What a week for Man City. I now don’t think they’ll come back from that defeat to Liverpool this week in the CL.
We've got a huge injury crisis.
We will definitely be without Can, Henderson, Lallana, and Gomez.
Salah, Robertson, and Moreno could be all missing with injuries.
So we could be without a recognised left back and for our last two matches our reserve centre back is a 19 year old who hasn't played a first team match.
Plus I'm going to the Etihad on Tuesday.
I know what's coming.
Plus we're owed the mother of all European comebacks.
I didn’t know it was that bad for Liverpool. I knew Lallana was injured, but Salah and Can? Yeah, now I’m less sure about them pulling it off at the Etihad....
Salah picked up a groin injury on Wednesday and came off early in the second half, he missed the Merseyside derby today.
Can's been injured for a few weeks.
Robertson missed the derby as well due to injury, and Moreno got injured in the warm up.
You're most important player, in my opinion, is James Milner. I would like to think Gareth Southgate is trying to get him to come out of international retirement.
He's brilliant, that all England midfield of Milner, Henderson, and Ox was amazing on Wednesday.
Milner's said the reason he's playing so well is because of the breaks he now gets during international breaks, so I think he'll stay in retirement.
What a week for Man City. I now don’t think they’ll come back from that defeat to Liverpool this week in the CL.
We've got a huge injury crisis.
We will definitely be without Can, Henderson, Lallana, and Gomez.
Salah, Robertson, and Moreno could be all missing with injuries.
So we could be without a recognised left back and for our last two matches our reserve centre back is a 19 year old who hasn't played a first team match.
Plus I'm going to the Etihad on Tuesday.
I know what's coming.
Plus we're owed the mother of all European comebacks.
I didn’t know it was that bad for Liverpool. I knew Lallana was injured, but Salah and Can? Yeah, now I’m less sure about them pulling it off at the Etihad....
Salah picked up a groin injury on Wednesday and came off early in the second half, he missed the Merseyside derby today.
Can's been injured for a few weeks.
Robertson missed the derby as well due to injury, and Moreno got injured in the warm up.
You're most important player, in my opinion, is James Milner. I would like to think Gareth Southgate is trying to get him to come out of international retirement.
He's brilliant, that all England midfield of Milner, Henderson, and Ox was amazing on Wednesday.
Milner's said the reason he's playing so well is because of the breaks he now gets during international breaks, so I think he'll stay in retirement.
Oh I don't doubt that it's helped him. But I just want him to play in the World Cup. He can retire again afterwards. I think that was Roy Hodgson's big mistake in 2014. He should have played Milner with Gerrard and Henderson and left out one of Stirling, Sturridge, Rooney or (most likely) Welbeck.
Yes (as confirmed by TSE) am challenging the LD incumbent in my ward in Epping and have been delivering and canvassing today in my ward and the neighbouring ward we are trying to hold. Looks Like Sandy is too and I know at least one other is but will leave it up to him whether he wants to mention it
I'd tend to agree with that, for all the media noise about a new centrist party the opening on the right probably makes more sense. The problem is that isn't what a lot of the media wants to call out for!
IIRC Stephen Bush has said similar. A lot of this new centre party talk really comes down to wishful thinking among liberal centrists.
The same liberal centrists who pretty much ran the government from 1997 to 2007 and 2010 to 2016. A spell in opposition won't do them too much harm and will give them time to rethink their message
What a week for Man City. I now don’t think they’ll come back from that defeat to Liverpool this week in the CL.
We've got a huge injury crisis.
We will definitely be without Can, Henderson, Lallana, and Gomez.
Salah, Robertson, and Moreno could be all missing with injuries.
So we could be without a recognised left back and for our last two matches our reserve centre back is a 19 year old who hasn't played a first team match.
Plus I'm going to the Etihad on Tuesday.
I know what's coming.
Plus we're owed the mother of all European comebacks.
I didn’t know it was that bad for Liverpool. I knew Lallana was injured, but Salah and Can? Yeah, now I’m less sure about them pulling it off at the Etihad....
Salah picked up a groin injury on Wednesday and came off early in the second half, he missed the Merseyside derby today.
Can's been injured for a few weeks.
Robertson missed the derby as well due to injury, and Moreno got injured in the warm up.
You're most important player, in my opinion, is James Milner. I would like to think Gareth Southgate is trying to get him to come out of international retirement.
He's brilliant, that all England midfield of Milner, Henderson, and Ox was amazing on Wednesday.
Milner's said the reason he's playing so well is because of the breaks he now gets during international breaks, so I think he'll stay in retirement.
Oh I don't doubt that it's helped him. But I just want him to play in the World Cup. He can retire again afterwards. I think that was Roy Hodgson's big mistake in 2014. He should have played Milner with Gerrard and Henderson and left out one of Stirling, Sturridge, Rooney or (most likely) Welbeck.
The fact that Roy Hodgson managed both my club and country still scares me.
Liverpool have lost one Merseyside derby in 90 minutes in the last 12 years.
Wow. Election Night 1997 re-runs are far more popular than I even imagined.
Hah.
The 2001 election night is amusing too - the result is an absolute foregone conclusion but it starts off with Archer's libel trial. What an absolute state the Tories were still in then.
On topic, I am pleased that Joff has decided to rejoin us. He is politically to the right of me, just as Momentum are to the left, but we are all part of one movement, one Party, one desire - to get rid of the Tory government and put something better in place.
At a local level, comrades from Blairites to Bennites work together with common purpose - in the next month that is to get councillors elected.
I'm not pretending there isn't conflict within the party, but we have more to unite us than to divide us.
I for one would rather see Jezza as next PM than BoJo or the Moggster.
What an invidious choice for the country any of those 3 would be
On topic, I am pleased that Joff has decided to rejoin us. He is politically to the right of me, just as Momentum are to the left, but we are all part of one movement, one Party, one desire - to get rid of the Tory government and put something better in place.
At a local level, comrades from Blairites to Bennites work together with common purpose - in the next month that is to get councillors elected.
I'm not pretending there isn't conflict within the party, but we have more to unite us than to divide us.
I for one would rather see Jezza as next PM than BoJo or the Moggster.
What an invidious choice for the country any of those 3 would be
Then I have good news - Bojo and the Moggster might become PM without the country being involved in the choice, so no problem.
On topic, I am pleased that Joff has decided to rejoin us. He is politically to the right of me, just as Momentum are to the left, but we are all part of one movement, one Party, one desire - to get rid of the Tory government and put something better in place.
At a local level, comrades from Blairites to Bennites work together with common purpose - in the next month that is to get councillors elected.
I'm not pretending there isn't conflict within the party, but we have more to unite us than to divide us.
I for one would rather see Jezza as next PM than BoJo or the Moggster.
What an invidious choice for the country any of those 3 would be
Then I have good news - Bojo and the Moggster might become PM without the country being involved in the choice, so no problem.
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
One scenario I've often seen argued is a Conservative win in 2022 leading to Labour, after a short period, electing a centrist leader and making substantial policy shifts while the Conservatives come to look increasingly tired in office. The 2027 election is 1997 redux with the Conservatives routed and Labour set to dominate the 2030s as they did the 2000s.
Perhaps - indeed "liberal" Conservatives had to bide their time in Opposition while the likes of Hague, IDS and Howard pandered to a "traditional" tone and all got soundly thrashed by the electorate. After 2005, the Party realised they had to change to win.
Parties that want to win power work out how and that often means fields full of slaughtered cows. Labour wins when it has the zeitgeist in terms of modernity and when it couples that with Conservative-style sound economic management. To put the icing on the cake, a generally strong economy allows people to feel more confident in the preservation of their wealth and more comfortable with seeing the fruits of prosperity spread more widely.
Labour is the Party trusted to help wider society and is supported only when the economy is strong enough to allow for increased spending on the NHS, Police and other areas. In a perfect world, Labour would win every time but it's far from perfect and when it isn't, the Conservatives answer the call.
At the moment, I suspect a chunk of the Conservative vote is the anti-Corbyn vote. On their own some of Corbyn's ideas poll well but he personally does not. This allows the record of the Conservative Government on issues like law and order and the funding of adult social care to pass without scrutiny. The simple argument that however bad May is, Corbyn will be a hundred times worse is for now the only game in town.
I think there's a lot of areas where this Government's performance is sub-optimal to be charitable and there's far too little scrutiny of that. That will continue until and unless Labour becomes a credible Government-in-waiting rather than a coalition of anti-Conservative voices.
Were the likes of Joff running the Labour Party, the Conservatives would have plenty to worry about.
We all know how the average age of home owenership has been rising and rising in the UK, with 30 year olds today much less likely to own their own home than 20 years ago.
What is curious is threefold:
1. This trend seems almost as pronounced in areas of the UK where house prices have barely budged (the North West and East Anglia), as where they have soared (London).
2. This trend has also been seen in the US, Japan and Canada. In Canada, the average age of first home purchase is now 36, up from 30 in the mid 2000s!
3. The only place in the world where average age of first home ownership seems to be falling is Germany. Which is odd, because Germany has had one of the hottest property markets in the world.
Rising prices should mean lower affordability, should mean later home ownership. But it seems that required deposit levels, and confidence about the direction of future house prices are at least as important to first time buyers.
Anyway, my investigations continue.
The other side of the affordability equation is income. I suspect that incomes in places where prices have barely budged have not done as well compared to areas with strong house price growth.
If inflation is eroding your income then even modestly falling house prices become less, rather than more, affordable.
Yes (as confirmed by TSE) am challenging the LD incumbent in my ward in Epping and have been delivering and canvassing today in my ward and the neighbouring ward we are trying to hold. Looks Like Sandy is too and I know at least one other is but will leave it up to him whether he wants to mention it
Corbyn is Labour's candidate to be PM. Any member of the Labour Party, and any Labour MP that sits on the green benches behind Corbyn, are endorsing him to be PM. Joff Wild is no exception.
The LibDems must be really, really shite if this bunch of self-important nobodies would rather hose £50million against the wall on a vanity project than support the existing centre party.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
Yes (as confirmed by TSE) am challenging the LD incumbent in my ward in Epping and have been delivering and canvassing today in my ward and the neighbouring ward we are trying to hold. Looks Like Sandy is too and I know at least one other is but will leave it up to him whether he wants to mention it
The LibDems must be really, really shite if this bunch of self-important nobodies would rather hose £50million against the wall on a vanity project than support the existing centre party.
Interesting how quickly the usual partisans rush to dismiss it and how curious to see Conservative and Labour sounding the same.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
Despite the wide range of political views here, we're all students of British elections and (hopefully) how to make money from reading the signs. There's no support for this mythical centrist party in the polling. 56% of the public believe that none of the existing parties represent them but that's going to cover a massive range of opinion and any real party with real policies won't be able to appeal to all or even most of them. What is this mythical centrist party going to offer that the Lib Dems aren't already offering?
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
Interesting how quickly the usual partisans rush to dismiss it and how curious to see Conservative and Labour sounding the same.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
Despite the wide range of political views here, we're all students of British elections and (hopefully) how to make money from reading the signs. There's no support for this mythical centrist party in the polling. 56% of the public believe that none of the existing parties represent them but that's going to cover a massive range of opinion and any real party with real policies won't be able to appeal to all or even most of them. What is this mythical centrist party going to offer that the Lib Dems aren't already offering?
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
The genesis of a serious new party would be serious politicians, not "philanthropists" putting a funding package together and then auditioning for the lead roles, which is how this sounds. Also, a multi-millionaire called Simon Franks is just trolling Labour - those pesky Elders have stopped bothering to hide what they are up to.
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
Interesting how quickly the usual partisans rush to dismiss it and how curious to see Conservative and Labour sounding the same.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
Despite the wide range of political views here, we're all students of British elections and (hopefully) how to make money from reading the signs. There's no support for this mythical centrist party in the polling. 56% of the public believe that none of the existing parties represent them but that's going to cover a massive range of opinion and any real party with real policies won't be able to appeal to all or even most of them. What is this mythical centrist party going to offer that the Lib Dems aren't already offering?
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
One scenario I've often seen argued is a Conservative win in 2022 leading to Labour, after a short period, electing a centrist leader and making substantial policy shifts while the Conservatives come to look increasingly tired in office. The 2027 election is 1997 redux with the Conservatives routed and Labour set to dominate the 2030s as they did the 2000s.
Perhaps - indeed "liberal" Conservatives had to bide their time in Opposition while the likes of Hague, IDS and Howard pandered to a "traditional" tone and all got soundly thrashed by the electorate. After 2005, the Party realised they had to change to win.
Parties that want to win power work out how and that often means fields full of slaughtered cows. Labour wins when it has the zeitgeist in terms of modernity and when it couples that with Conservative-style sound economic management. To put the icing on the cake, a generally strong economy allows people to feel more confident in the preservation of their wealth and more comfortable with seeing the fruits of prosperity spread more widely.
Labour is the Party trusted to help wider society and is supported only when the economy is strong enough to allow for increased spending on the NHS, Police and other areas. In a perfect world, Labour would win every time but it's far from perfect and when it isn't, the Conservatives answer the call.
At the moment, I suspect a chunk of the Conservative vote is the anti-Corbyn vote. On their own some of Corbyn's ideas poll well but he personally does not. This allows the record of the Conservative Government on issues like law and order and the funding of adult social care to pass without scrutiny. The simple argument that however bad May is, Corbyn will be a hundred times worse is for now the only game in town.
I think there's a lot of areas where this Government's performance is sub-optimal to be charitable and there's far too little scrutiny of that. That will continue until and unless Labour becomes a credible Government-in-waiting rather than a coalition of anti-Conservative voices.
Were the likes of Joff running the Labour Party, the Conservatives would have plenty to worry about.
Nope, if Joff was running the LP the Tories would be laughing their heads off, which is why I really hope the no hopers in both parties try and form their brand new party. It gives Labour, and funnily enough the Tories a chance to get rid of the chancers... At the next GE, most, since they will have lost their local party support and most of their electorate, will be looking for new jobs.
Despite the wide range of political views here, we're all students of British elections and (hopefully) how to make money from reading the signs. There's no support for this mythical centrist party in the polling. 56% of the public believe that none of the existing parties represent them but that's going to cover a massive range of opinion and any real party with real policies won't be able to appeal to all or even most of them. What is this mythical centrist party going to offer that the Lib Dems aren't already offering?
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
More than 2/3 of the original members of the SDP hadn't been in any political party before. Don't estimate the appeal of any alternative to disillusioned ex-Conservatives, ex-Labour and even ex-LD supporters.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
F*cking hate rats.
That is because you are a classic case of putting party before principles. Something you have unfortunately exhibited far too often on these pages.
Nope, if Joff was running the LP the Tories would be laughing their heads off, which is why I really hope the no hopers in both parties try and form their brand new party. It gives Labour, and funnily enough the Tories a chance to get rid of the chancers... At the next GE, most, since they will have lost their local party support and most of their electorate, will be looking for new jobs.
I don't really understand this. Who are the "chancers" in each Party, those who don't profess unswerving loyalty to the leader or question her or his policies ?
It is all well and good having money and lots of important and powerful people behind you.
The one potential flaw in their plan, where I see it falling down. Voters.
There are plenty of people who don't like May/The Toreis/Brexit (which all get combined up into each other) or Corbyn.
This group of people does not share a common platform, there is a massive difference between being against a few central things and actually having a cohesive plan you can all agree to for government. You get various people mentioned as potential candidates for such a party that actually have different views and would struggle to be in a party together.
This also goes for their potential voters and I think the is reason why it is always a new party. The Lib Dems had to go further than just say we aren't too far right or too far left, they had to actually come up with their own policy platform.
Then some of the people that don't like Corbyn or May also didn't like the Lib Dems.
The original groups isn't an overwhelming size to begin with so once they start losing people to actual decisions beyond left and right are bad they struggle to get anywhere.
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
Were the likes of Joff running the Labour Party, the Conservatives would have plenty to worry about.
If Joff has such a winning formula he had better work out what he is for, rather than merely against, pdq...
Thank you for the constructive criticism, my friend.
In response you don't know and I don't know what Labour will be in five years time (same goes for the Conservatives). IF Corbyn goes down to defeat in 2022, where will Labour go ? If May (or whoever loses) where will the Conservatives go ?
My second point relates not to Corbyn's Labour but to a broadly centre-left party.
As for the third point, the centre-left does need to work out a series of policies and positions for Britain in the 2020s but that presumably is where the £50 million will be going - to do that kind of research or thinking.
The more I think about it the more I consider this thread header to be one of the best on PB for a very long time. It is clearly stimulating debate not only on these pages but beyond as well.
This seems silly but the mention of chlorinated chicken might make people think that their roasts will suddenly smell like a swimming pool. It's something that Britain should accept if we can get a good trade deal and once it's happening people will wonder what the fuss was about.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
F*cking hate rats.
That is because you are a classic case of putting party before principles. Something you have unfortunately exhibited far too often on these pages.
That means a lot from someone who was willing the share the same cesspit as Nigel Farage for so long.
This seems silly but the mention of chlorinated chicken might make people think that their roasts will suddenly smell like a swimming pool. It's something that Britain should accept if we can get a good trade deal and once it's happening people will wonder what the fuss was about.
It's not as easy as that. Leaving aside the fact that you haven't defined what a "good" trade deal is, it puts British farmers in a bind. If US can supply cheap food that meets standards A to the UK, then to compete UK farmers will have to lower their standards to A. But if they lower their standards to A, then they lose their European markets which require the higher standards B. Either way, UK farmers lose. I think it was @NickPalmer of this parish who wrote an article some time ago pointing this out: perhaps he could furnish you with a link
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
Were the likes of Joff running the Labour Party, the Conservatives would have plenty to worry about.
If Joff has such a winning formula he had better work out what he is for, rather than merely against, pdq...
Thank you for the constructive criticism, my friend.
In response you don't know and I don't know what Labour will be in five years time (same goes for the Conservatives). IF Corbyn goes down to defeat in 2022, where will Labour go ? If May (or whoever loses) where will the Conservatives go ?
My second point relates not to Corbyn's Labour but to a broadly centre-left party.
As for the third point, the centre-left does need to work out a series of policies and positions for Britain in the 2020s but that presumably is where the £50 million will be going - to do that kind of research or thinking.
I am not sure that launching a new party, then spending its money on working out what it is for, is a sensible way to go about things?
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
F*cking hate rats.
That is because you are a classic case of putting party before principles. Something you have unfortunately exhibited far too often on these pages.
That means a lot from someone who was willing the share the same cesspit as Nigel Farage for so long.
Nope. Wrong again. I was happy to use UKIP to achieve one speficic aim which was to leave the EU. As soon as that aim was achieved I left and hope they will sink into obscurity and failure. Principles before party you see. Something you clearly have no understanding of.
Churchill rightly said that he did not leave the party, the party left him. He was a man of principle even if one did not always agree with what he stood for. You stand for nothing except seeing your party in power. In that you are the exact opposite of someone like SouthamObserver.
This seems silly but the mention of chlorinated chicken might make people think that their roasts will suddenly smell like a swimming pool. It's something that Britain should accept if we can get a good trade deal and once it's happening people will wonder what the fuss was about.
It's not as easy as that. Leaving aside the fact that you haven't defined what a "good" trade deal is, it puts British farmers in a bind. If US can supply cheap food that meets standards A to the UK, then to compete UK farmers will have to lower their standards to A. But if they lower their standards to A, then they lose their European markets which require the higher standards B. Either way, UK farmers lose. I think it was @NickPalmer of this parish who wrote an article some time ago pointing this out: perhaps he could furnish you with a link
Chlorinated chicken isn't on it's own lower standards. The argument is that chlorination is something that covers up contamination earlier in the supply chain but on it's own I can't see the problem with it.
OK. In order to do a sample, two things have to be true. You have to sample at random (there are various ways of doing this) and the thing you're sampling from (the sample frame - now there's a bit of jargon for you and you have leaned something tonight) has to be representative of the population.
In the UK political opinion pollsters don't have stacks of cash and so have to do workarounds: quota sampling instead of random sampling, weighting the responses to match the population, using turnout models to translate voting intention into votes, and so on. Each workaround bends the theory and when it goes too far, it breaks.
YouGov recognised this post-2015 and spent hundreds of thousands of pounds making their online panel representative. Which is (one of) the reasons why it did well.
NCPolitics do their sampling from a) popup surveys on non-political sites and b) some people they bump into online ("river sampling"). At this point I start chewing my lips off. It might be a representative sample frame, and SurveyMonkey use similar techniques and their results aren't baaaad (starts crying) but...how do you prove it? "Oh, we weighted it so that's OK" is not an adequate answer.
So it might be pukka. It might not. Fuck knows. Sobs quietly...
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
F*cking hate rats.
That is because you are a classic case of putting party before principles. Something you have unfortunately exhibited far too often on these pages.
That means a lot from someone who was willing the share the same cesspit as Nigel Farage for so long.
Nope. Wrong again. I was happy to use UKIP to achieve one speficic aim which was to leave the EU. As soon as that aim was achieved I left and hope they will sink into obscurity and failure. Principles before party you see. Something you clearly have no understanding of.
Churchill rightly said that he did not leave the party, the party left him. He was a man of principle even if one did not always agree with what he stood for. You stand for nothing except seeing your party in power. In that you are the exact opposite of someone like SouthamObserver.
When in your adult life was it not Conservative party policy not to be in the EEC/EU prior to the referendum?
Nope, they'll be publishing their tables like a BPC registered pollster, so we can judge their methodology.
Plus I'm sure they'll be joining the BPC (thought I saw a tweet along those lines)
You said a few weeks ago you were going to do a thread on the post-2017 polling changes. I said I wanted the data/sources/information and you said you were going to do a thread. That thread has not appeared. Can I have the data/sources/information please? Happy to pay if needed.
Until they join the BPC shouldn't we treat them as a voodo-ish?
Nope, they'll be publishing their tables like a BPC registered pollster, so we can judge their methodology.
Plus I'm sure they'll be joining the BPC (thought I saw a tweet along those lines)
No problem. Back when I first started lurking (absolutely ages ago!) it was considered a faux pas to question the honour of a BPC member but perfectly ok to mock webpoll dross. I just wanted to clarify what the correct position was here.
This seems silly but the mention of chlorinated chicken might make people think that their roasts will suddenly smell like a swimming pool. It's something that Britain should accept if we can get a good trade deal and once it's happening people will wonder what the fuss was about.
It's not as easy as that. Leaving aside the fact that you haven't defined what a "good" trade deal is, it puts British farmers in a bind. If US can supply cheap food that meets standards A to the UK, then to compete UK farmers will have to lower their standards to A. But if they lower their standards to A, then they lose their European markets which require the higher standards B. Either way, UK farmers lose. I think it was @NickPalmer of this parish who wrote an article some time ago pointing this out: perhaps he could furnish you with a link
Chlorinated chicken isn't on it's own lower standards. The argument is that chlorination is something that covers up contamination earlier in the supply chain but on it's own I can't see the problem with it.
I can't help thinking it won't be up to thee or me...
Interesting how quickly the usual partisans rush to dismiss it and how curious to see Conservative and Labour sounding the same.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
And yet the situation with France is not exactly the same as here. He was up against mainstream parties which were doing very very badly in the polls compared to how well Labour and the Tories are doing. And he still only managed a small amount in the first round of the presidential poll, and was then up against Le Pen.
Which is not to say what he achieved was not remarkable, particularly the aftermath and the parliamentary voting, it was remarkable, but I really don't see that much we can cling to here about challenging the duopoly. We had parties that ensured we had gotten to a 2.5 party system perhaps, but public support collapsed for both, with only one, the LDs, even in a position to have another go of things.
One thing I have noticed a lot since I started following politics is that whenever one (or both) sides, dismiss something, one theory proposed it always that it shows how much they 'fear' the thing they are dismissing. On occasion it can be true, but I have never seen why the mere dismissing demonstrates that - sometimes when people, even the most partisan of partisans, dismiss something, it is because they find it worthy of dismissal, not because they fear it. It's the same sort of logic as used by those partisans, in that if they are attacked by the right people, then it shows they are doing something right. Sometimes. But sometimes even the enemy have a point.
I'd be very interested to see a new party emerge, not a tiny thing to be dismissed, but a genuine attempt at a rebalancing of our political landscape. Even if it failed, the attempt would be fascinating. But I also think it would go nowhere.
Okay, I can imagine some Labour people who might be willing to jump ship, but would anyone on here put down any money on a Tory MP crossing the floor to join with them?
There's always one.
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
The original TPD?
Nah. that was Sir Winston Churchill, he ratted not once, but twice.
F*cking hate rats.
That is because you are a classic case of putting party before principles. Something you have unfortunately exhibited far too often on these pages.
That means a lot from someone who was willing the share the same cesspit as Nigel Farage for so long.
Nope. Wrong again. I was happy to use UKIP to achieve one speficic aim which was to leave the EU. As soon as that aim was achieved I left and hope they will sink into obscurity and failure. Principles before party you see. Something you clearly have no understanding of.
Churchill rightly said that he did not leave the party, the party left him. He was a man of principle even if one did not always agree with what he stood for. You stand for nothing except seeing your party in power. In that you are the exact opposite of someone like SouthamObserver.
You enabled and legitimised people like Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, I'm not sure I could live with that.
It is clear you can, which speaks volumes about you.
IME (in and around NYC mostly) chicken is no better or worse than in the UK. Beef is much better than in the UK (it’s far more likely to be grass-fed here) and pork (as pork, rather than bacon or other processed pork) is generally better or as good as here too. Lamb, when you can find it, is much worse. Fish is generally poor unless you can find a supplier who lands it as close possible to where you are: we have a supplier at our farmer’s market who lands it in Long Island Sound so its generally good, but we don’t buy fish from our local supermarkets now after getting literally rotten or wormy cuts.
Vegetables, greengrocer produce, around the city is pretty poor for the most part, but this may be due to location as when we’ve bought groceries around my wife’s home town in Rhode Island it’s been better.
In general I’d say the quality of food in the UK is higher.
Despite the wide range of political views here, we're all students of British elections and (hopefully) how to make money from reading the signs. There's no support for this mythical centrist party in the polling. 56% of the public believe that none of the existing parties represent them but that's going to cover a massive range of opinion and any real party with real policies won't be able to appeal to all or even most of them. What is this mythical centrist party going to offer that the Lib Dems aren't already offering?
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
More than 2/3 of the original members of the SDP hadn't been in any political party before. Don't estimate the appeal of any alternative to disillusioned ex-Conservatives, ex-Labour and even ex-LD supporters.
I wasn't around when the SDP was formed, but it feels like in the current climate the first question anyone wanting to support a new party would ask is, 'who did the members of it used to belong to?' Since there would be high profile people backing it (otherwise it really would go nowhere), I am sure concerns would immediately arise if there were too many former Tories, or Labour figures, or LDs, or whoever, and that would put a lot of people off. It seems to me that the disillusioned ex-somethings sometimes seem just as reluctant to break bread with anyone on the other side as those who still a part of it.
IME (in and around NYC mostly) chicken is no better or worse than in the UK. Beef is much better than in the UK (it’s far more likely to be grass-fed here) and pork (as pork, rather than bacon or other processed pork) is generally better or as good as here too. Lamb, when you can find it, is much worse.
Really? I love lamb, but if it is a pale imitation of the good stuff, I wonder what I have beenmissing.
That sort of comment is making me think if someone were to start a new centrist party at least partly on that basis, then the public might end up surprising and it ensures he becomes PM somehow.
IME (in and around NYC mostly) chicken is no better or worse than in the UK. Beef is much better than in the UK (it’s far more likely to be grass-fed here) and pork (as pork, rather than bacon or other processed pork) is generally better or as good as here too. Lamb, when you can find it, is much worse. Fish is generally poor unless you can find a supplier who lands it as close possible to where you are: we have a supplier at our farmer’s market who lands it in Long Island Sound so its generally good, but we don’t buy fish from our local supermarkets now after getting literally rotten or wormy cuts.
Vegetables, greengrocer produce, around the city is pretty poor for the most part, but this may be due to location as when we’ve bought groceries around my wife’s home town in Rhode Island it’s been better.
In general I’d say the quality of food in the UK is higher.
And that's before you get onto the rubbery cheese, funny milk, sour chocolate, and general scarcity of decent fresh healthy restaurant food once you get away from either coast.
Interesting how quickly the usual partisans rush to dismiss it and how curious to see Conservative and Labour sounding the same.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
And yet the situation with France is not exactly the same as here. He was up against mainstream parties which were doing very very badly in the polls compared to how well Labour and the Tories are doing. And he still only managed a small amount in the first round of the presidential poll, and was then up against Le Pen.
Which is not to say what he achieved was not remarkable, particularly the aftermath and the parliamentary voting, it was remarkable, but I really don't see that much we can cling to here about challenging the duopoly. We had parties that ensured we had gotten to a 2.5 party system perhaps, but public support collapsed for both, with only one, the LDs, even in a position to have another go of things.
One thing I have noticed a lot since I started following politics is that whenever one (or both) sides, dismiss something, one theory proposed it always that it shows how much they 'fear' the thing they are dismissing. On occasion it can be true, but I have never seen why the mere dismissing demonstrates that - sometimes when people, even the most partisan of partisans, dismiss something, it is because they find it worthy of dismissal, not because they fear it. It's the same sort of logic as used by those partisans, in that if they are attacked by the right people, then it shows they are doing something right. Sometimes. But sometimes even the enemy have a point.
I'd be very interested to see a new party emerge, not a tiny thing to be dismissed, but a genuine attempt at a rebalancing of our political landscape. Even if it failed, the attempt would be fascinating. But I also think it would go nowhere.
Also the presidential election enabled constructing a party around a charismatic individual in a way that simply isn't possible in our political system.
IME (in and around NYC mostly) chicken is no better or worse than in the UK. Beef is much better than in the UK (it’s far more likely to be grass-fed here) and pork (as pork, rather than bacon or other processed pork) is generally better or as good as here too. Lamb, when you can find it, is much worse. Fish is generally poor unless you can find a supplier who lands it as close possible to where you are: we have a supplier at our farmer’s market who lands it in Long Island Sound so its generally good, but we don’t buy fish from our local supermarkets now after getting literally rotten or wormy cuts.
Vegetables, greengrocer produce, around the city is pretty poor for the most part, but this may be due to location as when we’ve bought groceries around my wife’s home town in Rhode Island it’s been better.
In general I’d say the quality of food in the UK is higher.
And that's before you get onto the rubbery cheese, funny milk, sour chocolate, and general scarcity of decent fresh healthy restaurant food once you get away from either coast.
Try eating a Ginsters pastie and living.
Both UK and USA have good and bad food. Get over it.
Comments
Milner's said the reason he's playing so well is because of the breaks he now gets during international breaks, so I think he'll stay in retirement.
Corbyn's original gamble going to the Libertines concert during the election campaign.
http://thequietus.com/articles/24349-oh-jeremy-corbyn-chant-origin-alex-nunn-the-candidate-extract
https://twitter.com/andrew_adonis/status/982691052745261056
I sympathise with his antipathy to Brexit, but this is just odd.
Liverpool have lost one Merseyside derby in 90 minutes in the last 12 years.
Roy Hodgson was that manager.
The 2001 election night is amusing too - the result is an absolute foregone conclusion but it starts off with Archer's libel trial. What an absolute state the Tories were still in then.
First, thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking piece, SO. I understand your journey (as it were) and I suspect in time you will be wholly vindicated.
One scenario I've often seen argued is a Conservative win in 2022 leading to Labour, after a short period, electing a centrist leader and making substantial policy shifts while the Conservatives come to look increasingly tired in office. The 2027 election is 1997 redux with the Conservatives routed and Labour set to dominate the 2030s as they did the 2000s.
Perhaps - indeed "liberal" Conservatives had to bide their time in Opposition while the likes of Hague, IDS and Howard pandered to a "traditional" tone and all got soundly thrashed by the electorate. After 2005, the Party realised they had to change to win.
Parties that want to win power work out how and that often means fields full of slaughtered cows. Labour wins when it has the zeitgeist in terms of modernity and when it couples that with Conservative-style sound economic management. To put the icing on the cake, a generally strong economy allows people to feel more confident in the preservation of their wealth and more comfortable with seeing the fruits of prosperity spread more widely.
Labour is the Party trusted to help wider society and is supported only when the economy is strong enough to allow for increased spending on the NHS, Police and other areas. In a perfect world, Labour would win every time but it's far from perfect and when it isn't, the Conservatives answer the call.
At the moment, I suspect a chunk of the Conservative vote is the anti-Corbyn vote. On their own some of Corbyn's ideas poll well but he personally does not. This allows the record of the Conservative Government on issues like law and order and the funding of adult social care to pass without scrutiny. The simple argument that however bad May is, Corbyn will be a hundred times worse is for now the only game in town.
I think there's a lot of areas where this Government's performance is sub-optimal to be charitable and there's far too little scrutiny of that. That will continue until and unless Labour becomes a credible Government-in-waiting rather than a coalition of anti-Conservative voices.
Were the likes of Joff running the Labour Party, the Conservatives would have plenty to worry about.
If inflation is eroding your income then even modestly falling house prices become less, rather than more, affordable.
He appears to have gone over the deep end.
"Set out proposals" - as if he was someone important. Never elected, and he was singularly useless in government.
“They have the resources, but I’m not sure they have a viable plan,” said one person familiar with the project.
Plans secretly made by donors since 2016 for a new political party drawing from both left and right
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/07/new-political-party-break-mould-westminster-uk-brexit
Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected to the SDP.
Shows how much they fear anything which challenges the existing duopoly.
The one thing which "could" break both the Conservative and Labour parties is a Macron-style party emerging and beating them both.
F*cking hate rats.
It's not fear about the duopoly, it's incredulity, but if they want to waste £50m then it'll be interesting to watch.
Exhibit A: Arron Banks
What’s the best way for me to bet on that outcome?
Is the perfect world really so illiberal? If Joff has such a winning formula he had better work out what he is for, rather than merely against, pdq...
The one potential flaw in their plan, where I see it falling down. Voters.
There are plenty of people who don't like May/The Toreis/Brexit (which all get combined up into each other) or Corbyn.
This group of people does not share a common platform, there is a massive difference between being against a few central things and actually having a cohesive plan you can all agree to for government. You get various people mentioned as potential candidates for such a party that actually have different views and would struggle to be in a party together.
This also goes for their potential voters and I think the is reason why it is always a new party. The Lib Dems had to go further than just say we aren't too far right or too far left, they had to actually come up with their own policy platform.
Then some of the people that don't like Corbyn or May also didn't like the Lib Dems.
The original groups isn't an overwhelming size to begin with so once they start losing people to actual decisions beyond left and right are bad they struggle to get anywhere.
@Recidivist
No problem, he also did a quite long interview about various parts of his book (which the article had an extract from) which I found quite interesting, some stuff I either hadn't heard or a different angle on it.
https://soundcloud.com/a-up-lets-talk/1-alex-nunns-discusses-the-candidate-jeremy-corbyns-improbable-path-to-power
In response you don't know and I don't know what Labour will be in five years time (same goes for the Conservatives). IF Corbyn goes down to defeat in 2022, where will Labour go ? If May (or whoever loses) where will the Conservatives go ?
My second point relates not to Corbyn's Labour but to a broadly centre-left party.
As for the third point, the centre-left does need to work out a series of policies and positions for Britain in the 2020s but that presumably is where the £50 million will be going - to do that kind of research or thinking.
Exclusive: Britons would rather cancel post-Brexit deal with US than accept lower food standards
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-trade-deal-theresa-may-us-uk-eu-chlorine-chicken-food-safety-standards-poll-a8292496.html
What were they doing before and why did the mayor direct them there instead of stopping crime in the streets of London?
Churchill rightly said that he did not leave the party, the party left him. He was a man of principle even if one did not always agree with what he stood for. You stand for nothing except seeing your party in power. In that you are the exact opposite of someone like SouthamObserver.
https://twitter.com/newsundayherald/status/982736193807880197?s=21
Plus I'm sure they'll be joining the BPC (thought I saw a tweet along those lines)
OK. In order to do a sample, two things have to be true. You have to sample at random (there are various ways of doing this) and the thing you're sampling from (the sample frame - now there's a bit of jargon for you and you have leaned something tonight) has to be representative of the population.
In the UK political opinion pollsters don't have stacks of cash and so have to do workarounds: quota sampling instead of random sampling, weighting the responses to match the population, using turnout models to translate voting intention into votes, and so on. Each workaround bends the theory and when it goes too far, it breaks.
YouGov recognised this post-2015 and spent hundreds of thousands of pounds making their online panel representative. Which is (one of) the reasons why it did well.
NCPolitics do their sampling from a) popup surveys on non-political sites and b) some people they bump into online ("river sampling"). At this point I start chewing my lips off. It might be a representative sample frame, and SurveyMonkey use similar techniques and their results aren't baaaad (starts crying) but...how do you prove it? "Oh, we weighted it so that's OK" is not an adequate answer.
So it might be pukka. It might not. Fuck knows. Sobs quietly...
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/982740277038342144
Which is not to say what he achieved was not remarkable, particularly the aftermath and the parliamentary voting, it was remarkable, but I really don't see that much we can cling to here about challenging the duopoly. We had parties that ensured we had gotten to a 2.5 party system perhaps, but public support collapsed for both, with only one, the LDs, even in a position to have another go of things.
One thing I have noticed a lot since I started following politics is that whenever one (or both) sides, dismiss something, one theory proposed it always that it shows how much they 'fear' the thing they are dismissing. On occasion it can be true, but I have never seen why the mere dismissing demonstrates that - sometimes when people, even the most partisan of partisans, dismiss something, it is because they find it worthy of dismissal, not because they fear it. It's the same sort of logic as used by those partisans, in that if they are attacked by the right people, then it shows they are doing something right. Sometimes. But sometimes even the enemy have a point.
I'd be very interested to see a new party emerge, not a tiny thing to be dismissed, but a genuine attempt at a rebalancing of our political landscape. Even if it failed, the attempt would be fascinating. But I also think it would go nowhere.
It is clear you can, which speaks volumes about you.
Vegetables, greengrocer produce, around the city is pretty poor for the most part, but this may be due to location as when we’ve bought groceries around my wife’s home town in Rhode Island it’s been better.
In general I’d say the quality of food in the UK is higher.
And of course some end up returning to the fold.
Both UK and USA have good and bad food. Get over it.