That is by far the most surprising thing of the whole election campaign. The Remain fight back hasn't even got off the runway.
This was marketed as the Brexit election but it hasn't turned out that way. Conversely, if reports are true and Crosby is getting the Tories to hammer away on Brexit for the final fortnight then that may help the Lib Dems.
But what more is there to say about Brexit? We're leaving....job done. Not much of a dialogue for 7 weeks. Anybody in CCHQ who thought this wouldn't end up being about everything but Brexit was an idiot.
Well according to the Lib Dems there is a lot more to say.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
A failure would be a harsh word, but these things are surely judged on a case by case basis - against Corbyn, who was expected to do much worse than it now appears will be the case, she at the least has failed to make the most of this. Tories probably would be happy with 50-70 majority, and if Corbyn can be ousted that would be good for the country probably, but this was also the best opportunity the Tories have had in a long long time for a massive majority, to gain territory in places they have not held in decades, or never held. And that chance has been blown. Was it a great chance ever, despite the massive poll leads? Possibly not, but it was a chance.
Do people have any thoughts on the Lib Dem leadership after the election, if they do as badly as these polls are suggesting?
It looks as though the most credible alternative leaders (including Clegg) are the likeliest to lose their seats.
It's a really intriguing market I think. I'll wait til nearer the 8th before a bet. Lamb was 2/1 fav a week or so ago. He's 9/2 now because he's no longer fav for his seat. I think he might now be the value bet because if he does hold his seat he's hot fav for the job.
If she wins back her seat Jo Swinson will be the next leader .
Probably a good call.
I think that mid teens is still most likely for LDs ( though my betting is best under 10).
Are we having a PB prediction contest on NOJAM? I am not bothered by a prize, but the bragging rights are worth having.
(leafs casually through his London Mayoral NOJAM prize!)
If May gets a majority of 50-60, she will have been vindicated, even if it's much less than hoped for.
I agree that Corbyn has been a much better campaigner than I expected.
A majority of 50 to 60 on this manifesto is much better than a majority of 150 on an anodyne manifesto.
Looking at tonight's polls, I'm comfortable saying that the current "true" polling position has the CON share around 44%. That's still enough for a comfortable majority.
Yes I agree. May is expending political capital whilst she can. Of course this does presuppose the required majority. But if true it is very smart and does rather ridicule those eager to criticise her. Simply put she will have a mandate both for brexit and other issues. The one which is causing the trouble is the one that tentatively unwinds pensioner benefits - benefits which many on here have been eager to criticise. Blair wasted his political capital. He trumpeted think the unthinkable and then thought better of it himself. He ran away from raising the pension age and tackling LA pensions (that was Alan Johnson wasn't it? A laugh a song and dance and a silly walk were the limits of his politics).
Personally I can live with the WFA if the means test does for us. I'd be upset if the free bus pass went. It encourages me to get out - and spend. Its good for the economy!
If the Tories are doing a 're-launch' of their manifesto, they'd better get it fucking right. I mean obsidian sharp.
Imagine another U turn a week before the election. Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott get their greedy mits on a two trillion pound economy. Let that sink in.
If May gets a majority of 50-60, she will have been vindicated, even if it's much less than hoped for.
I agree that Corbyn has been a much better campaigner than I expected.
A majority of 50 to 60 on this manifesto is much better than a majority of 150 on an anodyne manifesto.
Looking at tonight's polls, I'm comfortable saying that the current "true" polling position has the CON share around 44%. That's still enough for a comfortable majority.
Yes I agree. May is expending political capital whilst she can. Of course this does presuppose the required majority. But if true it is very smart and does rather ridicule those eager to criticise her. Simply put she will have a mandate both for brexit and other issues.
I applaud her for that if it was why they included things they knew would be unpopular (what else could removing freebies be?), priortising at the expense of a larger majority. I hope, if that was the honourable intention, that the public do not make Corbyn PM because of it. There was never a better time to honestly tell her own voters you cannot have the triple lock, or all get winter fuels allowance and so on, and it deserved a hit, but not the firing up of Labour support so dramatically as has happened.
Dan Hodges on Sky News paper review. Unsurprisingly he says that "Corbyn has himself to blame" for what's going to be thrown at him over the next week.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
.... but I have never (never mind continuously) insisted that Britain couldn't leave the EU without destroying the nation, either literally or metaphorically.
And I maintain that the EU cannot reach it's final goal without destroying ALL its member nations, replacing them with a new structure which it believes is better.
I don't believe that it would be better. I respect the idealism of the pan-europeans but think them dangerously naive. However, "your mileage may vary" (as the saying goes).
I agree. Its old ground but the ever closer union is what Cameron claimed to have kept us out of. I was willing to give that a go. But we are out now and I for one have no desire to go back in and have that Sword of Damocles held over us again. Unlike some I am sanguine about EU immigration and worried about inward investment. But the boat has sailed.
If May gets a majority of 50-60, she will have been vindicated, even if it's much less than hoped for.
I agree that Corbyn has been a much better campaigner than I expected.
A majority of 50 to 60 on this manifesto is much better than a majority of 150 on an anodyne manifesto.
Looking at tonight's polls, I'm comfortable saying that the current "true" polling position has the CON share around 44%. That's still enough for a comfortable majority.
Yes I agree. May is expending political capital whilst she can. Of course this does presuppose the required majority. But if true it is very smart and does rather ridicule those eager to criticise her. Simply put she will have a mandate both for brexit and other issues. The one which is causing the trouble is the one that tentatively unwinds pensioner benefits - benefits which many on here have been eager to criticise. Blair wasted his political capital. He trumpeted think the unthinkable and then thought better of it himself. He ran away from raising the pension age and tackling LA pensions (that was Alan Johnson wasn't it? A laugh a song and dance and a silly walk were the limits of his politics).
Personally I can live with the WFA if the means test does for us. I'd be upset if the free bus pass went. It encourages me to get out - and spend. Its good for the economy!
The Conservative manifesto and the role of TM in both it and the subsequent u turn were in no way smart politics.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
I was just about to make the same point. Can't have it both ways.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
She has failed to either enunciate or sell her vision for Britain or Brexit. She has failed to motivate her party, and she has failed to back her own manifesto. She will win by default, but the knives are being sharpened already. Tories are an elected dictatorship with regicide the mechanism for renewal.
Victory will turn to ashes in her mouth, before the year is out.
Dan Hodges on Sky News paper review. Unsurprisingly he says that "Corbyn has himself to blame" for what's going to be thrown at him over the next week.
On Page 1 of the Observer it is revealed that the Pope is Catholic.
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he?
We will have to wait and see, but on paper I thought that the Labour Party could hardly find a worse candidate, unless Peter Sutcliffe is a party member.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few years to somebody in the world of football.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
Dan Hodges on Sky News paper review. Unsurprisingly he says that "Corbyn has himself to blame" for what's going to be thrown at him over the next week.
On Page 1 of the Observer it is revealed that the Pope is Catholic.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
That's great, although I truly don't get it. Why him? His schtick is not new, he's got a kindly demeanour but he's not hugely charismatic, why are they so fired up by him rather than merely like him?
Does anyone - anyone! - and i include the PB Tories - think May will make a good PM? Anyone??
"Good" is a POV. She'll take us out of the EU properly, which for me is good but I suspect for you is bad.
Again, you haven't answered my question. Any fuckwit could take us out of the EU. Even I could.
How do you define a 'good PM'?
Criterion 1 is: not a meddling, curtain twitching, provincialist weirdo dullard.
As an Oxford graduate she is not really a dullard, is she? I don't know what a provincialist is, but the provinces do cover the vast majority of the country. How about something positive?
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
I was just about to make the same point. Can't have it both ways.
The truth is that he is voter repellent mostly to people who would never vote anything but Conservative .
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
What about the polls weight DNVs correctly and Labour performs just as the polls predict?
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
Why was she not strong enough to stamp out petty back office bickering.
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
I won't claim global Stalinst conspiracy, it'll be all down to Mrs May being crap.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few year to somebody in the world of football.
That sort of works but Arsenal are not known by anyone as 'The Reds', that's Manu.
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
That is true, kle, if they get the re-launch wrong. If they get it right, and they'd better, then it is a high reward strategy.
All they need to do is nail that social care and WFP stuff. I say all they need to do because it's damned difficult, but they have to do something to seal the deal, as it were.
It's all about the timing, and while Corbyn spontaneously combusts over the IRA stuff, the Tories sneak in and get some good headlines rather than bad ones. They have to grab the iron while its hot.
It's got to be worth doing because the consequences of not winning the election are too horrific to contemplate.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few years to somebody in the world of football.
Arsene Wenger, he's won more than you (okay, since he's been in charge of Arsenal in the case of Liverpool).
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few year to somebody in the world of football.
That sort of works but Arsenal are not known by anyone as 'The Reds', that's Manu.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
I was just about to make the same point. Can't have it both ways.
I confess I am oddly attracted to TV's Dr Lucy Worsley.
She has that petite posh Tinkerbell thing going on.
Indeed. I also like Hannah Fry. And of course Rachel Riley.
Phew. Glad to see you on a Saturday night thread Max. Was worried the polling tension had become too much!
Also, Rachel Riley was at Ox the same time as me. It is a tragedy that our paths never crossed....
Bah, polling tension. Though we wouldn't have any if Theresa wasn't so crap, or at least fired Nick Timothy and got Oliver Letwin back in.
Also, very glad we flew in with Swiss today! Normally we go BA. Would probably have got stuck in Zurich and missed one of my best friend's weddings.
Flew to a Malaga stag a few weeks ago with BA. Attrocious.
Whoever came up with the clever idea of getting very experienced air stewards who are used to charmingly doling out free goodies to charge for them has probably just cost them their short haul business model, and all their differentiation from Easyjet etc.
They do realise that many business people flew BA so they don't have to faff around with expenses claims, right?
Yeah it's completely stupid. One of the last few remaining reasons for me to bother with BA short haul. Now I do it for the measly short haul tier points, but given I do the journey every fortnight I'm racking up an insane number of points. Not enough to make GGL but should easily make gold again.
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
That is true, kle, if they get the re-launch wrong. If they get it right, and they'd better, then it is a high reward strategy.
All they need to do is nail that social care and WFP. I say all they need to do because it's damned difficult, but they have to do something to seal the deal, as it were.
It's all about the timing, and while Corbyn spontaneously combusts over the IRA stuff, the Tories sneak in and get some good headlines rather than bad ones.
It's got to be worth doing because the consequences of not winning the election are too horrific to contemplate.
My worry is they might make an almighty mess they've made even worse as they meddle. Corbyn isn't combusing over the IRA stuff, so they do need good headlines (and let us not forget charges may be incoming on South Thanet, which would have been shrugged off if they had a positive narrative about their campaign which they now lack), but while anything they do to clarify their position will be called a u-turn or not strong and stable, it is very high risk, as you identify by calling it high reward if they get it right.
I have zero confidence they will, since everything they have done to date has led to Labour increases. It sets the stage for what they do now as desperate, whether it is or not, and frames how it will be perceived.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few years to somebody in the world of football.
Arsene Wenger, he's won more than you (okay, since he's been in charge of Arsenal in the case of Liverpool).
He's never won the European Cup and League Cup, the two most important trophies in football.
We've won them 4 times since Wenger became Arsenal manager.
(Honestly I'm a huge fan of Wenger, I just worry at the start of the next season Arsenal have a bad run, and he's forced out, he deserves better than that.)
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
I honestly don't see it. I think Labour are leeching younger voters away from the greens and Lib Dems, but not engaging new young voters in large enough numbers.
In amongst the fantasing about who everyone would like to see fail on June the 8th I'd just like to say the the funniest result of election night would be for John Lamont to fail to take Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.
He's resigned his Holyrood seat (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire which is the Holyrood equivalent of BRS) to contest BRS so I can't work out if it would be funnier if Rachael Hamilton lost ERB or if she held it for the Conservatives.
Whilst I would be personally poorer of wallet I would be richer in mirth.
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
That is true, kle, if they get the re-launch wrong. If they get it right, and they'd better, then it is a high reward strategy.
All they need to do is nail that social care and WFP stuff. I say all they need to do because it's damned difficult, but they have to do something to seal the deal, as it were.
It's all about the timing, and while Corbyn spontaneously combusts over the IRA stuff, the Tories sneak in and get some good headlines rather than bad ones. They have to grab the iron while its hot.
It's got to be worth doing because the consequences of not winning the election are too horrific to contemplate.
Reading the stuff below the headline, it looks like "relaunch" means "talk about Corbyn a lot". So probably not too much downside risk there- worst that can happen is people don't care.
I honestly wonder at the purpose of leaking such tales of backroom squabbling. It doesn't make May look good at all, and the relaunching headline makes them look like they are admitting they're manifesto was crap which also looks bad. The only people who could truly know if there is such backroom squabbling would be highly placed, so who do they think it benefits to say this stuff?
Why was she not strong enough to stamp out petty back office bickering.
Exactly. Reports on in happening only harm her, but only people in her circle could know, so why report it?
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
That's great, although I truly don't get it. Why him? His schtick is not new, he's got a kindly demeanour but he's not hugely charismatic, why are they so fired up by him rather than merely like him?
Right place, right time. People aree projecting their hopes onto him. Some of the posts I see on my facebook and twitter feeds are quasi religious in the way they see him as the messiah, promising great change and ending all evil.
I'm starting to think that we may be on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. What if young people do actually vote this time round, sore and smarting from a year of having the fact that it was oldies wot won it for Brexit shared repeatedly on social media finally teaching them a lesson...
As Alistair says below if DNVs do vote this time round, all bets are off.
Right up until the registration deadline most of my lefty friends were sharing more 'you must register to vote, we lost Brexit, we can't afford to lose this time' stuff than they were stuff about their messiah JC...
Does anyone - anyone! - and i include the PB Tories - think May will make a good PM? Anyone??
"Good" is a POV. She'll take us out of the EU properly, which for me is good but I suspect for you is bad.
Again, you haven't answered my question. Any fuckwit could take us out of the EU. Even I could.
How do you define a 'good PM'?
Criterion 1 is: not a meddling, curtain twitching, provincialist weirdo dullard.
As an Oxford graduate she is not really a dullard, is she? I don't know what a provincialist is, but the provinces do cover the vast majority of the country. How about something positive?
You are supposed to call it 'Cowley Tech' on here, with a soupçon of false modesty.
But it contradicts his current rewriting of history. So it is important. He was not interested in peace as he now claims but only in IRA victory.
When someone tries to rewrite history I think of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. ''The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history'' Orwell knew a bit about the lies at the heart of socialism.
He had a quote for Corbyn thats for sure ''Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf'' Put in more detail he said ''The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries.''
In amongst the fantasing about who everyone would like to see fail on June the 8th I'd just like to say the the funniest result of election night would be for John Lamont to fail to take Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.
He's resigned his Holyrood seat (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire which is the Holyrood equivalent of BRS) to contest BRS so I can't work out if it would be funnier if Rachael Hamilton lost ERB or if she held it for the Conservatives.
Whilst I would be personally poorer of wallet I would be richer in mirth.
Bold of him to do that, but certainly would be worth a bitter laugh if it happened.
Bad night for SCON if they cannot take it though, I'd have thought.
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
Both Lab and LD were downweighted in Wednesday's yougov. If the unweighted poll is the more accurate (true for Brexit as I recall) then both could be underestimated.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
I honestly don't see it. I think Labour are leeching younger voters away from the greens and Lib Dems, but not engaging new young voters in large enough numbers.
Perhaps not, but will they actually turn out this time is the critical question? Dozens of seats could be saved, and some gained, if they do for once.
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
I won't claim global Stalinst conspiracy, it'll be all down to Mrs May being crap.
Indeed where there is a complex solution and a simple one, the simple one is usually right.
It sounds as though the nightmare scenario would be for them to end up with only Farron, Carmichael and Mulholland to choose from.
Or just Farron ;-)
Well, yes, any subset of those three. Maybe you could add Clegg, but Farron seems to have achieved the remarkable feat of making him look good by comparison.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few year to somebody in the world of football.
That sort of works but Arsenal are not known by anyone as 'The Reds', that's Manu.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
I was just about to make the same point. Can't have it both ways.
The truth is that he is voter repellent mostly to people who would never vote anything but Conservative .
There is definitely something in that. For my Mother (who is 75), he is the leader she has been waiting for her whole adult life.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
That's great, although I truly don't get it. Why him? His schtick is not new, he's got a kindly demeanour but he's not hugely charismatic, why are they so fired up by him rather than merely like him?
Right place, right time. People aree projecting their hopes onto him. Some of the posts I see on my facebook and twitter feeds are quasi religious in the way they see him as the messiah, promising great change and ending all evil.
I'm starting to think that we may be on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. What if young people do actually vote this time round, sore and smarting from a year of having the fact that it was oldies wot won it for Brexit shared repeatedly on social media finally teaching them a lesson...
As Alistair says below if DNVs do vote this time round, all bets are off.
Right up until the registration deadline most of my lefty friends were sharing more 'you must register to vote, we lost Brexit, we can't afford to lose this time' stuff than they were stuff about their messiah JC...
If they vote in the numbers that polls suggest, then the outcome will be about 44/36.
.... but I have never (never mind continuously) insisted that Britain couldn't leave the EU without destroying the nation, either literally or metaphorically.
And I maintain that the EU cannot reach it's final goal without destroying ALL its member nations, replacing them with a new structure which it believes is better.
I don't believe that it would be better. I respect the idealism of the pan-europeans but think them dangerously naive. However, "your mileage may vary" (as the saying goes).
While I simply regard views such as yours as straightforwardly deranged. You start from a premise and work backwards.
We're never going to agree on Brexit, so shall we agree to disagree? For me it is precious independence, for you it is socio-economic self-harm.
It's like asking a drunken Richard Dawkins to debate with Plymouth Brethren. It's not that they disagree, there is no shared ground on which they could profitably argue. So it's pointless.
That said, can I compliment you on your threaders. You write elegant, clever, well-informed and rather witty articles. If PB is getting your essays for nothing, that is an outrage. You should think about writing politics professionally. I hate to see good writers go unpaid. It's wrong.
Remember: Shakespeare wrote for money.
That's very kind of you.
I mainly write to get my betting decisions right. My returns have improved since I started writing above the line. There's nothing like knowing that there are about 50 critical posters ready to pounce on any sloppy thinking for making you get your thoughts in order. So I get my rewards indirectly.
The.non-betting threads are for my own amusement. Given the abundance of online political writers, I expect a lot of others do too. I wouldn't worry too much about this particular writer starving in a garret. Along the way I've learned a bit about the difference between writing when giving advice and writing for a wider audience. They're very different processes.
In amongst the fantasing about who everyone would like to see fail on June the 8th I'd just like to say the the funniest result of election night would be for John Lamont to fail to take Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.
He's resigned his Holyrood seat (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire which is the Holyrood equivalent of BRS) to contest BRS so I can't work out if it would be funnier if Rachael Hamilton lost ERB or if she held it for the Conservatives.
Whilst I would be personally poorer of wallet I would be richer in mirth.
No, the funniest moment of the night will be Angus Robertson losing his seat to a Tory, John Lamont will easily win Berwickshire
But it contradicts his current rewriting of history. So it is important. He was not interested in peace as he now claims but only in IRA victory.
You don't need to convince me on that position. People voting for Labour because they like Corbyn need to be convinced, or people who don't like him but like Labour enough to still for the party need to be convinced.
The former won't care, and the latter will have heard it already. It being important is irrelevant to whether it will have an impact. Perhaps I am wrong and it will, but people have said for weeks these attacks would be coming, and apparently it is all the Tories have to throw at him, since, at least in the polls, nothing else is working.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few year to somebody in the world of football.
That sort of works but Arsenal are not known by anyone as 'The Reds', that's Manu.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
To an extent.
But you also have to consider that in a mature multi-party democracy it's virtually impossible to break 50%. 44%, if that's borne out as the result, is solid but not spectacular. But it would be only a few percent away from a spectacular result, which I'd define (somewhat arbitrarily) as 48%+.
It's only because the minor parties have slumped that like the lead looks disappointing. But it's a bit harsh to blame May for people who would never vote Tory coalescing around one alternative.
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
I won't claim global Stalinst conspiracy, it'll be all down to Mrs May being crap.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
I honestly don't see it. I think Labour are leeching younger voters away from the greens and Lib Dems, but not engaging new young voters in large enough numbers.
Perhaps not, but will they actually turn out this time is the critical question? Dozens of seats could be saved, and some gained, if they do for once.
They've managed to fire up the already lefty young people. Those NUS reps and the bore at the party who bangs on about NHS cuts but beyond that I've not seen them engage with apolitical young people who make he vast majority of non-voters. I'd be very surprised if turnout among young people was more than 3 points higher than it was in 2015.
I think Matthew Goodwin is right. The polls are overestimating Labour, as usual.
The Labour polling strength is made up of a large number of DNVs.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt. 2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
What about the polls weight DNVs correctly and Labour performs just as the polls predict?
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few years to somebody in the world of football.
Arsene Wenger, he's won more than you (okay, since he's been in charge of Arsenal in the case of Liverpool).
He's never won the European Cup and League Cup, the two most important trophies in football.
We've won them 4 times since Wenger became Arsenal manager.
(Honestly I'm a huge fan of Wenger, I just worry at the start of the next season Arsenal have a bad run, and he's forced out, he deserves better than that.)
That won't happen. If Wenger is given a new deal that will be that for however long the deal is.
Does anyone - anyone! - and i include the PB Tories - think May will make a good PM? Anyone??
"Good" is a POV. She'll take us out of the EU properly, which for me is good but I suspect for you is bad.
Again, you haven't answered my question. Any fuckwit could take us out of the EU. Even I could.
How do you define a 'good PM'?
Criterion 1 is: not a meddling, curtain twitching, provincialist weirdo dullard.
As an Oxford graduate she is not really a dullard, is she? I don't know what a provincialist is, but the provinces do cover the vast majority of the country. How about something positive?
You are supposed to call it 'Cowley Tech' on here, with a soupçon of false modesty.
Very droll.
FWIW I think Theresa's apparent controlling and somewhat dictatorial nature together with a lack of teamwork mean she may prove tempramentally unsuited to the premiership. She seems most similar to Ted Heath and Gordon Brown. Neither of these men were without accomplishment, but in both cases their premierships did not end well.
Theresa May is heading for the highest vote share for any party for more than 20 years, and yet people are calling her a failure. Amazing.
Against Corbyn is the thing, you have to account for that.
So is he a voter repellent, or isn't he? There seems to be some dispute on this thread. He is when people are having a go at May. He isn't when people try to explain the polls.
I was just about to make the same point. Can't have it both ways.
The truth is that he is voter repellent mostly to people who would never vote anything but Conservative .
There is definitely something in that. For my Mother (who is 75), he is the leader she has been waiting for her whole adult life.
There are definitely plenty of Labour people for whom he is repellent, or at least offputting. There are too many anecdotal examples for it to be entirely false. However either because the Labour offer is good enough, or people focus on local candidates, or May doing a poor job, or fearing a Con landslide, those people appear to be fewer than there were, or far less representative than supposed.
Outside of Labour Uncut is anyone predicting a wipeout for Labour anymore because of Corbyn?
.... but I have never (never mind continuously) insisted that Britain couldn't leave the EU without destroying the nation, either literally or metaphorically.
And I maintain that the EU cannot reach it's final goal without destroying ALL its member nations, replacing them with a new structure which it believes is better.
I don't believe that it would be better. I respect the idealism of the pan-europeans but think them dangerously naive. However, "your mileage may vary" (as the saying goes).
While I simply regard views such as yours as straightforwardly deranged. You start from a premise and work backwards.
I merely start from the plain aim of the European "Ever closer" union. Your childish insults are of no relevance to this.
Go on - have another one of your hysterical little anti-Brexit rants. You know you'll feel a bit better after a good cry!
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
That's great, although I truly don't get it. Why him? His schtick is not new, he's got a kindly demeanour but he's not hugely charismatic, why are they so fired up by him rather than merely like him?
Right place, right time. People aree projecting their hopes onto him. Some of the posts I see on my facebook and twitter feeds are quasi religious in the way they see him as the messiah, promising great change and ending all evil.
I'm starting to think that we may be on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. What if young people do actually vote this time round, sore and smarting from a year of having the fact that it was oldies wot won it for Brexit shared repeatedly on social media finally teaching them a lesson...
As Alistair says below if DNVs do vote this time round, all bets are off.
Right up until the registration deadline most of my lefty friends were sharing more 'you must register to vote, we lost Brexit, we can't afford to lose this time' stuff than they were stuff about their messiah JC...
Many people have said that Corbyn is more cult leader than political leader. More Jim Jones than James Callaghan. More David Koresh than David Cameron.
It's the reason why he gets these mad, adoring crowds of screaming groupees at his rallies. It's utterly bizarre. It defies logic, it defies common sense, and it seems to defy political gravity. Or does it? Miliband didn't escape political gravity, despite the pre-pubescent Milifandom craze. Cleggasm, anyone?
If Corbyn charged entrance fees for his rallies, he'd probably make millions, like those sociopaths in America who sell potions for pancreatic cancer and brain tumours.
I thought the British public were far too sober and sensible to give succour to a madman like Corbyn, and I pray sincerely that I am proved correct on June 9th.
They've managed to fire up the already lefty young people. Those NUS reps and the bore at the party who bangs on about NHS cuts but beyond that I've not seen them engage with apolitical young people who make he vast majority of non-voters. I'd be very surprised if turnout among young people was more than 3 points higher than it was in 2015.
Yeah boasting about students registering to vote misses the point, the block that really doesn't vote isn't at university.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
That's great, although I truly don't get it. Why him? His schtick is not new, he's got a kindly demeanour but he's not hugely charismatic, why are they so fired up by him rather than merely like him?
Right place, right time. People aree projecting their hopes onto him. Some of the posts I see on my facebook and twitter feeds are quasi religious in the way they see him as the messiah, promising great change and ending all evil.
I'm starting to think that we may be on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. What if young people do actually vote this time round, sore and smarting from a year of having the fact that it was oldies wot won it for Brexit shared repeatedly on social media finally teaching them a lesson...
As Alistair says below if DNVs do vote this time round, all bets are off.
Right up until the registration deadline most of my lefty friends were sharing more 'you must register to vote, we lost Brexit, we can't afford to lose this time' stuff than they were stuff about their messiah JC...
I think the scenario where the Tories do really badly (reduced majority or hung parliament) goes like:
- Corbyn pulls off a Trump and actually gets traditional non-voters to increase turnout - At the other end of the spectrum, voters who traditionally have high turnout are turned off by the social care stuff. They keep telling pollsters they're voting Tory, their preference, but on the day not quite so many actually turn out as usual - Somehow UKIP actually manage to capitalise on the Manchester attacks to the tune of three or four percent of the Tory vote (maybe May says something badly-worded about immigration during an interview) - The Tories either fail to seize initiative and turn the spotlight on Corbyn, or it turns out that that truly is priced in, or the news cycle gets filled up with other events, or they mostly manage but get undermined by a leak or slip-up that puts attention back on their mistakes. Labour keeps up their surprisingly competent campaign.
If, say, 3 of those 4 thing happen, you could still have a huge upset. I doubt it's likely, but if it happens, I think that's how.
Does anyone - anyone! - and i include the PB Tories - think May will make a good PM? Anyone??
"Good" is a POV. She'll take us out of the EU properly, which for me is good but I suspect for you is bad.
Again, you haven't answered my question. Any fuckwit could take us out of the EU. Even I could.
How do you define a 'good PM'?
Criterion 1 is: not a meddling, curtain twitching, provincialist weirdo dullard.
As an Oxford graduate she is not really a dullard, is she?
Diane Abbott is a Cambridge graduate.
Ah, she appears lazy and exhibits poor judgement. I couldn't call her a dullard, though.
Hah. But she was born in Paddington so is not - ugh - 'provincial'. Shocking people those provincials don't y'know. It would not surprise me if those - ugh - 'provincials' were responsible for the AIDS virus. They are just about low down... well (ugh)... 'provincial' enough to do just that.
Corbyn is a fucking revelation for the left. Cooked inside Cooperation atm will do a thread on this in due course. Expect turnout amongst youngsters to be well up
I honestly don't see it. I think Labour are leeching younger voters away from the greens and Lib Dems, but not engaging new young voters in large enough numbers.
Perhaps not, but will they actually turn out this time is the critical question? Dozens of seats could be saved, and some gained, if they do for once.
Yougov are consistently finding that 18-24 year olds have much higher certainty to vote figures than 25-44 year olds . I guess in many cases this is the novelty of having a vote for the first time , whereas the next age group have voted a couple of times and know that outside of marginal seats their vote does not really matter .
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Plus she's facing possibly the worst leader of the opposition since Arthur Henderson, and no one could question Arthur Henderson's patriotism.
(Note that's not a dig at Arthur Henderson, more a reflection of the situation he found himself in when Ramsay MacDonald went all Mark Reckless)
Ok. I'm lying.
I think that mid teens is still most likely for LDs ( though my betting is best under 10).
Are we having a PB prediction contest on NOJAM? I am not bothered by a prize, but the bragging rights are worth having.
(leafs casually through his London Mayoral NOJAM prize!)
Simply put she will have a mandate both for brexit and other issues. The one which is causing the trouble is the one that tentatively unwinds pensioner benefits - benefits which many on here have been eager to criticise.
Blair wasted his political capital. He trumpeted think the unthinkable and then thought better of it himself. He ran away from raising the pension age and tackling LA pensions (that was Alan Johnson wasn't it? A laugh a song and dance and a silly walk were the limits of his politics).
Personally I can live with the WFA if the means test does for us. I'd be upset if the free bus pass went. It encourages me to get out - and spend. Its good for the economy!
Imagine another U turn a week before the election. Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott get their greedy mits on a two trillion pound economy. Let that sink in.
I was willing to give that a go. But we are out now and I for one have no desire to go back in and have that Sword of Damocles held over us again. Unlike some I am sanguine about EU immigration and worried about inward investment. But the boat has sailed.
Victory will turn to ashes in her mouth, before the year is out.
I may, may may be doing a thread tomorrow that you will enjoy.
It's comparing a North London pensioner whose team are the Reds who might still be in charge for another few years to somebody in the world of football.
It sounds as though the nightmare scenario would be for them to end up with only Farron, Carmichael and Mulholland to choose from.
In my view there is only two options:
1) DNVs don't vote - like always. Labour massively underperforms the polls. PB Tories claim it was never in doubt.
2) DNVs vote, at which point the polls weighting criteria go out the window and Labour outperform the polls. PB Tories claim global Stalinist conspiracy.
I am still assuming 1.
All they need to do is nail that social care and WFP stuff. I say all they need to do because it's damned difficult, but they have to do something to seal the deal, as it were.
It's all about the timing, and while Corbyn spontaneously combusts over the IRA stuff, the Tories sneak in and get some good headlines rather than bad ones. They have to grab the iron while its hot.
It's got to be worth doing because the consequences of not winning the election are too horrific to contemplate.
I am now certain, in London, the Tories will lose seats.
I have zero confidence they will, since everything they have done to date has led to Labour increases. It sets the stage for what they do now as desperate, whether it is or not, and frames how it will be perceived.
We've won them 4 times since Wenger became Arsenal manager.
(Honestly I'm a huge fan of Wenger, I just worry at the start of the next season Arsenal have a bad run, and he's forced out, he deserves better than that.)
He's resigned his Holyrood seat (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire which is the Holyrood equivalent of BRS) to contest BRS so I can't work out if it would be funnier if Rachael Hamilton lost ERB or if she held it for the Conservatives.
Whilst I would be personally poorer of wallet I would be richer in mirth.
I'm starting to think that we may be on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. What if young people do actually vote this time round, sore and smarting from a year of having the fact that it was oldies wot won it for Brexit shared repeatedly on social media finally teaching them a lesson...
As Alistair says below if DNVs do vote this time round, all bets are off.
Right up until the registration deadline most of my lefty friends were sharing more 'you must register to vote, we lost Brexit, we can't afford to lose this time' stuff than they were stuff about their messiah JC...
When someone tries to rewrite history I think of Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
''The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history''
Orwell knew a bit about the lies at the heart of socialism.
He had a quote for Corbyn thats for sure
''Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf''
Put in more detail he said
''The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries.''
Bad night for SCON if they cannot take it though, I'd have thought.
I mainly write to get my betting decisions right. My returns have improved since I started writing above the line. There's nothing like knowing that there are about 50 critical posters ready to pounce on any sloppy thinking for making you get your thoughts in order. So I get my rewards indirectly.
The.non-betting threads are for my own amusement. Given the abundance of online political writers, I expect a lot of others do too. I wouldn't worry too much about this particular writer starving in a garret. Along the way I've learned a bit about the difference between writing when giving advice and writing for a wider audience. They're very different processes.
The former won't care, and the latter will have heard it already. It being important is irrelevant to whether it will have an impact. Perhaps I am wrong and it will, but people have said for weeks these attacks would be coming, and apparently it is all the Tories have to throw at him, since, at least in the polls, nothing else is working.
But you also have to consider that in a mature multi-party democracy it's virtually impossible to break 50%. 44%, if that's borne out as the result, is solid but not spectacular. But it would be only a few percent away from a spectacular result, which I'd define (somewhat arbitrarily) as 48%+.
It's only because the minor parties have slumped that like the lead looks disappointing. But it's a bit harsh to blame May for people who would never vote Tory coalescing around one alternative.
FWIW I think Theresa's apparent controlling and somewhat dictatorial nature together with a lack of teamwork mean she may prove tempramentally unsuited to the premiership. She seems most similar to Ted Heath and Gordon Brown. Neither of these men were without accomplishment, but in both cases their premierships did not end well.
Outside of Labour Uncut is anyone predicting a wipeout for Labour anymore because of Corbyn?
Your childish insults are of no relevance to this.
Go on - have another one of your hysterical little anti-Brexit rants. You know you'll feel a bit better after a good cry!
It's the reason why he gets these mad, adoring crowds of screaming groupees at his rallies. It's utterly bizarre. It defies logic, it defies common sense, and it seems to defy political gravity. Or does it? Miliband didn't escape political gravity, despite the pre-pubescent Milifandom craze. Cleggasm, anyone?
If Corbyn charged entrance fees for his rallies, he'd probably make millions, like those sociopaths in America who sell potions for pancreatic cancer and brain tumours.
I thought the British public were far too sober and sensible to give succour to a madman like Corbyn, and I pray sincerely that I am proved correct on June 9th.
- Corbyn pulls off a Trump and actually gets traditional non-voters to increase turnout
- At the other end of the spectrum, voters who traditionally have high turnout are turned off by the social care stuff. They keep telling pollsters they're voting Tory, their preference, but on the day not quite so many actually turn out as usual
- Somehow UKIP actually manage to capitalise on the Manchester attacks to the tune of three or four percent of the Tory vote (maybe May says something badly-worded about immigration during an interview)
- The Tories either fail to seize initiative and turn the spotlight on Corbyn, or it turns out that that truly is priced in, or the news cycle gets filled up with other events, or they mostly manage but get undermined by a leak or slip-up that puts attention back on their mistakes. Labour keeps up their surprisingly competent campaign.
If, say, 3 of those 4 thing happen, you could still have a huge upset. I doubt it's likely, but if it happens, I think that's how.
Shocking people those provincials don't y'know. It would not surprise me if those - ugh - 'provincials' were responsible for the AIDS virus. They are just about low down... well (ugh)... 'provincial' enough to do just that.
UKIP managed to get Rochester and Strood in a by-election and then lost it by a large amount only 6 months later...