When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
I wish it was the SPD/Linke/Greens, but it's really not. Nor is it the AfD. Germans increasingly think she's done a great job. it's not even clear that the AfD will make it over the 5% threshold if their decline continues.
Err - doesn't mean that letting in over a million muslims was a good idea.
My big worry, politically speaking is that Corbyn's defeat won't be nearly big enough. It'd be a disaster for the centre and centre-left if he was to retain over 200 seats.
The disaster will be certain if the Labour moderates don't have the guts to strike out on their own. If they can muster 120 (which is ambitious but not impossible) they can become the official opposition, get the soft money and watch as the moderate unions quit Corbyn for a new 'progressive' home
(I hate the word progressive - but it seems a likely name for a new movement)
If Macron can strike out on his own, surely Labour moderates can think of doing the same.
You don't get it. It is Corbyn who has struck out on his own and changed the political agenda. Labour moderates thought he was a loser but they've discovered, to their amazement, that he is a winner. Win or lose, the Labour party will support Corbyn after this election. He will be seen as a hero.
Nah. He's like a crap contestant on a talent show who rides the wave of youth celebrity for a few weeks till everyone realises they're shit. See Jedward or Honey G..
No, I think he's more like Saara Aalto. Everyone thought she was Week 1-4 cannon fodder. But somehow she kept seeing off opponents in the sing off before looking like having a serious chance of winning. But in the end she came up just short and the original favourite won.
More like Susannah Reid in Strictly. Not very good but got to the final thanks to the BBC!
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
What if she doesn't get a majority though?
She'll be resign Friday, or I'd hate to be Graham Brady's postman.
Yeah, but next leader from there, Hammond or Gove would be a shocker of a choice, I'm wondering if there's anyone young, steady at speaking and has cabinet experience, that could potentially mount a charge.
Like I just said, we are facing a civil emergency, potentially a low-level but chronic civil war (when the native population finally fights back - which it will)
23,000 jihadis in the UK. 23,000.
Maybe 200,000 sympathisers. Mind-fucking stats
Imagine if the jihadis up their game - just a bit - and these attacks come at us once a week, with numbing success and regularity. We will be Ulster in the 70s, with extra horror and race/religious hatred. Internment will be inevitable. And worse.
Enoch Powell is a strange one. He was a kind of crazy but brilliant physician who completely misdiagnosed the problem (black immigration), but who nonetheless sensed something was very wrong, in the face of received opinion, and then gave absolutely the right prognosis.
Please read up on him! He didn't completely misdiagnose the problem. His whole philosophy was based on communalism in India. When he says 'coloured' or 'black' he is referring to Asian immigrants as well as West Indians, generally he said 'commonwealth'
Watch the ten mins from 10:00 he pinpoints the problem with lack of assimilation of Pakistanis in Birmingham in 1965
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
If one of you could find the time to take a copy of That Horrible Speech and, ignoring the horribleness, mark with one of those fluorescent markers the passages in it which are actually, you know, wrong, that would be immensely helpful.
When you've done that, you can explain whether you think George Washington's view differs from Powell's, and whether he was right? He said
"The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people."
As you are thick lefties I have to point out that "Because Enoch Powell" is not an argument which refutes Enoch Powell. And it sure as shit doesn't refute George Washington.
Two weeks ago we had this Enoch Powell debate with many of his site rejecting what he said and outlining why he was wrong. It was shortly after the Manchester Attacks. And here's the thing: it was more than so called thick lefties who didn't sign up to it.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
If it happens in the next year, I'd say Gove or Hammond. Boris has absolutely no chance, and Rudd only the most slender.
Davis. If he had won last time we wouldn't be in this mess.
Like I just said, we are facing a civil emergency, potentially a low-level but chronic civil war (when the native population finally fights back - which it will)
23,000 jihadis in the UK. 23,000.
Maybe 200,000 sympathisers. Mind-fucking stats
Imagine if the jihadis up their game - just a bit - and these attacks come at us once a week, with numbing success and regularity. We will be Ulster in the 70s, with extra horror and race/religious hatred. Internment will be inevitable. And worse.
Enoch Powell is a strange one. He was a kind of crazy but brilliant physician who completely misdiagnosed the problem (black immigration), but who nonetheless sensed something was very wrong, in the face of received opinion, and then gave absolutely the right prognosis.
Please read up on him! He didn't completely misdiagnose the problem. His whole philosophy was based on communalism in India. When he says 'coloured' or 'black' he is referring to Asian immigrants as well as West Indians, generally he said 'commonwealth'
Watch the ten mins from 10:00 he pinpoints the problem with lack of assimilation of Pakistanis in Birmingham in 1965
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
What if she doesn't get a majority though?
She'll be resign Friday, or I'd hate to be Graham Brady's postman.
Yeah, but next leader from there, Hammond or Gove would be a shocker of a choice, I'm wondering if there's anyone young, steady at speaking and has cabinet experience, that could potentially mount a charge.
I'll refer you to this piece I wrote in late 2015.
'Often winning the Tory leadership is about who you aren’t not about who you are.
Twenty-five years ago today Lady Thatcher announced her decision to resign as Prime Minister, but if the parliamentary Tory party had followed the polling then her successor would not have been John Major but Michael Heseltine. The above polling was not atypical of the time, Michael Heseltine was seen as the best person to revive the Tory party’s electoral fortunes.
So why didn’t Heseltine become Tory leader? Because in the recent past, the winners of Tory leadership elections has often won in part because they weren’t someone else. In 1990 one of the main reasons John Major won was because he wasn’t Michael Heseltine as Lady Thatcher’s supporters couldn’t stomach her assassin succeeding her, taking their cue from her when she said “the Cabinet should unite to back the person most likely to beat Michael Heseltine.”
It can be argued that in 1997 William Hague won because he wasn’t Ken Clarke, that in 2001 Iain Duncan Smith won because he wasn’t Michael Portillo nor was he Ken Clarke. With the quasi-AV voting system the Tory party currently uses to select their leader, you can see a Stop-X candidate doing very well in the forthcoming Tory leadership contest.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
If it happens in the next year, I'd say Gove or Hammond. Boris has absolutely no chance, and Rudd only the most slender.
Davis. If he had won last time we wouldn't be in this mess.
We'd be in a whole bigger one.
Nope. He was far more competent than Cameron and would have walked all over Brown and Miliband. He would also have handled the whole EU issue far better and would have either got meaningful change (which was unlikely) or would have campaigned strongly for Leave.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
If it happens in the next year, I'd say Gove or Hammond. Boris has absolutely no chance, and Rudd only the most slender.
Davis. If he had won last time we wouldn't be in this mess.
We'd be in a whole bigger one.
Nope. He was far more competent than Cameron and would have walked all over Brown and Miliband. He would also have handled the whole EU issue far better and would have either got meaningful change (which was unlikely) or would have campaigned strongly for Leave.
Yeah, I deleted my comment, because I realised that I was wrong.
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
What if she doesn't get a majority though?
She'll be resign Friday, or I'd hate to be Graham Brady's postman.
Yeah, but next leader from there, Hammond or Gove would be a shocker of a choice, I'm wondering if there's anyone young, steady at speaking and has cabinet experience, that could potentially mount a charge.
Gove v Hammond would suggest the Tories have a death wish. I wonder if Esther Mcvey could make a stunning return.
However they have a problem as they have to deliver Brexit in a year and a half with a country that is going to be suffering decreasing living standards and a Tory party that is still divided over Europe and that has enough head bangers in it who think the only problem is that May wasn't hard enough on Europe.
Incidentally, found my first Tory to Labour switchers today - a couple of my neighbours, 35 year old public sector workers who had been planning to vote Tory up until 3 weeks ago. May simply doesn't understand politics or building voter coalitions in the way that Cameron and Osborne did.
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
Calling the election?
I think that had an enormous impact on the campaign. For one, it made it happen.
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
Like I just said, we are facing a civil emergency, potentially a low-level but chronic civil war (when the native population finally fights back - which it will)
23,000 jihadis in the UK. 23,000.
Maybe 200,000 sympathisers. Mind-fucking stats
Imagine if the jihadis up their game - just a bit - and these attacks come at us once a week, with numbing success and regularity. We will be Ulster in the 70s, with extra horror and race/religious hatred. Internment will be inevitable. And worse.
Enoch Powell is a strange one. He was a kind of crazy but brilliant physician who completely misdiagnosed the problem (black immigration), but who nonetheless sensed something was very wrong, in the face of received opinion, and then gave absolutely the right prognosis.
Please read up on him! He didn't completely misdiagnose the problem. His whole philosophy was based on communalism in India. When he says 'coloured' or 'black' he is referring to Asian immigrants as well as West Indians, generally he said 'commonwealth'
Watch the ten mins from 10:00 he pinpoints the problem with lack of assimilation of Pakistanis in Birmingham in 1965
I love the languid, upper class Yankee accent of William F Buckley (Junior). Powell's Oxford English is even more exact and lucid.
We have declined, as speakers - and as listeners. This level of discourse just does not exist now.
"This level of discourse just does not exist now" Very true .The first election I ever remember is Feb 74 when Enoch Powell said vote Labour for a referendum on the EEC .Him an Antony Benn were on the same side to vote no in the 75 referendum.Both from differing sides but both brilliant minds whether you agreed with them or not.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
As a middle-senior ranking Cabinet Minister, Greg Clark certainly appears to be good value at 100/1 and I've had a fiver's worth. Normally I'm not interested in long term bets, i.e. those which are unlikely to come to fruition within 2 years, but in this instance I consider such a timescale to be realistic. To be in with a realistic chance, he needs one more promotion into the really senior ranks and I think he may get a leg up should likes of Hammond be sidelined after the GE. A good spot by you .... thanks.
Err - doesn't mean that letting in over a million muslims was a good idea.
AFAIK, the number of terrorist attacks by Syrians in Germany since she did is, uh, zero. The Germans have noticed, and see it as a difficult job still in progress but on the whole well done.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
What if she doesn't get a majority though?
She'll be resign Friday, or I'd hate to be Graham Brady's postman.
Yeah, but next leader from there, Hammond or Gove would be a shocker of a choice, I'm wondering if there's anyone young, steady at speaking and has cabinet experience, that could potentially mount a charge.
Gove v Hammond would suggest the Tories have a death wish. I wonder if Esther Mcvey could make a stunning return.
However they have a problem as they have to deliver Brexit in a year and a half with a country that is going to be suffering decreasing living standards and a Tory party that is still divided over Europe and that has enough head bangers in it who think the only problem is that May wasn't hard enough on Europe.
Incidentally, found my first Tory to Labour switchers today - a couple of my neighbours, 35 year old public sector workers who had been planning to vote Tory up until 3 weeks ago. May simply doesn't understand politics or building voter coalitions in the way that Cameron and Osborne did.
Hilarious. She is on course for a 100 majority and a 40+% share of the vote.....
The only coalitions the posh boys had to build were with other parties because they pissed off a good chunk of the right....
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
As the front pages start to come in the 'enough is enough' line from Theresa's speech earlier is playing out well. I suspect we'll here much more of this phrase between now and polling day.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
There's likely to be a challenge when the Brexit talks get stuck so it will probably be a battle between the true believer Brexiteers and and an emboldened Remainer. IDS vs Ken Clarke all over again but this time with the whole country on the line.
What if she doesn't get a majority though?
October 2017 general election?
Yup, and when choosing a new leader I could see them going for something a little different.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Like I just said, we are facing a civil emergency, potentially a low-level but chronic civil war (when the native population finally fights back - which it will)
23,000 jihadis in the UK. 23,000.
Maybe 200,000 sympathisers. Mind-fucking stats
Imagine if the jihadis up their game - just a bit - and these attacks come at us once a week, with numbing success and regularity. We will be Ulster in the 70s, with extra horror and race/religious hatred. Internment will be inevitable. And worse.
Enoch Powell is a strange one. He was a kind of crazy but brilliant physician who completely misdiagnosed the problem (black immigration), but who nonetheless sensed something was very wrong, in the face of received opinion, and then gave absolutely the right prognosis.
No. Powell's pronouncements on immigration only tended to pop up when the issue was already in the news. He was an archetypal bandwagon politician in that regard, sniffing out a mood others had engendered and seizing upon it for his own ends.
I've just ordered two books about him. I've grown up with the received idea that he was a clever man who went very badly wrong, but some of the videos Isam links to are pretty blood-chilling in their accuracy. Like it or not, Powell predicted our present situation with absolute precision. When everyone else was whistling Kumbaya.
Did he just get lucky? I need to discover for myself.
There's a little bit of Nostradamus about Powell, which means you can always find a prediction that came out (while discarding the dozen that did not). He forecast, for example, that after the Second World War was over, the British Empire would need to turn westwards and take on the US.
My big worry, politically speaking is that Corbyn's defeat won't be nearly big enough. It'd be a disaster for the centre and centre-left if he was to retain over 200 seats.
The disaster will be certain if the Labour moderates don't have the guts to strike out on their own. If they can muster 120 (which is ambitious but not impossible) they can become the official opposition, get the soft money and watch as the moderate unions quit Corbyn for a new 'progressive' home
(I hate the word progressive - but it seems a likely name for a new movement)
If Macron can strike out on his own, surely Labour moderates can think of doing the same.
You don't get it. It is Corbyn who has struck out on his own and changed the political agenda. Labour moderates thought he was a loser but they've discovered, to their amazement, that he is a winner. Win or lose, the Labour party will support Corbyn after this election. He will be seen as a hero.
That is right. Corbyn will be an energetic LOTO, and remain a cult figure. He will be too old for 2022, so time will heal the Labour rift. His ideas will be mainstream and his successor PM.
Corbyn has not been energetic for the last two years, what is suddenly going to change about him. His proponents say he is a conviction politician, his detractors say he is stuck in the past and has terrorist sympathies and a complete disregard for the British state.
The nearest I can think of is Ken Livingstone being London mayor but London is a Labour city the United Kingdom is not a left-wing country. The UK is pretty Conservative, Livingstone lost London in 2008 despite it being a Labour city. Livingstone tried to moderate his views, Corbyn is to the left of Livingstone on the watered down left-wing platform he presented as his manifesto. If Corbyn or a left-wing successor took the helm of Labour for the 2022 election you would probably find Labour even further to the left. The electorate will reject Corbyn or his successor again.
I agree that Corbyn has been a poor LOTO and that won't change. Maybe if he pretended every morning that the election is still on, he might improve.
A Corbynite Labour party has a good chance of winning in 2022 though. Of course it depends a bit who his successor is, but there seems to be an appetite now for something a bit more principled than New Labour was.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
I think it was ever thus to some extent ..... it's another example of the "Shy Tory" syndrome.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Out cycling at the weekend, and not a single Conservative poster across Bournemouth East. A smattering for Conor Burns in Bournemouth West. Saw a single Labour activist in Bournemouth town centre handing out some leaflets to people who seemed interested - I saw hand out 1 as I walked up Commercial Road. One old lady cycling into Bournemouth with a Labout sticker on her basket.
Out in the New Forest, a handful of posters for Desmond Swayne in Burley and that's that.
This election is passing us by as usual down here....
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
I must have missed that?
One Anna Soubry poster around here had "Vote Labour" clumsily spray painted over it. Pissed me off mightily, I am still undecided upon whom I shall vote but the idea that one persons choice should ride roughshod over another is quite frankly selfish and childish. It is also happening an awful lot more now that I remember from past elections as people enter internet echo chambers.
There is an event that was part of this campaign, that I think has been greatly underestimated for its impact, at least with hindsight. Anyone want to guess what it was? It wasn't much commented on afterwards...
The Hammond-May press conference?
Close, but you're way off.
The leaking of the Labour Manifesto.
It was leaked on the 11th May and dominated the news. If this hasn't happened, the launch on the 16th would have been the first airing of Labour policy, which has been, I would argue, a primary factor in the Labour advance. There would have been only a few days of airtime before the Tory manifesto and Manchester blew it off the front pages. What do you think?
As you are thick lefties I have to point out that "Because Enoch Powell" is not an argument which refutes Enoch Powell. And it sure as shit doesn't refute George Washington.
Ah yes, lucid, intellectual political discourse isn't what it used to be.
By the way, you should be careful to pronounce it properly: "AYNOCH WUZ ROIGHT!!"
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
I must have missed that?
One Anna Soubry poster around here had "Vote Labour" clumsily spray painted over it. Pissed me off mightily, I am still undecided upon whom I shall vote but the idea that one persons choice should ride roughshod over another is quite frankly selfish and childish. It is also happening an awful lot more now that I remember from past elections as people enter internet echo chambers.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Tories always say the same thing to me: I would, perhaps, but I don't want to get a brick through the window.
For that, read: I don't want to advertise the fact I'm a Tory to my neighbours, and risk a bit of social awkwardness, let alone that one of them might get a bit cross with me.
Why do the BBC consider their news channel to be the right place to show extended live coverage of a concert in Manchester when the whole thing is being broadcast live on BBC1, Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 5 Live??
If they can't fill the news channel with coverage from London, they could always look at other news stories from round the world...
My big worry, politically speaking is that Corbyn's defeat won't be nearly big enough. It'd be a disaster for the centre and centre-left if he was to retain over 200 seats.
The disaster will be certain if the Labour moderates don't have the guts to strike out on their own. If they can muster 120 (which is ambitious but not impossible) they can become the official opposition, get the soft money and watch as the moderate unions quit Corbyn for a new 'progressive' home
(I hate the word progressive - but it seems a likely name for a new movement)
If Macron can strike out on his own, surely Labour moderates can think of doing the same.
You don't get it. It is Corbyn who has struck out on his own and changed the political agenda. Labour moderates thought he was a loser but they've discovered, to their amazement, that he is a winner. Win or lose, the Labour party will support Corbyn after this election. He will be seen as a hero.
Doesn't that rather depend on the result?
I don't think so. Regardless of the result, it is now beyond doubt that Corbyn himself has had a brilliant campaign. It would be churlish to deny that.
Don't forget, about 30 MPs will probably owe him their seat.
Looks like SDP Mark II is now gone.
I think it's too early to say. If Labour get under 200 which I think they will it wont have been a good campaign and the sooner they get rid of him the better. They've got a new leader here in France and he seems to have struck a chord. Labour need a Macron. I think we're being fooled by May's crapness. Think Brexit and Corbyn's part in it. I can't forgive him.....
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
I must have missed that?
One Anna Soubry poster around here had "Vote Labour" clumsily spray painted over it. Pissed me off mightily, I am still undecided upon whom I shall vote but the idea that one persons choice should ride roughshod over another is quite frankly selfish and childish. It is also happening an awful lot more now that I remember from past elections as people enter internet echo chambers.
Yes agreed HaroldO. There was a similar post yesterday about a field where Tory posters, which had been posted for previous elections, had been ripped up and then replaced to be ripped up again. That had never happened before apparently.
Maybe Germans just don't share the same way of seeing things as PB Tories do.
The Germans HATE Trump for example, while Tories here....I've seen more of a critical view of Trump from Tory MPs on twitter than Tories here.
Trump got seventy million votes. Unless you think all Americans are moronically stupid, he clearly struck a chord, and made some good points.
He's clearly right about the Muslim ban, for instance (and polls show most EUROPEANS agree with a policy like that)
I don't agree that he is 'clearly right about the Muslim ban'.
Trump's conduct since January has more than vindicated his critics who argued as to why he shouldn't be President. In that sense, the judgement of those who voted for him seems more questionable as time goes by.
Trump, across much of the Western world at the very least appears to be a pretty disliked figure. I think I will trust more in their judgement, than those who voted for Trump. And it says something that even when Europeans have their own concerns about immigration they still reject Trump.
@MaxPB Well, maybe that's not a bad thing. The past should not be forgetton.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
If it happens in the next year, I'd say Gove or Hammond. Boris has absolutely no chance, and Rudd only the most slender.
Hammond. He's avoiding being tainted by this campaign. He'll lead an ultra soft Brexit. With a majority of 40 he'll be able to face down the Kippers in his party.
There's a little bit of Nostradamus about Powell, which means you can always find a prediction that came out (while discarding the dozen that did not). He forecast, for example, that after the Second World War was over, the British Empire would need to turn westwards and take on the US.
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
The relentless march of the blue-rinse brigade, aided by their zimmers and mobility scooters.
I see these 70-100 majority predictions and I just wished I had that confidence. All the maomentum has been with Labour for a while, partly the Labour campaign a lot better than we thought and partly the underwhelming Conservative campaign.
Still going with a majority in the 50's but aware it could be a lot less than that. Never thought that was a possibility weeks ago.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Out cycling at the weekend, and not a single Conservative poster across Bournemouth East. A smattering for Conor Burns in Bournemouth West. Saw a single Labour activist in Bournemouth town centre handing out some leaflets to people who seemed interested - I saw hand out 1 as I walked up Commercial Road. One old lady cycling into Bournemouth with a Labout sticker on her basket.
Out in the New Forest, a handful of posters for Desmond Swayne in Burley and that's that.
This election is passing us by as usual down here....
The Lib Dems were very vigorously campaigning in Henley town square a few Saturdays ago. Other than that I've not seen an awful many signs that there's a GE on.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
The relentless march of the blue-rinse brigade, aided by their zimmers and mobility scooters.
Perhaps when they floated the return of HIPS they had something different in mind...
My big worry, politically speaking is that Corbyn's defeat won't be nearly big enough. It'd be a disaster for the centre and centre-left if he was to retain over 200 seats.
(I hate the word progressive - but it seems a likely name for a new movement)
If Macron can strike out on his own, surely Labour moderates can think of doing the same.
You don't get it. It is Corbyn who has struck out on his own and changed the political agenda. Labour moderates thought he was a loser but they've discovered, to their amazement, that he is a winner. Win or lose, the Labour party will support Corbyn after this election. He will be seen as a hero.
That is right. Corbyn will be an energetic LOTO, and remain a cult figure. He will be too old for 2022, so time will heal the Labour rift. His ideas will be mainstream and his successor PM.
Corbyn has not been energetic for the last two years, what is suddenly going to change about him. His proponents say he is a conviction politician, his detractors say he is stuck in the past and has terrorist sympathies and a complete disregard for the British state.
The nearest I can think of is Ken Livingstone being London mayor but London is a Labour city the United Kingdom is not a left-wing country. The UK is pretty Conservative, Livingstone lost London in 2008 despite it being a Labour city. Livingstone tried to moderate his views, Corbyn is to the left of Livingstone on the watered down left-wing platform he presented as his manifesto. If Corbyn or a left-wing successor took the helm of Labour for the 2022 election you would probably find Labour even further to the left. The electorate will reject Corbyn or his successor again.
I agree that Corbyn has been a poor LOTO and that won't change. Maybe if he pretended every morning that the election is still on, he might improve.
A Corbynite Labour party has a good chance of winning in 2022 though. Of course it depends a bit who his successor is, but there seems to be an appetite now for something a bit more principled than New Labour was.
Labour has been very lucky not to have their economic policies examined in any detail this time round. Probably because in the initial phases of the campaign, no-one anticipated a close result. We all know that the figures don't add up - but that never became a big issue.
Everyone likes the idea of jam today, jam tomorrow and jam in 5 years time particularly if someone else is going to pay for it. Proper scrutiny of their 'costings' would have exposed the flaws.
It hasn't happened - but they can't rely on that next time round.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
Can you blame them, after that Daily Mail article posted earlier?
I must have missed that?
One Anna Soubry poster around here had "Vote Labour" clumsily spray painted over it. Pissed me off mightily, I am still undecided upon whom I shall vote but the idea that one persons choice should ride roughshod over another is quite frankly selfish and childish. It is also happening an awful lot more now that I remember from past elections as people enter internet echo chambers.
Stuff like this would just harden my resolve to vote Tory.
I see a lot of it on twitter too, how evil the Tories are, how could people vote for them, they are scum etc etc. I unfriended someone today on facebook for posting that the London attack last night was undertook by May, if someone had posted something similar about Corbyn he would have been the first to kick off. They are secure in their own superior intellect whilst being pointlessly aggressive and simplistic.
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
Here's what is going on: Corbyn is trendy, and right-on, and the Labour base is over-the-moon and totally enthused. Even in Surrey and Sussex Labour gets ~10% of the vote, and that's about 5,000 voters or so in each constituency.
It only takes the very few who love him, and live in the country, a retired artist, or wealthy London commuter in the media, to stick up one poster to shock people.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
And yet Conservatives, often here and in places like the Daily Mail, churn out poisonous bile.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
And yet Conservatives, often here and in places like the Daily Mail, churn out poisonous bile.
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
Yes I have noticed the Labour boards are huge, I think they're compensating for something.
Like I just said, we are facing a civil emergency, potentially a low-level but chronic civil war (when the native population finally fights back - which it will)
23,000 jihadis in the UK. 23,000.
Maybe 200,000 sympathisers. Mind-fucking stats
Imagine if the jihadis up their game - just a bit - and these attacks come at us once a week, with numbing success and regularity. We will be Ulster in the 70s, with extra horror and race/religious hatred. Internment will be inevitable. And worse.
Enoch Powell is a strange one. He was a kind of crazy but brilliant physician who completely misdiagnosed the problem (black immigration), but who nonetheless sensed something was very wrong, in the face of received opinion, and then gave absolutely the right prognosis.
No. Powell's pronouncements on immigration only tended to pop up when the issue was already in the news. He was an archetypal bandwagon politician in that regard, sniffing out a mood others had engendered and seizing upon it for his own ends.
I've just ordered two books about him. I've grown up with the received idea that he was a clever man who went very badly wrong, but some of the videos Isam links to are pretty blood-chilling in their accuracy. Like it or not, Powell predicted our present situation with absolute precision. When everyone else was whistling Kumbaya.
Did he just get lucky? I need to discover for myself.
There's a little bit of Nostradamus about Powell, which means you can always find a prediction that came out (while discarding the dozen that did not). He forecast, for example, that after the Second World War was over, the British Empire would need to turn westwards and take on the US.
I'll give that null points.
Margaret Thatcher copied his economic policy, how many for that?
He predicted the Common market would be a disaster that the British public would vote to leave too
But in any case, his lasting contribution was to warn of the problems to social cohesion that mass immigration would bring.. and here we are
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
And yet Conservatives, often here and in places like the Daily Mail, churn out poisonous bile.
Exactly. Both sides have their issues.
I'd be interested in seeing a gallery of defaced Labour/Lib Dem campaign signs.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Out cycling at the weekend, and not a single Conservative poster across Bournemouth East. A smattering for Conor Burns in Bournemouth West. Saw a single Labour activist in Bournemouth town centre handing out some leaflets to people who seemed interested - I saw hand out 1 as I walked up Commercial Road. One old lady cycling into Bournemouth with a Labout sticker on her basket.
Out in the New Forest, a handful of posters for Desmond Swayne in Burley and that's that.
This election is passing us by as usual down here....
Take an average street of 100 houses: Acacia Avenue. You see 8 x Labour posters in the windows of 8 x houses, that is, every 5-6 houses or so you see a Labour poster, and *nothing* else.
What do you think?
You think, if you're a Tory, "Oh, f*ck. Labour are going to walk it round here".
Why?
Because your mind naturally interpolates and fills the houses in-between as Labour voters as well.
Meanwhile, Crosby/Messina's data has 18 of those homes down as solid Cons, with a further 7 possibles and 6 waverers.
And they are being knocked up, and firmed up, whilst ignoring the others regularly.
What happens on the day?
Tory votes: 27. Labour votes: 8 (+ maybe a couple of others)
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
Going on number of posters seen, the LDs are going to walk Oxford West and Abingdon - but that isn't how it works in the real world.
I live in one of the most Labour wards in Oxford - and there is 1 poster up for them.
Posters mean nothing. In the past they might have done - but we have moved on from that way of doing politics.
When May finally gets the boot, who's there to potentially replace her? The cabinet looks very uninspiring, with the exception of Greg Clark. Currently 100/1 at Ladbrokes.
If it happens in the next year, I'd say Gove or Hammond. Boris has absolutely no chance, and Rudd only the most slender.
Hammond. He's avoiding being tainted by this campaign. He'll lead an ultra soft Brexit. With a majority of 40 he'll be able to face down the Kippers in his party.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
And yet Conservatives, often here and in places like the Daily Mail, churn out poisonous bile.
Exactly. Both sides have their issues.
I'd be interested in seeing a gallery of defaced Labour/Lib Dem campaign signs.
There are other ways to be out of order beside defacing signs, as social media and newspaper comment sections demonstrate.
Another thing to add: May's performance, and Corbyn's performance, in this election has made it very non-U to advertise support for her, and very trendy to advertise for him, so the poster disparity will tend to be even greater than usual.
How many Tories on here have twitter-bothered or facebook-bothered their mates with their politics, compared to their Labour supporting friends, as well?
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
And they will go out in their millions on Thursday - quietly, softly, and determinedly - and vote Conservative. And Corbyn will be defeated.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
And yet Conservatives, often here and in places like the Daily Mail, churn out poisonous bile.
Very true there has been no possibility of defeat but they spew hate out on here and elsewhere then condemn others for doing the same .
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
Driving in the beautiful Kentish countryside around Edenbridge this morning there was a massive Labour poster up in the garden of a barn conversion. I almost careered into the hedgerow. What the fcuk is going on?
Going on number of posters seen, the LDs are going to walk Oxford West and Abingdon - but that isn't how it works in the real world.
Tory + UKIP in OWAB is 52.6% of the vote, and Labour voters won't be surging to back the Lib Dems this time.
So, after much tinkering, I've just finalised my model's prediction for the GE:
CON: 377 LAB: 198 SNP: 45 LD: 6 Others: 24
Of the 47 expected Tory gains I'm happy to report, without too much tinkering, that TP's Don Valley is listed.... Good luck Aaron!!
I don't think that's an unreasonable estimate. Could I ask how your LD seats come out?
I think they'll get 3/4 in Scotland. Plus Ceredgion.
And then I'd reckon another 2-6 in England. To give me a range of 6 (at the low end), to 11 at the high.
Course. I have those 6 as:
Westmorland & Lonsdale Dunbartonshire East Orkney & Shetland Ceredigion Leeds North West Sheffield Hallam
BUT:
Edinburgh West Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross Fife North East
Are all projected LD second and without MOE....
I think Edinburgh West is by far the most likely LibDem gain in the country. Look at the results in the locals last month: they topped the poll in all three wards in constituency, and managed over 50% in the biggest (Almond). Sure, turnout will be down, but tactical voting will be up.
My guess is that Leeds NW will fall to Labour (albeit it'll be very close). Fife NE will also be very close, as the LDs won it at Holyrood last year and topped the polls in the locals there last month. (Albeit by a small margin.)
I also hope that Norman Lamb hangs on North Norfolk. I am Eurosceptic, socially liberal Conservative, and (frankly) think that the strand of liberalism he represents should be encouraged. I'd vote for him.
And Twickenham is also a 50/50 shot for the LDs. Why? Partly Brexit, mostly Heathrow.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there voute goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Lol you will have had my former Tory MP as yours, then, when he did a runner when boundary changes went the wrong way. He wasn't one of the sharpest tools in the box.
North East Hampshire: never before seen Labour posters in well-to-do rural villages.
Sunday lunch pub conversation ( same constituency): four oldies, who I would have automatically put in the blue column, livid about winter fuel allowance. Talk of not voting Tory. Where there vote goes instead remains a mystery. Abstention? Damaged Tory core vote?
Make of that what you will.
I live in North East Hampshire. It's the safest Conservative seat in the country.
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Yup. There is a vote labour poster up opposite me. Not one Tory poster up in the street. From delivering around here I know that the Tory vote is strong, solid, supportive, but not wont to put up posters...
The risk of abuse for being an open Conservative is a real factor.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
You logged onto this site within minutes of Gerald Kaufman dying and posted;
"Hopefully the truth about Kaufman might start to emerge now."
Far right types like you rival the far left in the cruel-and-vindictive stakes.
Comments
This level of political debate is far superior, as are the politicians, to what we have today.
People neither think or listen anymore.
That's all I have say.
Has this been posted here?
'Often winning the Tory leadership is about who you aren’t not about who you are.
Twenty-five years ago today Lady Thatcher announced her decision to resign as Prime Minister, but if the parliamentary Tory party had followed the polling then her successor would not have been John Major but Michael Heseltine. The above polling was not atypical of the time, Michael Heseltine was seen as the best person to revive the Tory party’s electoral fortunes.
So why didn’t Heseltine become Tory leader? Because in the recent past, the winners of Tory leadership elections has often won in part because they weren’t someone else. In 1990 one of the main reasons John Major won was because he wasn’t Michael Heseltine as Lady Thatcher’s supporters couldn’t stomach her assassin succeeding her, taking their cue from her when she said “the Cabinet should unite to back the person most likely to beat Michael Heseltine.”
It can be argued that in 1997 William Hague won because he wasn’t Ken Clarke, that in 2001 Iain Duncan Smith won because he wasn’t Michael Portillo nor was he Ken Clarke. With the quasi-AV voting system the Tory party currently uses to select their leader, you can see a Stop-X candidate doing very well in the forthcoming Tory leadership contest.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/11/22/if-the-parliamentary-tory-party-had-followed-the-polling-in-1990-john-major-would-not-have-become-pm/
However they have a problem as they have to deliver Brexit in a year and a half with a country that is going to be suffering decreasing living standards and a Tory party that is still divided over Europe and that has enough head bangers in it who think the only problem is that May wasn't hard enough on Europe.
Incidentally, found my first Tory to Labour switchers today - a couple of my neighbours, 35 year old public sector workers who had been planning to vote Tory up until 3 weeks ago. May simply doesn't understand politics or building voter coalitions in the way that Cameron and Osborne did.
The Germans HATE Trump for example, while Tories here....I've seen more of a critical view of Trump from Tory MPs on twitter than Tories here.
Calling the election?
CON: 377
LAB: 198
SNP: 45
LD: 6
Others: 24
Of the 47 expected Tory gains I'm happy to report, without too much tinkering, that TP's Don Valley is listed.... Good luck Aaron!!
Posters mean nothing, other than the very few Labour voters there are choosing to show their colours.
There are dozens in Southampton Test, and zero Tory, and it also means nothing.
Normally I'm not interested in long term bets, i.e. those which are unlikely to come to fruition within 2 years, but in this instance I consider such a timescale to be realistic.
To be in with a realistic chance, he needs one more promotion into the really senior ranks and I think he may get a leg up should likes of Hammond be sidelined after the GE.
A good spot by you .... thanks.
The only coalitions the posh boys had to build were with other parties because they pissed off a good chunk of the right....
I'll give that null points.
A Corbynite Labour party has a good chance of winning in 2022 though. Of course it depends a bit who his successor is, but there seems to be an appetite now for something a bit more principled than New Labour was.
And that is something that the political classes have to deal with - and quickly.
The level of vitriol from Left supporters to those on the Right (or in the centre) is so nasty, so cruel, so vindictive, it is understandable that the Shy Tory factor is getting bigger and bigger.
Corbyn has shown himself unwilling to take action against his supporters who have sought to silence or attack their opponents. He is permitting a culture where verbal violence is acceptable and commonplace
Out in the New Forest, a handful of posters for Desmond Swayne in Burley and that's that.
This election is passing us by as usual down here....
One Anna Soubry poster around here had "Vote Labour" clumsily spray painted over it. Pissed me off mightily, I am still undecided upon whom I shall vote but the idea that one persons choice should ride roughshod over another is quite frankly selfish and childish. It is also happening an awful lot more now that I remember from past elections as people enter internet echo chambers.
The leaking of the Labour Manifesto.
It was leaked on the 11th May and dominated the news. If this hasn't happened, the launch on the 16th would have been the first airing of Labour policy, which has been, I would argue, a primary factor in the Labour advance. There would have been only a few days of airtime before the Tory manifesto and Manchester blew it off the front pages. What do you think?
By the way, you should be careful to pronounce it properly:
"AYNOCH WUZ ROIGHT!!"
Stuff like this would just harden my resolve to vote Tory.
For that, read: I don't want to advertise the fact I'm a Tory to my neighbours, and risk a bit of social awkwardness, let alone that one of them might get a bit cross with me.
No-one ever puts a brick through the window.
If they can't fill the news channel with coverage from London, they could always look at other news stories from round the world...
Trump's conduct since January has more than vindicated his critics who argued as to why he shouldn't be President. In that sense, the judgement of those who voted for him seems more questionable as time goes by.
Trump, across much of the Western world at the very least appears to be a pretty disliked figure. I think I will trust more in their judgement, than those who voted for Trump. And it says something that even when Europeans have their own concerns about immigration they still reject Trump.
@MaxPB Well, maybe that's not a bad thing. The past should not be forgetton.
And the airwaves and social media will subsequently be filled with the biggest petulant strop ever known to humanity, at which those same Conservatives will quietly smile.
And so it was.
This is worrying. Ofcourse Tories will win these areas easily on Thursday, but it could be a sign of wider support.
Please, please tell me some of you guys have seen Tory posters in working class mining towns for the first time.
*wobbles*
Still going with a majority in the 50's but aware it could be a lot less than that. Never thought that was a possibility weeks ago.
I think they'll get 3/4 in Scotland.
Plus Ceredgion.
And then I'd reckon another 2-6 in England. To give me a range of 6 (at the low end), to 11 at the high.
Everyone likes the idea of jam today, jam tomorrow and jam in 5 years time particularly if someone else is going to pay for it. Proper scrutiny of their 'costings' would have exposed the flaws.
It hasn't happened - but they can't rely on that next time round.
They are secure in their own superior intellect whilst being pointlessly aggressive and simplistic.
It only takes the very few who love him, and live in the country, a retired artist, or wealthy London commuter in the media, to stick up one poster to shock people.
That's it.
Farron's performance against Neil won't have helped. He has had a dreadful campaign.
In Chapter Two, things turn bad....
Barn conversion = London exile.
He predicted the Common market would be a disaster that the British public would vote to leave too
But in any case, his lasting contribution was to warn of the problems to social cohesion that mass immigration would bring.. and here we are
What do you think?
You think, if you're a Tory, "Oh, f*ck. Labour are going to walk it round here".
Why?
Because your mind naturally interpolates and fills the houses in-between as Labour voters as well.
Meanwhile, Crosby/Messina's data has 18 of those homes down as solid Cons, with a further 7 possibles and 6 waverers.
And they are being knocked up, and firmed up, whilst ignoring the others regularly.
What happens on the day?
Tory votes: 27. Labour votes: 8 (+ maybe a couple of others)
And you are shocked.
I live in one of the most Labour wards in Oxford - and there is 1 poster up for them.
Posters mean nothing. In the past they might have done - but we have moved on from that way of doing politics.
I also saw a house festooned with Labour posters in the village of Litton - basically the middle of nowhere in the Dales.
Westmorland & Lonsdale
Dunbartonshire East
Orkney & Shetland
Ceredigion
Leeds North West (MOE only)
Sheffield Hallam (MOE only)
BUT:
Edinburgh West
Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross
Fife North East
Are all projected LD second and within MOE....
It is very hard to see who will replace Farron - the pool will be very small.
Relax, just look at Mortimer's prediction, it looks very plausible.
Might be a student though....
He will be updating it on Tuesday.
How many Tories on here have twitter-bothered or facebook-bothered their mates with their politics, compared to their Labour supporting friends, as well?
Same thing. One physical. One digital.
Nicola will be fine. More than fine, in fact.
My guess is that Leeds NW will fall to Labour (albeit it'll be very close). Fife NE will also be very close, as the LDs won it at Holyrood last year and topped the polls in the locals there last month. (Albeit by a small margin.)
I also hope that Norman Lamb hangs on North Norfolk. I am Eurosceptic, socially liberal Conservative, and (frankly) think that the strand of liberalism he represents should be encouraged. I'd vote for him.
And Twickenham is also a 50/50 shot for the LDs. Why? Partly Brexit, mostly Heathrow.
How does Twickenham and Kingston also look ?
(Of course any model will have Richmond Park safely with the Tories)
"Hopefully the truth about Kaufman might start to emerge now."
Far right types like you rival the far left in the cruel-and-vindictive stakes.