Interesting - honesty - a brave new politician, or an inexperienced one?
Confronted by mechanics angry that their factory will be closed next year as production moves to Poland, Macron said: 'I'm not telling you that I'm going to save your jobs, because nobody can do it.
Imagine May actually engaging with voters in that way. She couldn't and wouldn't. The Facebook clip is well worth watching. Macron has got something about him.
Not really. He's like a dozen senior investment bankers (admitted the best at that particular job) that I know.
Anders Bergendahl, Carlo Calabria or definitely Andrea Orcel, for instance, could all knock him into a cocked hat. Freddie Wraneus would give him a run for his money, but he probably would outperform most of the Brits in the industry (someone like Simon Robey is technically better as a banker, but wouldn't be able to make the transition to the public world, while Bob Wiggly is just too Blairish)
Macron has been compared to Blair which says it all really. I think many Liberal/left pundits have lost all sense of rational judgement with regards to leadership in this country - this is what a few years of a Corbyn leadership has done, when any improvement requires little more than a pulse to qualify.
If you don't think it's impressive Macron had enough respect for ordinary voters to spend time debating with them in an uncontrolled environment and to be honest with them about globalisation when he did, so be it. That approach seems a lot more authentic to me than choreographed strolls around factory floors under highly controlled conditions. I guess that's because I have lost all sense of rational judgement.
I think you have - the other day it was Yvette Cooper after one question in PMQs.
That is the argument of a man with no argument, I'm afraid.
Yes, I think Cooper would be a much better Labour leader than Corbyn. I imagine I'm not alone in that.
That wouldn't be hard, but she is still not leader material. This clarifies the awful hole Labour are in.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
Comments like that are why I'd change my vote if a second referendum were held.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
I wonder how long Remainers will carry on like this, its almost a year now and frankly, is pathetic.
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Interesting - honesty - a brave new politician, or an inexperienced one?
Confronted by mechanics angry that their factory will be closed next year as production moves to Poland, Macron said: 'I'm not telling you that I'm going to save your jobs, because nobody can do it.
Imagine May actually engaging with voters in that way. She couldn't and wouldn't. The Facebook clip is well worth watching. Macron has got something about him.
Not really. He's like a dozen senior investment bankers (admitted the best at that particular job) that I know.
Anders Bergendahl, Carlo Calabria or definitely Andrea Orcel, for instance, could all knock him into a cocked hat. Freddie Wraneus would give him a run for his money, but he probably would outperform most of the Brits in the industry (someone like Simon Robey is technically better as a banker, but wouldn't be able to make the transition to the public world, while Bob Wiggly is just too Blairish)
Macron has been compared to Blair which says it all really. I think many Liberal/left pundits have lost all sense of rational judgement with regards to leadership in this country - this is what a few years of a Corbyn leadership has done, when any improvement requires little more than a pulse to qualify.
If you don't think it's impressive Macron had enough respect for ordinary voters to spend time debating with them in an uncontrolled environment and to be honest with them about globalisation when he did, so be it. That approach seems a lot more authentic to me than choreographed strolls around factory floors under highly controlled conditions. I guess that's because I have lost all sense of rational judgement.
Clearly Macron is no coward, and is a genuine believer in Liberal economics as well as Liberal social values.
Debating angry workers suggests that he has the courage for the economic reforms needed in France, and real confidence in his ideas.
Worth noting that this took place in his hometown of Amiens.
You can see why the right hates him.
Some of the right. I suspect Libertarians are quite positive about him. Macron is going to be a major positive for a free trading Europe. Meanwhile we retreat into British LePenism.
For the first time in my life I am jealous of the French.
I'm a Libertarian, Macron is pro EU, we are fundamentally opposed.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
Caricaturing both sides is foolish. There were plenty of intelligent Leavers, and also worth noting plenty of Remainers in places like Hartlepool and Stoke. The division in Britain is pretty comprehensive.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
I wonder how long Remainers will carry on like this, its almost a year now and frankly, is pathetic.
But that comment's nearly as bad.
It's not all remainers: there's a vocal minority who are like this, and your response does nothing to try to attract over the remainers who have not changed their mind.
Leave and remain sadly appear just as divisive as it was a year ago.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
Leavers typically made their decisions after consideration, in my belief, and certainly aren't stupid. However, research clearly shows people with lower levels of education had a propensity to vote Leave. It was correlated with age, the other main demographic driver to Leave. Older people had fewer opportunities for education, compared with younger people
Interesting - honesty - a brave new politician, or an inexperienced one?
Confronted by mechanics angry that their factory will be closed next year as production moves to Poland, Macron said: 'I'm not telling you that I'm going to save your jobs, because nobody can do it.
Imagine May actually engaging with voters in that way. She couldn't and wouldn't. The Facebook clip is well worth watching. Macron has got something about him.
Not really. He's like a dozen senior investment bankers (admitted the best at that particular job) that I know.
Anders Bergendahl, Carlo Calabria or definitely Andrea Orcel, for instance, could all knock him into a cocked hat. Freddie Wraneus would give him
Macron has been compared to Blair which says it all really. I think many Liberal/left pundits have lost all sense of rational judgement with regards to leadership in this country - this is what a few years of a Corbyn leadership has done, when any improvement requires little more than a pulse to qualify.
If you don't think it's impressive Macron had enough respect for ordinary voters to spend time debating with them in an uncontrolled environment and to be honest with them about globalisation when he did, so be it. That approach seems a lot more authentic to me than choreographed strolls around factory floors under highly controlled conditions. I guess that's because I have lost all sense of rational judgement.
Clearly Macron is no coward, and is a genuine believer in Liberal economics as well as Liberal social values.
Debating angry workers suggests that he has the courage for the economic reforms needed in France, and real confidence in his ideas.
Worth noting that this took place in his hometown of Amiens.
You can see why the right hates him.
Some of the right. I suspect Libertarians are quite positive about him. Macron is going to be a major positive for a free trading Europe. Meanwhile we retreat into British LePenism.
For the first time in my life I am jealous of the French.
I'm a Libertarian, Macron is pro EU, we are fundamentally opposed.
The alternative is the decidedly protectionist socially conservative and authoritarian LePen. The second round is a choice between these two. Who would you vote for?
Interesting - honesty - a brave new politician, or an inexperienced one?
Confronted by mechanics angry that their factory will be closed next year as production moves to Poland, Macron said: 'I'm not telling you that I'm going to save your jobs, because nobody can do it.
Imagine May actually engaging with voters in that way. She couldn't and wouldn't. The Facebook clip is well worth watching. Macron has got something about him.
Not really. He's like a dozen senior investment bankers (admitted the best at that particular job) that I know.
Anders Bergendahl, Carlo Calabria ake the transition to the public world, while Bob Wiggly is just too Blairish)
Macron has been compared to Blair which says it all really. I think many Liberal/left pundits have lost all sense of rational judgement with regards to leadership in this country - this is what a few years of a Corbyn leadership has done, when any improvement requires little more than a pulse to qualify.
If you don't think it's impressive Macron had enough respect for ordinary voters to spend time debating with them in an uncontrolled environment and to be honest with them about globalisation when he did, so be it. That approach seems a lot more authentic to me than choreographed strolls around factory floors under highly controlled conditions. I guess that's because I have lost all sense of rational judgement.
Clearly Macron is no coward, and is a genuine believer in Liberal economics as well as Liberal social values.
Debating angry workers suggests that he has the courage for the economic reforms needed in France, and real confidence in his ideas.
Worth noting that this took place in his hometown of Amiens.
You can see why the right hates him.
Some of the right. I suspect Libertarians are quite positive about him. Macron is going to be a major positive for a free trading Europe. Meanwhile we retreat into British LePenism.
For the first time in my life I am jealous of the French.
They have huge challenges, but France is a great country with large pools of talent. Just like the UK, of course. We look set to take diametrically opposed paths. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I prefer the Macron route to the Johnson/Davies/Fox one. But I am an irrational metroplitan elitist who hates this country, its people and its history ;-)
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Either Corbyn loses a post-GE leadership contest or Labour splits. That's become very clear.
Last night I forecast the formation of the Progressive (awful word) Democratic Party, initially comprising 20 LibDem MPs + around 80 (or half of) the previous Parliamentary Labour Party, which if those numbers were proved to be correct, could potentially become HM Official Opposition.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
Crucially, how much of that is from the EU is not mentioned. 10% tariff looms.
The mooted tariff is pretty much negated by the depreciation of Sterling. The reverse would be the case with imported vehicles. British consumers are the fall guys.
The real damage of customs barriers would be on the supply chains, and perhaps to the brand image of British badged cars. Probably more significant for badges like Jaguar, Range Rover and Mini than "Japanese" badges like Nissan or Toyota.
The "fall guys" are the workers and anyone who depends on the State for welfare and services.Brexit directly increases the cost of doing business in the UK. Car manufacturers and others will continue to be based here providing they can reduce other costs to make up. In practice that means pushing down real wages across the board and reducing taxation on companies.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
Comments like that are why I'd change my vote if a second referendum were held.
Girlfriend's father exactly the same - a second referendum would be 60/40, methinks...
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Either Corbyn loses a post-GE leadership contest or Labour splits. That's become very clear.
Interesting that you posit those as mutually exclusive. The left won't split because they have nowhere to go? But after the past few years I doubt they will happily knuckle down and keep quiet under whatever emerges as the reincarnation of Owen Smith?
I'm sure there are (educated Leavers) but the fact that the one characteristic most leavers have in common (76% if I remember correctly) is a belief in capital punishment. I always think that is a pretty good yardstick to separate the civilised from the rest. Of course there are educated leavers it's just that they just went into hiding when the media did their vox pops before the referendum.
If I may wade into the PtP "majority idiots" debate...
If I read the original posts correctly, the point was not about the initial vote, but about the Government of the day chasing "what the majority want", whether that is the right or good thing to do.
The majority of people want free ice cream. Would we cheer on a government who promised to deliver that? That is the point about electing people who are supposed to know more or think more about what is happening than the average voter. If the only job of a politician is to ask the public what they want, then promise to deliver it, any idiot can do it.
And I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the referendum was not an extremely low information event.
Some people really believed £350m a week for the NHS, or millions of Turks will swamp your hospitals. It is, or should have been, the job of politicians who know these things are not true to make reasoned decisions, not just follow the crowd.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I wonder how many of them are actually now just cheering for the winning team, which makes a mockery of the whole "what the majority want" method of government. On any given day, that can change on a whim.
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Either Corbyn loses a post-GE leadership contest or Labour splits. That's become very clear.
Or both. Albeit a left wing splinter group funded by the egregious McCluskey, contrary to the unhinged pleading of that article, would struggle to get 2% of the vote while wrestling with the Greens and Labour.
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Either Corbyn loses a post-GE leadership contest or Labour splits. That's become very clear.
Last night I forecast the formation of the Progressive (awful word) Democratic Party, initially comprising 20 LibDem MPs + around 80 (or half of) the previous Parliamentary Labour Party, which if those numbers were proved to be correct, could potentially become HM Official Opposition.
It would mean the end of the LibDems, so I can't see that happening. A Cooperative party may be more likely. It could well become the official opposition. That said, I still think Corbyn would probably lose a leadership election as his support infrastructure would be so much weaker. Most unions would actively oppose him this time, for example.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
Or will the lower pound improve sales further?
Depends how much of the components of a car are imported. Anyone?
And North of the border, the Zoomers were disinclined to believe reports in the Scotsman that the SNP want the upcoming elections to be a platform for Indyref2. So let's turn to their house magazine, the Nat onal
I guess the Conservatives really don't want to win Richmond.
He's one of the three Conservative candidates who I simply could not vote for.
Who are the other two if I may ask ?
Sure, David Tredinnick is one. And someone who went to university with my wife is another.
Even David Tredinnick has his use.
He was able to upset our old friend tim with his medical opinions.
You know, most homeopathy believers and practicers are pretty harmless. I believe in evidence based medicine, science and government. And I get the fact that someone - who charges a relatively modest amount - and listens to your problems for half an hour probably isn't doing any harm.
But homeopathy is merely the most obvious of Tredinnick's divorcement from reality. He really believes in astrology and has pushed for its inclusion in the NHS. He's a fan of remote healing. That's proper bonkers, that is. And then there's the MMR vaccine.
There are many parts of science and policy that right thinking people can disagree about. We can talk about the extent to which equality of opportunity infringes on parent's rights. We can discuss whether global warming exists. We can argue about the best way to run a criminal justice system or what the correct rate of marginal tax is.
All these things are - passionately - debatable.
But astrology is not. Nor is remote healing. Nor homeopathy. Tredinnick is a fraud or an idiot. Whichever it is, he shouldn't be an elected official.
Unfortunately people are allowed to vote for idiots. It's the parties' faults for selecting them.
David Tredinnick's views on Homeopathy are extremely dangerous. There are instances where Cancer patients have forsaken their prescribed medication for homeopathic remedies. When I was asked to include homeopathy in the Medical Curriculum, I said - Sure, provide me with double blind control studies showing it works and I'll change the curriculum. Nobody ever contacted me.
There's a great line in Tim Minchin's polemic Storm:
Do you know what we call alternative medicine which has been proven to work?
Medicine.
David Tredinnick wants to return medicine to the 16th century.
It would be very good news if it was confirmed that he was not standing again.
Morning all. Great news overnight about Esther McVey in Tatton, she should find that somewhat easier going than Wirral.
Not such great news about Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park - what have the local association being smoking if they think he's a good idea again, after he resigned from the party a few months ago? I'd vote LD in that seat just to send the message.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
Leavers typically made their decisions after consideration, in my belief, and certainly aren't stupid. However, research clearly shows people with lower levels of education had a propensity to vote Leave. It was correlated with age, the other main demographic driver to Leave. Older people had fewer opportunities for education, compared with younger people
It's interesting, isn't it, how those who remember the time before we joined the EEC were the most likely to vote to Leave?
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
Comments like that are why I'd change my vote if a second referendum were held.
Girlfriend's father exactly the same - a second referendum would be 60/40, methinks...
I presume Theresa May would now be in the Leave camp in a second Referendum? I think that - and the failure of the worst Project Fear outcomes - would get you to 60:40.
Remain had very little with which to sell the benefits of the EU first time around. Farron and Blair and sneering at the stupid now seems the best case they have.
At risk of upsetting SO's breakfast (although he knows all this already), this is an interesting read and summary of the Labour left's perspective on this election:
Either Corbyn loses a post-GE leadership contest or Labour splits. That's become very clear.
Last night I forecast the formation of the Progressive (awful word) Democratic Party, initially comprising 20 LibDem MPs + around 80 (or half of) the previous Parliamentary Labour Party, which if those numbers were proved to be correct, could potentially become HM Official Opposition.
It would mean the end of the LibDems, so I can't see that happening. A Cooperative party may be more likely. It could well become the official opposition. That said, I still think Corbyn would probably lose a leadership election as his support infrastructure would be so much weaker. Most unions would actively oppose him this time, for example.
Although retaining some sort of co-operative label might offer a short-term cover for a transition away from the Labour Party, it is hard to see it being a sound basis for a new party competing with all the others. Everyone who shops regularly at co-op would have to vote for the required constitutional changes, and the current arrangement survives only because it opaque, seen as tied up with the co-op movement's history and not actually a real political party at all.
Staff in Labour headquarters are planning to strike if Jeremy Corbyn tries to cling on after a large defeat.
The threat came as Matt Zarb-Cousin, a former media aide to Mr Corbyn, criticised Labour HQ workers, accusing them of “endless leaks” that made it difficult to function.
Officials at the party’s headquarters at Southside in Pimlico, half a mile from the Houses of Parliament, fear that the leader will refuse to go even if he loses dozens of seats on June 8.
Don't confuse them with the evidence - he is the saviour of France, Europe and the world.
Oh dear.
It's pretty obvious that the least known candidate would attract the most tactical votes.
Don't worry about Macron. You're allowed not to hate him. Theresa May wants him to beat the far right Le Pen. I promise.
So do I. And we also agree he won because he's the unknown against a load of crap. Let's see how well he reforms France in the next few years. If May likes him that's clearly good enough for you.
If I may wade into the PtP "majority idiots" debate...
If I read the original posts correctly, the point was not about the initial vote, but about the Government of the day chasing "what the majority want", whether that is the right or good thing to do.
The majority of people want free ice cream. Would we cheer on a government who promised to deliver that? That is the point about electing people who are supposed to know more or think more about what is happening than the average voter. If the only job of a politician is to ask the public what they want, then promise to deliver it, any idiot can do it.
And I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the referendum was not an extremely low information event.
Some people really believed £350m a week for the NHS, or millions of Turks will swamp your hospitals. It is, or should have been, the job of politicians who know these things are not true to make reasoned decisions, not just follow the crowd.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I wonder how many of them are actually now just cheering for the winning team, which makes a mockery of the whole "what the majority want" method of government. On any given day, that can change on a whim.
I disagree. The Referendum on EU membership (and on Scottish independence) really engaged the public. Turnout was well above general election levels in both cases. There were hundreds of well-attended debates.
And the public made the right choice in both cases.
Your argument would have more weight if you didn't start from the stance that you are the fount of all wisdom and those who disagree are automatically wrong. Most adults know that too much ice cream will be bad for you.
The Tories are streets ahead even though many of Corbyn's policies are more popular. His problem is not that he believes they are deliverable, he clearly does, but that most adults, being sensible, doubt his ability to deliver them.
Basically, they are far too sensible.
Democracy can work in your favour too, you should support it.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I voted Remain because I feared the economic damage that would come from an uncontrolled rupture - both to us and the EU, whose leadership is extraordinarily complacent about the damage Brexit could do to them in the short term.
I now want the best deal for Britain because (1) remain is no longer an option whatever some of my less than stupendously intelligent fellow remainers may think (2) it is clear that whatever the economic consequences of leaving the major political and social risks of staying in are considerably greater, given the EU has refused to honour any deal made and is now looking to punish people for exercising their democratic right to disagree with a drunken Fascist lunatic who was anointed their leader over the express warnings of every sane person (3) I happen to believe in democracy. The people have spoken and while I am still seeking to understand why my view was the minority view, we have to respect their choice. The crassness of the attempts to sidestep that vote, especially Miller's (wrapped up as it was in a lot of transparent pomposity about protecting the constitution) confirm me in that view.
As for lies - please remember both sides lied fluently. That may be a rather sad reflection on our politicians but nevertheless we cannot say we were tricked by a bunch of charlatans - that would have been true had Osborne 'punishment budget' and Corbyn 'I voted Remain' won as when Johnson '£350 million a week' and Farage 'stop the Turks' did. Indeed, I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin. Most remainers don't get, in my experience, that the EU itself is much hated, or barely tolerated, outside the SE - and that includes Scotland, where it was seen as a useful brake on London not a great institution in itself.
Morning all. Great news overnight about Esther McVey in Tatton, she should find that somewhat easier going than Wirral.
Not such great news about Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park - what have the local association being smoking if they think he's a good idea again, after he resigned from the party a few months ago? I'd vote LD in that seat just to send the message.
Ditto. We don't need self indulgent dilatants like him.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Morning all. Great news overnight about Esther McVey in Tatton, she should find that somewhat easier going than Wirral.
Not such great news about Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park - what have the local association being smoking if they think he's a good idea again, after he resigned from the party a few months ago? I'd vote LD in that seat just to send the message.
Ditto. We don't need self indulgent dilatants like him.
Morning everyone, Good to see that Tatton will hopefully have a decent MP at last (just to troll TSE :-) ). Agreed about Zac, retirement into obscurity would be the best solution.
British car manufacturing enjoyed its best month in 17 years in March fuelled by demand for vehicles from abroad.
The number of cars to roll off UK production lines rose by 7.3% last month compared with a year earlier, to 170,691 - the highest number since March 2000.
Does make one wonder why the fuck we're risking it all by leaving the EU...typical of this country just as things start looking up we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory
I think it has a lot to do with the career trajectory of Boris Johnson and seventeen million largely uneducated followers.
I know many people who voted leave. Some are (relatively) uneducated, but most are educated. And I can say exactly the same about the remain voters I know.
Education, or lack thereof, had little to do with the way people voted in the referendum, and to couch it in those terms loses you the argument. Leave won because they tried to appeal to as large an electorate as possible, with many different arguments.
Caricaturing both sides is foolish. There were plenty of intelligent Leavers, and also worth noting plenty of Remainers in places like Hartlepool and Stoke. The division in Britain is pretty comprehensive.
The division on here is comprehensive, the division in Britain is non existent.
So on topic have we seen the first and inevitable step towards the annunciation of Corbyn as our Supreme Leader in the Yougov poll?
It would certainly cause a stir in the betting markets if there was a second step in this direction.
I was reading in one of the papers yesterday that the Tory plan has been to go deliberately low profile and allow Labour to take the stage, during the early stages of the campaign at least. The usual fight for the airtime and column inches has been replaced with a view that the more exposure and scrutiny Labour gets, the better, and in the past week the Tories have said next to nothing. I suspect there is also a view that, if you are going to win anyway, the fewer commitments you make, the better.
As a GE strategy this is pretty unique - and it would be interesting if the consequence is indeed a swing back to the opposition in the polls. Although my own suspicion is that the YG is probably random variation.
Macron is in danger of being over hyped as a new darling of international politics, but clearly he's done fantastically to win the first round and is overwhelmingly the best option in the second.
So on topic have we seen the first and inevitable step towards the annunciation of Corbyn as our Supreme Leader in the Yougov poll?
It would certainly cause a stir in the betting markets if there was a second step in this direction.
I was reading in one of the papers yesterday that the Tory plan has been to go deliberately low profile and allow Labour to take the stage, during the early stages of the campaign at least. The usual fight for the airtime and column inches has been replaced with a view that the more exposure and scrutiny Labour gets, the better, and in the past week the Tories have said next to nothing. I suspect there is also a view that, if you are going to win anyway, the fewer commitments you make, the better.
As a GE strategy this is pretty unique - and it would be interesting if the consequence is indeed a swing back to the opposition in the polls. Although my own suspicion is that the YG is probably random variation.
It was the strategy of a presidential candidate in 1948.
Unfortunately the strategy of Governor Dewey, which suggests it isn't perhaps the wisest course of action.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
Staff in Labour headquarters are planning to strike if Jeremy Corbyn tries to cling on after a large defeat.
The threat came as Matt Zarb-Cousin, a former media aide to Mr Corbyn, criticised Labour HQ workers, accusing them of “endless leaks” that made it difficult to function.
Officials at the party’s headquarters at Southside in Pimlico, half a mile from the Houses of Parliament, fear that the leader will refuse to go even if he loses dozens of seats on June 8.
Any predictions about turnout in the GE? I'll go less than 60%, just about everybody I talk to, and that includes those involved with politics, are completely meh about the whole thing.
At a hustings to elect the Ukip candidate recently 6 people turned up, no candidate. I predicted 100 Ukip candidates, could be less than 50 with very few keeping their deposit.
@Claire_Phipps: Boris Johnson on @BBCr4today talking about "taking back control" and justifying the £350m to the NHS bus slogan, as if 2016 never went away
@LabourRoyall: @BBCr4today Johnson doing a Trump - dispassionate experts say £350m figure wrong - Johnson merely says number is right.
Listening to the media this morning they are in a real excited mode over Boris’s language toward Corbyn in a speech last night and an article in the sun. While I do not have the sun I have managed to read the article and its content in condemning Corbyn on UK security and the danger he is to the Country shines through and his language, in the context of the article, is just Boris being Boris.
However, the impression that his language gives is abusive if you do not know the context and in my opinion he has diluted the effect of his very good points by indulging in it.
I would say that in the wider context this is a very real example of why being abusive, even if you do not intend to be, dilutes your argument. PiP and I had a very good disagreement/discussion last night but we both addressed the argument in a professional and civil manner.
As the GE intensifies, as it will, I would respectively suggest to some of those on this forum who think that abusive language will win their viewpoint, to understand that sadly it will lose them a sensible hearing.
As far as Boris is concerned he is the darling of the leavers and his comments will have done no harm in attracting and consolidation UKIP voters to the conservative party, but neither my wife or I think he is at all suitable as a foreign secretary and hope that TM will remove him, post the election, and put in place a serious and respected politician, much as she is
On last nights You Gov poll the move across the board including the referendum suggest that it was a more remain sample and it will be interesting to see how the polls progress.
Labour has had the field to itself as it announces popular policies including yesterday’s NHS (we would all want a pay rise for doctors and nurses) but the IFS was querying the economics yesterday and when labour finally come to the end of their ‘forest of magic money trees’ the enormity of their borrowing, tax increases, and their general level of economic competence will see them fail.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
National parties with hundreds of staff could easily follow the rules or ensure their people follow the rules if they wanted. I agree it's clear the rules are not fit for purpose, but the solution is not to ignore them, and if dozens are charged, whichever side they come from, then they obviously didn't give a damn about putting in effort to pay attention, or they deliberately breached.
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
Or....if dozens do get charged - and subsequently acquitted - then it is clear we have a politicised police and CPS. And that would be concerning.
Good morning peebs. Was looking again the yougov and a thought occurs to me. The con figure is in the area I'd expect given recent mid to high 40s, labour seems high for what one might expect June 8. I wonder if we are seeing an initial mini surge from the 'fair minded' to that nice Mr Corbyn who is being so harassed which will peel off as the reality of a Labour govt emerges. I can see some high 20s labour until after next week's elections and for some further week before a slide in the red heat of the final 3-4 weeks. I expect 47-23-15-7 or thereabouts as the endgame.
So on topic have we seen the first and inevitable step towards the annunciation of Corbyn as our Supreme Leader in the Yougov poll?
It would certainly cause a stir in the betting markets if there was a second step in this direction.
I was reading in one of the papers yesterday that the Tory plan has been to go deliberately low profile and allow Labour to take the stage, during the early stages of the campaign at least. The usual fight for the airtime and column inches has been replaced with a view that the more exposure and scrutiny Labour gets, the better, and in the past week the Tories have said next to nothing. I suspect there is also a view that, if you are going to win anyway, the fewer commitments you make, the better.
As a GE strategy this is pretty unique - and it would be interesting if the consequence is indeed a swing back to the opposition in the polls. Although my own suspicion is that the YG is probably random variation.
I do think a government has to set out what it is going to do. And "our best" doesn't quite cut it.
May is not a natural campaigner in the way Cameron was. Corbyn is pathetic but marginally less so away from Westminster than he is in it. I suspect the polls will tighten somewhat but still leave a pretty comfortable Tory win. Some of the chase for "value" in longer shots at constituency level is, in my view, likely to prove highly optimistic.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
David, "increasingly blurred " to describe Tories cheating and breaking the law does not half show that you are a lawyer. It was deliberate.
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
No.
Although 48% voted Remain, it's a small minority who sneer at the "lesser" part of the population, as you see it.
Any predictions about turnout in the GE? I'll go less than 60%, just about everybody I talk to, and that includes those involved with politics, are completely meh about the whole thing.
At a hustings to elect the Ukip candidate recently 6 people turned up, no candidate. I predicted 100 Ukip candidates, could be less than 50 with very few keeping their deposit.
And that is why it is difficult not to see a good Theresa May majority.
I am coming to the conclusion that labour's base may be between 25-27% as suggested by NIck yesterday with a better performance in London and the South but a dreadful performance in the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales. This does seem to be the mood music from labour MP's who must be having a torrid time in some part of the Country. Sadly, I have no sympathy as they have brought this entirely on themselves
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
David, "increasingly blurred " to describe Tories cheating and breaking the law does not half show that you are a lawyer. It was deliberate.
All parties "broke the law", but only one has been hounded by Crick.
Any predictions about turnout in the GE? I'll go less than 60%, just about everybody I talk to, and that includes those involved with politics, are completely meh about the whole thing.
From a current quick check of Survation 10/10 to vote compared with actual turnout i think it will be down about 3 percentage points in Scotland.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
David, "increasingly blurred " to describe Tories cheating and breaking the law does not half show that you are a lawyer. It was deliberate.
All parties "broke the law", but only one has been hounded by Crick.
Didn't realise Crick was in charge of so many police forces.
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
You're projecting your own views on to half the population.
We appreciate that you don't like the lower classes, but not everyone shares your prejudices.
Listening to the media this morning they are in a real excited mode over Boris’s language toward Corbyn in a speech last night and an article in the sun. While I do not have the sun I have managed to read the article and its content in condemning Corbyn on UK security and the danger he is to the Country shines through and his language, in the context of the article, is just Boris being Boris.
However, the impression that his language gives is abusive if you do not know the context and in my opinion he has diluted the effect of his very good points by indulging in it.
I would say that in the wider context this is a very real example of why being abusive, even if you do not intend to be, dilutes your argument. PiP and I had a very good disagreement/discussion last night but we both addressed the argument in a professional and civil manner.
As the GE intensifies, as it will, I would respectively suggest to some of those on this forum who think that abusive language will win their viewpoint, to understand that sadly it will lose them a sensible hearing.
Very good point re abusive language and point making. I do believe it can be useful and appropriate at times to indulge in invective and exagerration in political discourse, and sound points can and are made within otherwise offensive commentary and so such should not be entirely discounted as a matter of course, however most of the time it is not necessary or helpful to punctuate a point with such vulgarity. I'm a fan of cursing having real impact, you bring it out to slam home a point, line a recent nick cohen piece. It can really be striking, but too much in that vein can dull the sense a bit - if people break out the abusivess on everything, how do I know this time they're really angry?
More to the point I think it sets off my work's profanity filter and I end up missing half the thread pages.
Thick Ruthie is obsessed about it , it is the only Tory utterance , SNPbad we don't want independence
Morning Malc - If I was living in Scotland I would have supported the SNP as they are pro business and have a good social agenda. However, their obsession with Independence has resulted in the resurgence of a large pro Union vote in Scotland which Ruth is tapping into. Over the last 18 months I would have moved to support Ruth, but no, not everything the SNP does is bad
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
Get over it mate, half the population have accepted it, they've got more important things to worry about.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
National parties with hundreds of staff could easily follow the rules or ensure their people follow the rules if they wanted. I agree it's clear the rules are not fit for purpose, but the solution is not to ignore them, and if dozens are charged, whichever side they come from, then they obviously didn't give a damn about putting in effort to pay attention, or they deliberately breached.
Good morning peebs. Was looking again the yougov and a thought occurs to me. The con figure is in the area I'd expect given recent mid to high 40s, labour seems high for what one might expect June 8. I wonder if we are seeing an initial mini surge from the 'fair minded' to that nice Mr Corbyn who is being so harassed which will peel off as the reality of a Labour govt emerges. I can see some high 20s labour until after next week's elections and for some further week before a slide in the red heat of the final 3-4 weeks. I expect 47-23-15-7 or thereabouts as the endgame.
I think 45 and 25 is more likely, but I think you may be right about this surge. Unless the piling up of votes from his fans matches perfectly the many non fans we know he had, it's inexplicable Lab are so high, even if we consider the core vote and those against a huge majority, but a reaction against the massive leads makes sense. If it is sustained, then lab remains impressively popular.
Good morning peebs. Was looking again the yougov and a thought occurs to me. The con figure is in the area I'd expect given recent mid to high 40s, labour seems high for what one might expect June 8. I wonder if we are seeing an initial mini surge from the 'fair minded' to that nice Mr Corbyn who is being so harassed which will peel off as the reality of a Labour govt emerges. I can see some high 20s labour until after next week's elections and for some further week before a slide in the red heat of the final 3-4 weeks. I expect 47-23-15-7 or thereabouts as the endgame.
I think 45 and 25 is more likely, but I think you may be right about this surge. Unless the piling up of votes from his fans matches perfectly the many non fans we know he had, it's inexplicable Lab are so high, even if we consider the core vote and those against a huge majority, but a reaction against the massive leads makes sense. If it is sustained, then lab remains impressively popular.
Agreed. If Labour don't breach 25 under Corbyn, they never will.
Putting the Con and Lab movements to one side - surely the LD and UKIP movements in this poll are very hard to believe.
UKIP up - when all the narrative is of UKIP falling and they've had a poor news cycle as well over the last couple of days.
LD down - when surely the LDs should be gaining during the campaign with increased publicity etc.
If UKIP and LD movements are wrong then every chance Con and Lab may be wrong too.
Also note that the recent Survation 11% lead had an unusually high UKIP figure.
We're in danger of reading an artificial precision into an inherently fuzzy process. The specific numbers are just the midpoint of a smeared distribution of probability for any poll.
This poll says Tories mid-forties, Labour high-twenties, Lib Dems low double figures, UKIP mid-single-figures and most polls are pretty close to that.
Sometimes we get Tories high-forties and Labour mid-twenties and that's pretty much the only variation.
Sometimes I think we should release a polling scale that isn't percentile but something like: Low single figues (0-3): Level 1 Mid single figures (3-7): Level 2 High single figures (7-10): Level 3 Low double figures (10-13): Level 4 Mid double figures (13-17): Level 5 High double figures (17-20): Level 6 Low twenties (20-23): Level 7 Mid twenties (23-27): Level 8 High twenties (27-30): Level 9 Low thirties (30-33): Level 10 Mid thirties (33-37): Level 11 High thirties (37-40): Level 12 Low forties (40-43): Level 13 Mid forties (43-47): Level 14 High forties (47-50): Level 15 Low fifties (50-53): Level 16 Mid fifties (53-57): Level 17 High fifties (57-60): Level 18
If we need more over that top, we can add on simply enough.
So this poll is Tories Level 14, Labour Level 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2 All polls have had Tories Level 14 or 15, Labour Level 8 or 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2, with very brief exceptions on those latter ones.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
Or....if dozens do get charged - and subsequently acquitted - then it is clear we have a politicised police and CPS. And that would be concerning.
Perhaps. But that there seems a lot of deflection and 'the rules are real confusing guys' justification online tells me the arty should be very worried if they are charged, which is not certain yet.
If I may wade into the PtP "majority idiots" debate...
If I read the original posts correctly, the point was not about the initial vote, but about the Government of the day chasing "what the majority want", whether that is the right or good thing to do.
The majority of people want free ice cream. Would we cheer on a government who promised to deliver that? That is the point about electing people who are supposed to know more or think more about what is happening than the average voter. If the only job of a politician is to ask the public what they want, then promise to deliver it, any idiot can do it.
And I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the referendum was not an extremely low information event.
Some people really believed £350m a week for the NHS, or millions of Turks will swamp your hospitals. It is, or should have been, the job of politicians who know these things are not true to make reasoned decisions, not just follow the crowd.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I wonder how many of them are actually now just cheering for the winning team, which makes a mockery of the whole "what the majority want" method of government. On any given day, that can change on a whim.
I voted Remain reluctantly last year, I'm not thrilled about Mrs May, and even less so about some of the Leave supporting MPS on the right of the party. In an ideal world Dave and George would still be cruising around Downing Street and IDS, Bone , Fox et al would still be in the corner of the creche for backward politicians muttering inanities to each other.
BUT we are where we are. As a middle of the road voter sadly May is the only game in town,. Corbyn...I think not, I could have been tempted by Clegg but Farron is too left wing and immensely irritating to boot.
Like many, now we are leaving and the government and PM I supported has gone, I just don't like or care enough about the EU and it's goals to go into bat for it again. Doesn't mean we think the Leave campaign, the motivations of its voters or the current govt are laudable. It's not about supporting the winning team. What's the alternative? Corbyn.
I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin.
Of course it would have.
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
Don't be silly. Even if a majority in the 17 million shared that view, enough disagree to make assuming they are one demographic untenable.
Putting the Con and Lab movements to one side - surely the LD and UKIP movements in this poll are very hard to believe.
UKIP up - when all the narrative is of UKIP falling and they've had a poor news cycle as well over the last couple of days.
LD down - when surely the LDs should be gaining during the campaign with increased publicity etc.
If UKIP and LD movements are wrong then every chance Con and Lab may be wrong too.
Also note that the recent Survation 11% lead had an unusually high UKIP figure.
We're in danger of reading an artificial precision into an inherently fuzzy process. The specific numbers are just the midpoint of a smeared distribution of probability for any poll.
This poll says Tories mid-forties, Labour high-twenties, Lib Dems low double figures, UKIP mid-single-figures and most polls are pretty close to that.
Sometimes we get Tories high-forties and Labour mid-twenties and that's pretty much the only variation.
Sometimes I think we should release a polling scale that isn't percentile but something like: Low single figues (0-3): Level 1 Mid single figures (3-7): Level 2 High single figures (7-10): Level 3 Low double figures (10-13): Level 4 Mid double figures (13-17): Level 5 High double figures (17-20): Level 6 Low twenties (20-23): Level 7 Mid twenties (23-27): Level 8 High twenties (27-30): Level 9 Low thirties (30-33): Level 10 Mid thirties (33-37): Level 11 High thirties (37-40): Level 12 Low forties (40-43): Level 13 Mid forties (43-47): Level 14 High forties (47-50): Level 15 Low fifties (50-53): Level 16 Mid fifties (53-57): Level 17 High fifties (57-60): Level 18
If we need more over that top, we can add on simply enough.
So this poll is Tories Level 14, Labour Level 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2 All polls have had Tories Level 14 or 15, Labour Level 8 or 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2, with very brief exceptions on those latter ones.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I voted Remain because I feared the economic damage that would come from an uncontrolled rupture - both to us and the EU, whose leadership is extraordinarily complacent about the damage Brexit could do to them in the short term.
I now want the best deal for Britain because (1) remain is no longer an option whatever some of my less than stupendously intelligent fellow remainers may think (2) it is clear that whatever the economic consequences of leaving the major political and social risks of staying in are considerably greater, given the EU has refused to honour any deal made and is now looking to punish people for exercising their democratic right to disagree with a drunken Fascist lunatic who was anointed their leader over the express warnings of every sane person (3) I happen to believe in democracy. The people have spoken and while I am still seeking to understand why my view was the minority view, we have to respect their choice. The crassness of the attempts to sidestep that vote, especially Miller's (wrapped up as it was in a lot of transparent pomposity about protecting the constitution) confirm me in that view.
As for lies - please remember both sides lied fluently. That may be a rather sad reflection on our politicians but nevertheless we cannot say we were tricked by a bunch of charlatans - that would have been true had Osborne 'punishment budget' and Corbyn 'I voted Remain' won as when Johnson '£350 million a week' and Farage 'stop the Turks' did. Indeed, I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin. Most remainers don't get, in my experience, that the EU itself is much hated, or barely tolerated, outside the SE - and that includes Scotland, where it was seen as a useful brake on London not a great institution in itself.
" ... exercising their democratic right to disagree with a drunken Fascist lunatic who was anointed their leader"
I voted Remain reluctantly last year, I'm not thrilled about Mrs May, and even less so about some of the Leave supporting MPS on the right of the party. In an ideal world Dave and George would still be cruising around Downing Street and IDS, Bone , Fox et al would still be in the corner of the creche for backward politicians muttering inanities to each other.
BUT we are where we are. As a middle of the road voter sadly May is the only game in town,. Corbyn...I think not, I could have been tempted by Clegg but Farron is too left wing and immensely irritating to boot.
Like many, now we are leaving and the government and PM I supported has gone, I just don't like or care enough about the EU and it's goals to go into bat for it again. Doesn't mean we think the Leave campaign, the motivations of its voters or the current govt are laudable. It's not about supporting the winning team. What's the alternative? Corbyn.
A reasoned and thorough reply, and I understand voting May as the least worst option. I will not vote for my Brexiteer Tory MP, but I expect him to win anyway.
The bit I would query is this " I just don't like or care enough about the EU and it's goals to go into bat for it again"
I think there is a difference between the political goals of the EU (which I have no affection for particularly), and the economic benefits of the single market.
I think we have burned our economic future for the chance to wave a flag, and I don't currently foresee a time when I will be happy with that outcome.
Before Mrs May called the election, he did a piece where his sources told him that the Crosby polling in the South West marginals was to do with worries over expense charges.
How many of these will result in prosecutions? And in how many of these prosecutions will a jury find there was intent? Very, very few is my assessment.
And yet it is routinely talked of on here as a massive scandal that was going to bring down the Government's majority.
I doubt it would change the general outcome, and other parties breached rules and got fined too, but if dozens do end getting charged then that is pretty clear that there was a coordinated effort to break the law, or to have no care that the law was followed, and that would be concerning
There is a maximum of 30 apparently, many of whom are going to be agents since they carry more responsibility in these matters and some of whom may not be Conservatives. Of those who are not MPs it is quite possible some will be from party HQs.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
David, "increasingly blurred " to describe Tories cheating and breaking the law does not half show that you are a lawyer. It was deliberate.
Putting the Con and Lab movements to one side - surely the LD and UKIP movements in this poll are very hard to believe.
UKIP up - when all the narrative is of UKIP falling and they've had a poor news cycle as well over the last couple of days.
LD down - when surely the LDs should be gaining during the campaign with increased publicity etc.
If UKIP and LD movements are wrong then every chance Con and Lab may be wrong too.
Also note that the recent Survation 11% lead had an unusually high UKIP figure.
FWIW I think that Farron's perceived vacillation over whether being gay is a sin has damaged him with precisely the middle-class anti-Brexit vote that he's trying to woo. Even people who aren't too keen on gay marriage think the whole sin thing is very last century, and the underlying message that he's big on hardline religion is again not a good picturr for the potential convertees.
If the post 2015 election adjustments had not been made , it is likely that this Yougov poll would have shown a Tory lead of circa 12% - a big margin but not quite out of sight as it were. Some commentators have suggested that the pollsters may have overcompensated following their 2015 debacle and as a consequence are flattering the Tories a bit. Time will tell - but worth bearing in mind.
Comments
It's not all remainers: there's a vocal minority who are like this, and your response does nothing to try to attract over the remainers who have not changed their mind.
Leave and remain sadly appear just as divisive as it was a year ago.
If I may wade into the PtP "majority idiots" debate...
If I read the original posts correctly, the point was not about the initial vote, but about the Government of the day chasing "what the majority want", whether that is the right or good thing to do.
The majority of people want free ice cream. Would we cheer on a government who promised to deliver that? That is the point about electing people who are supposed to know more or think more about what is happening than the average voter. If the only job of a politician is to ask the public what they want, then promise to deliver it, any idiot can do it.
And I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the referendum was not an extremely low information event.
Some people really believed £350m a week for the NHS, or millions of Turks will swamp your hospitals. It is, or should have been, the job of politicians who know these things are not true to make reasoned decisions, not just follow the crowd.
I am also curious about those people who voted remain, but are now ardent leavers who "want the best deal for Britain"
The best deal for Britain was remain. If they didn't think that at the time, why did they vote that way.
I wonder how many of them are actually now just cheering for the winning team, which makes a mockery of the whole "what the majority want" method of government. On any given day, that can change on a whim.
@joncraig: I'm told Sir Edward Garnier, 64, MP for Harborough, Oadby & Wigston, is poised to become the latest Tory MP to announce he's stepping down.
https://twitter.com/scotnational/status/857328296715014144
Not such great news about Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park - what have the local association being smoking if they think he's a good idea again, after he resigned from the party a few months ago? I'd vote LD in that seat just to send the message.
Remain had very little with which to sell the benefits of the EU first time around. Farron and Blair and sneering at the stupid now seems the best case they have.
The threat came as Matt Zarb-Cousin, a former media aide to Mr Corbyn, criticised Labour HQ workers, accusing them of “endless leaks” that made it difficult to function.
Officials at the party’s headquarters at Southside in Pimlico, half a mile from the Houses of Parliament, fear that the leader will refuse to go even if he loses dozens of seats on June 8.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/63ebc31e-2ac0-11e7-ae85-aa7f1ff8d93b
And the public made the right choice in both cases.
Your argument would have more weight if you didn't start from the stance that you are the fount of all wisdom and those who disagree are automatically wrong. Most adults know that too much ice cream will be bad for you.
The Tories are streets ahead even though many of Corbyn's policies are more popular. His problem is not that he believes they are deliverable, he clearly does, but that most adults, being sensible, doubt his ability to deliver them.
Basically, they are far too sensible.
Democracy can work in your favour too, you should support it.
It would certainly cause a stir in the betting markets if there was a second step in this direction.
I now want the best deal for Britain because (1) remain is no longer an option whatever some of my less than stupendously intelligent fellow remainers may think (2) it is clear that whatever the economic consequences of leaving the major political and social risks of staying in are considerably greater, given the EU has refused to honour any deal made and is now looking to punish people for exercising their democratic right to disagree with a drunken Fascist lunatic who was anointed their leader over the express warnings of every sane person (3) I happen to believe in democracy. The people have spoken and while I am still seeking to understand why my view was the minority view, we have to respect their choice. The crassness of the attempts to sidestep that vote, especially Miller's (wrapped up as it was in a lot of transparent pomposity about protecting the constitution) confirm me in that view.
As for lies - please remember both sides lied fluently. That may be a rather sad reflection on our politicians but nevertheless we cannot say we were tricked by a bunch of charlatans - that would have been true had Osborne 'punishment budget' and Corbyn 'I voted Remain' won as when Johnson '£350 million a week' and Farage 'stop the Turks' did. Indeed, I suspect had the Remain campaign been honest the No campaign would have won by a far larger margin. Most remainers don't get, in my experience, that the EU itself is much hated, or barely tolerated, outside the SE - and that includes Scotland, where it was seen as a useful brake on London not a great institution in itself.
Is Mr. Pedley the only man in Britain with worse holiday timing than Mr. Smithson?
On the face of it, the biggest failure of the Remain campaign was that they weren't selling the Remain option - the very language of "against Brexit" shows as much.
But then again, had they been honest and tried to sell the idea of a federal EU, they would have lost by 70/30 - minimum.
Cameron really put them in zugzwang.
Good to see that Tatton will hopefully have a decent MP at last (just to troll TSE :-) ).
Agreed about Zac, retirement into obscurity would be the best solution.
As a GE strategy this is pretty unique - and it would be interesting if the consequence is indeed a swing back to the opposition in the polls. Although my own suspicion is that the YG is probably random variation.
Unfortunately the strategy of Governor Dewey, which suggests it isn't perhaps the wisest course of action.
One of the major issues is that our rules are no longer fit for purpose. When you can have very detailed and focussed analysis of the electorate using algorithms so that each address by electronic media is personalised where does that fit in our traditional funding? There used to be a fairly clear division between national campaign spending and local spending but it is increasingly blurred.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-media-general-election-labour/
At a hustings to elect the Ukip candidate recently 6 people turned up, no candidate. I predicted 100 Ukip candidates, could be less than 50 with very few keeping their deposit.
@LabourRoyall: @BBCr4today Johnson doing a Trump - dispassionate experts say £350m figure wrong - Johnson merely says number is right.
However, the impression that his language gives is abusive if you do not know the context and in my opinion he has diluted the effect of his very good points by indulging in it.
I would say that in the wider context this is a very real example of why being abusive, even if you do not intend to be, dilutes your argument. PiP and I had a very good disagreement/discussion last night but we both addressed the argument in a professional and civil manner.
As the GE intensifies, as it will, I would respectively suggest to some of those on this forum who think that abusive language will win their viewpoint, to understand that sadly it will lose them a sensible hearing.
As far as Boris is concerned he is the darling of the leavers and his comments will have done no harm in attracting and consolidation UKIP voters to the conservative party, but neither my wife or I think he is at all suitable as a foreign secretary and hope that TM will remove him, post the election, and put in place a serious and respected politician, much as she is
On last nights You Gov poll the move across the board including the referendum suggest that it was a more remain sample and it will be interesting to see how the polls progress.
Labour has had the field to itself as it announces popular policies including yesterday’s NHS (we would all want a pay rise for doctors and nurses) but the IFS was querying the economics yesterday and when labour finally come to the end of their ‘forest of magic money trees’ the enormity of their borrowing, tax increases, and their general level of economic competence will see them fail.
Why were we selling the governance of this country like we would sell a washing powder? The first vox pop I heard was from a bingo hall in Preston. They were asked on a show of hands which way they would vote. It was 100% Leave. When they were asked why all of those interviewed said it was because they ddn't want foreigners.
We either accept the 17 million are a demographic and stop pussyfooting around or we decide collectively to make our decisions differently. Because half the population wil never accept as reasonable the views of the Preston bingo players
I expect 47-23-15-7 or thereabouts as the endgame.
May is not a natural campaigner in the way Cameron was. Corbyn is pathetic but marginally less so away from Westminster than he is in it. I suspect the polls will tighten somewhat but still leave a pretty comfortable Tory win. Some of the chase for "value" in longer shots at constituency level is, in my view, likely to prove highly optimistic.
Although 48% voted Remain, it's a small minority who sneer at the "lesser" part of the population, as you see it.
I am coming to the conclusion that labour's base may be between 25-27% as suggested by NIck yesterday with a better performance in London and the South but a dreadful performance in the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales. This does seem to be the mood music from labour MP's who must be having a torrid time in some part of the Country. Sadly, I have no sympathy as they have brought this entirely on themselves
Which could well be crucial
We appreciate that you don't like the lower classes, but not everyone shares your prejudices.
More to the point I think it sets off my work's profanity filter and I end up missing half the thread pages.
Bingo for one.
This poll says Tories mid-forties, Labour high-twenties, Lib Dems low double figures, UKIP mid-single-figures and most polls are pretty close to that.
Sometimes we get Tories high-forties and Labour mid-twenties and that's pretty much the only variation.
Sometimes I think we should release a polling scale that isn't percentile but something like:
Low single figues (0-3): Level 1
Mid single figures (3-7): Level 2
High single figures (7-10): Level 3
Low double figures (10-13): Level 4
Mid double figures (13-17): Level 5
High double figures (17-20): Level 6
Low twenties (20-23): Level 7
Mid twenties (23-27): Level 8
High twenties (27-30): Level 9
Low thirties (30-33): Level 10
Mid thirties (33-37): Level 11
High thirties (37-40): Level 12
Low forties (40-43): Level 13
Mid forties (43-47): Level 14
High forties (47-50): Level 15
Low fifties (50-53): Level 16
Mid fifties (53-57): Level 17
High fifties (57-60): Level 18
If we need more over that top, we can add on simply enough.
So this poll is Tories Level 14, Labour Level 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2
All polls have had Tories Level 14 or 15, Labour Level 8 or 9, LDs Level 4, UKIP Level 2, with very brief exceptions on those latter ones.
BUT we are where we are. As a middle of the road voter sadly May is the only game in town,. Corbyn...I think not, I could have been tempted by Clegg but Farron is too left wing and immensely irritating to boot.
Like many, now we are leaving and the government and PM I supported has gone, I just don't like or care enough about the EU and it's goals to go into bat for it again. Doesn't mean we think the Leave campaign, the motivations of its voters or the current govt are laudable. It's not about supporting the winning team. What's the alternative? Corbyn.
That's no way to talk about our PM!
The bit I would query is this " I just don't like or care enough about the EU and it's goals to go into bat for it again"
I think there is a difference between the political goals of the EU (which I have no affection for particularly), and the economic benefits of the single market.
I think we have burned our economic future for the chance to wave a flag, and I don't currently foresee a time when I will be happy with that outcome.