untrue. That opens the way for questions to be asked about other claims he has made. I don't know whether he was at Hillsbrough and have never said otherwise.
You have repeatedly posted things that you wanted to be true that were untrue. Even though you did not apologise for doing so, are we to treat everything you link to as libellous propaganda? Or do we accept that it isn't always as clever to exaggerate the mistakes of people you disagree with as we think it is?
Comments
On this particular thread, I think there is a tendency to over-analyse.
http://www.hope.ac.uk/
The whole point is to be able to get rid of a bad government without having to shoot people. It's why the lack of credible opposition at the moment is so bad.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2368990/new-ukip-leader-paul-nuttall-caught-out-claiming-to-be-a-professional-footballer-on-his-cv/
As a Cameron supporting Conservative I would have been far more tempted by a Clegg led Lib Dem party, Farron is far less appealing, mainly because he seems more left wing.
Public sector employees in a DB scheme can plan based on a certain outcome: DC private sector employees can not. This becomes even more stark when you include the lifetime allowance: at a £1m saving (which is beyond the possible for most people) you can expect about £35k income on retirement - not dissimilar to a head teacher on 2/3 salary. And the head teacher can be certain they will get this while the private sector employee can not.
We must be very different. In that case, seeing as it is so ridiculously easy to prove that he didn't ever play professional football, I would be inclined to believe that I was an error by a junior as he said. But maybe you are right and he is a complete fantasist.
All I know is that if someone said they were at an event were lots of people died, and they preferred not to talk about it, I wouldn't accuse them of not being there without very strong evidence that they weren't. Maybe Labour and the Guardian do have that evidence, in fact, to go so low I think they must have.
I thought you would be more careful what you posted after Blacking up Gina Miller with a bone through her nose. I understand you want this one to be true also, maybe 2nd time lucky
*rubs hands together in evil glee*
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/ukip-s-paul-nuttall-bids-to-win-over-muslim-voters-in-stoke-on-trent-central/story-30127368-detail/story.html
Many of them have a party standing that didn't before, or not standing when they did before. That's why they're meaningless.
Labour are going to lose votes to the Tories (May is more in touch with provincial England than Cameron could ever have hoped to be), UKIP (Nuttall is more in touch with provincial England and far attuned to it's natural social conservatism), Lib Dems (frothing Remainers etc) as well as the Independents that have eroded their vote in the past two decades.
I just did not see a path to victory for Labour even if they chose a strong leaver.
And then they selected Gareth Snell....
If the lib dems are picking up the remain vote it will be interesting to see how this diminishes once A50 is served and remain becomes impossible and converts to re-join.
Yesterday my son, visiting us from Canada, wanted an antibiotic. He called at our medical centre and was seen by a doctor after about half an hour and following the consultation paid a £20 fee. It was seemless apparently.
On one of my trips to New Zealand I consulted my son's doctor (he was resident in New Zealand then) and I paid £45 fee.
This whole row over visitors paying a fee for using the NHS seems to be a nonsense, at least here in Wales
By elections in Scotland are not meaningless , Conservatives like to point out ( rightly ) how well they are doing in most of them and how significant that is for Scottish politics .
https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/overview
I think Shadsys 8/1 on UKIP less than 20% in Stoke is a reasonable punt.
"Mind you I didn't know Nuttall was a muslim (or moslem). Here he is at Friday prayers."
Trying for the Muslim vote may not be as daft as it seems. Not all devout Muslims are ISIS fanatics. A Muslim colleague of mine went to a Catholic funeral for the first time when a friend of his died. He came back very impressed and thought the funeral had many similarities to a Muslim one. Although he does take after Ken Livingstone when it comes to the other "people of the book."
I read an article many years ago that during the Vietnam war, the Yanks avoided the worst of the oil embargo by pointing out to the Arabs that they were fighting against the Atheist communists on behalf of Theists. It could have been "fake news" though.
Teenagers always believe they invented sex, and the Guardian believes "fake news" is a recent innovation and restricted to people they don't like.
Labour will hold Stoke whatever. They only had a chance if the Remainers blocked Brexit.
That is not nothing. It can solidify the modest increase they have had in national polls, make them seem more relevant again, and hopefully creep up once again. Now, if the may results are bad or static then this won't really have worked. But they have something now to encourage people to try, to tell them the lds can win from anywhere. That won't lead to victory in most places, when resources are spread, but an enthused base may make the difference between so progress and no progress.
And as someone who wants as many parties as possible to do well - bless you're the BNP or cpgb and the like - it'd be interesting to see if the effort they've put in works.
But more seriously, I don't see how Labour can win and I don't see how UKIP can lose it.
Less than 20%? I'd want 50/1 on that.
I don't even believe he is a scouser
It is a tactical masterstroke - but a strategic white elephant. A bit like joining the coalition was.
Plus as usual you are presupposing there will be any significant improvement on Hard Brexit on offer, what has been said so far by all the players on the EU side is that there wont be.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/13/its-hard-brexit-or-no-brexit-at-all-says-eu-council-president
Positive reasons to vote for political parties are not to be sniffed at. The LDs' low showing in opinion polls belies the fact that there must be small pockets where their support is 25%+. I'm sure they're very good at identifying these and exploiting them.
As someone once said "the only thing worse in life than being talked about is not being talked about".
Thank you for the piece, David, as always and plenty with which I disagree though I realise that's the point.
I'm puzzled as to why a Conservative activist is making such a song and dance over a couple of LD by-election gains. It's not as though the Conservative party can't afford to lose a few hundred Councillors as they have so many to spare.
As I've said before, the attrition of Councillors damaged the LDs more than the sudden loss of nearly 50 MPs. Years of losses have reduced three decades of gains and while we're not back to the 100 or so Liberal Councillors in 1977, we were as much back to our local bedrock as the Conservatives were in the mid 90s.
The Conservative local recovery began on GE day 1997 and continued throughout the Blair/Brown years while the Party languished in the futility of Opposition. Even under IDS, the Party made local gains.
The post-2015 LD recovery is curious - the surge in members has not only been in areas of pre-existing strength but in new areas where new groups of activists are joining together to take on moribund Labour and Conservative party machines who have enjoyed unchallenged dominance for decades. The truth is though the Party has a small army of mobile activists who can achieve transitory successes at local level and at constituency level (Richmond) under special circumstances.
I think the May elections will be interesting - I suspect the Conservative performance will be mixed with gains from UKIP being offset by losses to the LDs to produce a broadly neutral return.
As someone who has voted LD the last 3 GEs, partly as they put in the most effort I'll admit, I'm not getting the impression they want my vote as anything other than nota, that their strategy is only on the left not the centre (which admittedly is where I see myself, but others may disagree)
Which is not to say that those 4-6m committed remainers are not worth chasing for a party sitting on 8% of the vote!
At least La Fielding is an equal opportunities hater of Jews & Muslims, a true anti-semite.
Nevertheless, that people are generally more receptive to them again, for whatever reason, and so where they campaign hard they do well, seems true, and another reason they need a drip feed of good results to get volunteers pumped. In the absence of good polling, real votes, however localised, can inspire.
(and you sidestepped my point about the likelihood that it is the only thing on the menu)
The era of divergence between the Orange Bookers and the Liberal Conservatives didn't long survive the coming of the Coalition in truth and with the EU Referendum, there is now a substantial wedge between the pro-Leave majority in the Conservative Party and the pro-Remain LDs.
That doesn't mean there is a progressive alliance out there for all the hubbub over a bit of LD-Green co-operation in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere. As I've said before, give me a forced choice between May and Corbyn and May wins every time but that doesn't mean I like her or support her because I don't.
The other unpalatable truth is the Coalition Experience wasn't wholly pleasant for the LDs and there is a wariness about a repetition at least based on the 2010-15 experience. Arguably, the over-hyped scale of the financial emergency and frankly the desire to be in a position to get something done made Clegg, Huhne and others agree to things that in the cold light of day they probably wish they hadn't.
Besides, just as the Brexit vote was not actually solely about the EU, so political trends aren't all about Brexit. Politics across the (western) world is becoming more nationalistic and (arguably) intolerant - if you wish to make a stand against what many see as a worrying trend, supporting the LibDems is by far the best (and outside Scotland the only) mainstream way of doing so, given that Labour is so heavily conflicted. If you look at the LibDem campaign literature from Richmond you will see that it plays heavily into this theme.
UKIP have a poor candidate and leader in Nuttall, and no reason to exist anymore. This is what the Stoke straw poll showed. Apathy and localism will decide this byelection. Brexit not really mentioned, and not really in Copeland either. These are going to be decided on more mundane and local issues.
http://m.stokesentinel.co.uk/big-issue-you-tell-us-what-the-major-factors-are-that-will-decide-city-by-election/story-30121292-detail/story.html
Now that's just an impression and I may be wrong, but it makes me wary of automatically givving them my nota vote. I'd definitely pick May over corbyn, but in the sw it's not like I'm ever in a position to pick between the two.
Better for England if they don't... but I'd quite like to see it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-two-year-presidency/2017/02/10/32c2e4ce-efd9-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html?utm_term=.a140de16121f
Why do I think it isn't going to pan out like that.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-australia-islamic-state-idUKKBN15Q05I?il=0
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38909352