Dreadful result for Labour particularly in a seat like Lewisham. Probably terminal for Corbyn's chances of being other than an also ran.
If you are a Remainer who would you vote for out of Labour or Tory? Until last week there was sufficient ambiguity to go for Labour. Now I can't see any and it looks like the voters of Lewisham agree. They have tossed away their priceless USP
I heard John McDonnell saying how difficult it was for Labour to ride two horses without bifurcating itself. For once he was correct and now they're well and truly bifurcated.
Did I miss Labour narrowing down their internal divisions down to two horses? That would be progress.
' The LD canvas projection yet again proved to be remarkably predictive '
How do we know that it was the real canvass return and not expectations management ?
In which case the LDs have become stunningly good at guessing. Unless you are suggesting some mystical process in which voters respond to their predictions in sufficient numbers to make them come true?
Perhaps it was a lucky guess, its certainly a fact that all parties indulge in expectations management.
The English football team visited an orphanage in Russia yesterday. "It was heart breaking to see their little faces with no hope," said Vladimir, aged six.
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
Or the other way of looking at it is if your were a partner in a business, when you leave that business you would expect your share back, or the other partners to buy you out....
So basically similies like the above can just be spun however you like, so it's pointless.
Oh it's a simile now is it?
Well in yours, I think you'll find that it all depends on what was in the partnership agreement. If it said if you leave and get zilch, then zilch you get. The EU would be treating us like a Third Country as per, er, the agreement.
Oh, silly me! Since the partnership agreement (EU treaties) contain no provisions saying that any country leaving has to pay anything to the EU, then according to you we don't have to pay the Brexit bill, right?
Yeah sure whatevs don't pay them. I thought it was contracted though?
The EU is process-based. In one of their many, many treaties and protocols it has rules for how a Third Country should be treated. Those treaties and protocols are ones that, in our lunacy, we actually signed up to. So as per whoever it was saying the partners would buy us out - only if it is in the agreement.
I mean by all means go hire an army and invade them if it makes you happier but we should continue to be bound be the law in our activities with other institutions and countries.
Coming close on a low turnout by-election tells us nothing.
If you want to spend your time campaigning for a minor party, that’s clearly your choice. It’s other people’s choice to point out that this is probably a waste of your time and energy using the evidence available.
Oh goody! The Conservatives are rattled too. Double joy!
' The LD canvas projection yet again proved to be remarkably predictive '
How do we know that it was the real canvass return and not expectations management ?
In which case the LDs have become stunningly good at guessing. Unless you are suggesting some mystical process in which voters respond to their predictions in sufficient numbers to make them come true?
Well I for one would not bet against the LDs canvas numbers. Maybe you would - more fool you
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
Or the other way of looking at it is if your were a partner in a business, when you leave that business you would expect your share back, or the other partners to buy you out....
So basically similies like the above can just be spun however you like, so it's pointless.
The EU would be treating us like a Third Country
So they won’t object if we do the same on things like security, defence, intelligence and immigration, will they?
Don't get mad, get even. Satellite technology is well advanced in this country. Creating our own system is well within our capacity.
And has advanced by leaps & bounds since the Galileo design was frozen.....
Can't see what s very distant second does for the Lib Dems . A waste of resources.
Oh come on... It establishes us as the clear challenger in the seat. Oh, and fighting against Labour is never a waste of resources - your sense of entitlement is very much on show today.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
But there's nothing else politically/vote-wise going on at the moment. Surely your definition fits May's trip to Leeds East during the GE ?
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
You will obviously be reading more widely than me but it does seem that this is an issue that could drive a serious wedge between the CDU and the CSU. Under Merkel the CDU has consistently been more centrist than the CSU. Merkel seems perfectly comfortable with a grand coalition, for example. The CSU’s threat is more to the right than the left and there is only so much of that they can take without sustaining damage. In contrast Merkel has been feeding off an historically weak SDP and doing well by being more centrist.
As in this country Immigration is the sort of visceral issue that can blow this apart. There may be some grandstanding but this coalition is under more strain than it has been for decades.
Merkel is currently having a hellish fourth term with everything going wrong at the same time.
duff election weak coalition Europe = Italy, Austria, Brexit, Immigration crises - bribes, integration, AfD, CSU Diesel scandal -Daimler were forced to recall 772,00 cars last week Trump
and now just possibly the economy is about to slow down
There's also the Susanna F affair - young girl murdered by an Iraqi migrant and authorities let him fly home - which gets no reporting here but has filled the German media for the last couple of weeks. English summary below but cant find any article in UK press.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
No entitlement . Just reality. Can't see how this gets you any closer to actually winning a seat.
A 19% Labour to Liberal Democrat swing is enough to take the following seats from you:
Sheffield, Hallam Leeds NW Bermondsey & Old Southwark Cambridge Portsmouth South (from 3rd) Vauxhall Burnley (from 3rd)
and Birmingham Yardley would be a close run thing.
Without needing to look anything up, two of these stand out to me as "should be" LD seats and I bet there are a couple more there. By "should be" I mean seats which until recently had prominent LD MPs and without such seats the LDs will comfortably remain the 4th Party in Westminster, and hold no polcy leverage on the government.
Since the Orpington By-election 55 years ago the Liberals/SDP/LDs have had often had great by-election results but have had disappointment in the same seats at the following election.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
Don't get mad, get even. Satellite technology is well advanced in this country. Creating our own system is well within our capacity.
We have no launch capability.
Apart from that...
Isn’t it available in the market?
Indeed as well as private American companies doing it for the faction of what governments used to pay, aren't Virgin (a British company) working on it in their Galactic subsidiary too?
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
OK so its an emergency backup in case of war presumably? Considering the US would only turn it off in an emergency situation.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
It's another symptom of the more general high-street malaise as many people switch to online. As for shopping, so for banking - much reduced footfall in most branches, it becomes harder and harder to justify keeping them open.
Can't see what s very distant second does for the Lib Dems . A waste of resources.
Oh come on... It establishes us as the clear challenger in the seat. Oh, and fighting against Labour is never a waste of resources - your sense of entitlement is very much on show today.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
But there's nothing else politically/vote-wise going on at the moment. Surely your definition fits May's trip to Leeds East during the GE ?
Don't get mad, get even. Satellite technology is well advanced in this country. Creating our own system is well within our capacity.
We have no launch capability.
Apart from that...
I wonder how all of those British satellite operators get theirs into space then. Sometimes I wonder why you even bother taking the dunce hat off.
So we are saying fuck you to the EU, we'll make our own effing positioning system so there in order to retain the strategic advantage because, you know, this shit will be used by the military and all sorts of sneaky-beaky outfits we may have but we can't tell you about. Yep we are taking back control.
And then going on to the internet and searching Man-with-a-Van to get a few quotes for launch capacity.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
To be fair that wasn't said before 2015 about Lib Dem seats. I recall a lot written here about the Lib Dems "cockroach" like ability to dig in and secure their seats.
Guido has a rather amusing article on the number of tickets for Labour live that have been given to Trotsky, Tony Blair etc.
Oh yes and Matt's cartoon is priceless today
My Facebook feed has been full of Labour Live. Apparently some people called "Clean Bandit" are going to be performing.
If they’ve managed to get bands like Clean Bandit to perform then they’ll probably be okay. They make popular summer singalong hits. I’ll bet they’ve had to pay them a fortune though. https://youtube.com/watch?v=m-M1AtrxztU
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
Really? Wasn't lib dem overconfidence in 2015 largely based on the idea of "strongholds"?
The LibDems will be very pleased with this result, but it's quite hard to interpret on such low absolute numbers. 5,404 votes is not exactly taking the polling stations by storm. The main phenomenon here has been both Labour and Tory voters staying away in droves; both the big parties seem to have mislaid two-thirds of their GE2017 voters.
Don't get mad, get even. Satellite technology is well advanced in this country. Creating our own system is well within our capacity.
We have no launch capability.
Apart from that...
I wonder how all of those British satellite operators get theirs into space then. Sometimes I wonder why you even bother taking the dunce hat off.
So we are saying fuck you to the EU, we'll make our own effing positioning system so there in order to retain the strategic advantage because, you know, this shit will be used by the military and all sorts of sneaky-beaky outfits we may have but we can't tell you about. Yep we are taking back control.
And then going on to the internet and searching Man-with-a-Van to get a few quotes for launch capacity.
SpaceX launch capacity is just transport it won't compromise our security.
It's another symptom of the more general high-street malaise as many people switch to online. As for shopping, so for banking - much reduced footfall in most branches, it becomes harder and harder to justify keeping them open.
There's a feedback loop operating as well.
Each shop or bank closing in a town makes it a less useful place to go which reduces potential customers for other shops and banks there.
Without needing to look anything up, two of these stand out to me as "should be" LD seats and I bet there are a couple more there. By "should be" I mean seats which until recently had prominent LD MPs and without such seats the LDs will comfortably remain the 4th Party in Westminster, and hold no polcy leverage on the government.
Since the Orpington By-election 55 years ago the Liberals/SDP/LDs have had often had great by-election results but have had disappointment in the same seats at the following election.
Yes, all but one of those on the list (we've never had Vauxhall) have been LD seats at some point in recent years.
The LibDems will be very pleased with this result, but it's quite hard to interpret on such low absolute numbers. 5,404 votes is not exactly taking the polling stations by storm. The main phenomenon here has been both Labour and Tory voters staying away in droves; both the big parties seem to have mislaid two-thirds of their GE2017 voters.
Good point. I think its fair to say that in a GE those who didn't vote this time will vote for either of the main parties and not the Lib Dems as the LDs were buoyed by the by-election whereas in a GE its about who runs the country. I think the LDs vote share is flattered by the low turnout.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
Really? Wasn't lib dem overconfidence in 2015 largely based on the idea of "strongholds"?
Supported by all that Ashcroft constituency polling
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
I was in Berlin this week - the media were highlighting CDU-CSU divisions, but downplaying the Austrian role: the visitor was being careful not to get involved, and hinting that he was more flexible than one might think. Historically the CSU have always grumbled that the CDU is too centrist but have always fallen into line, and it's hard to see this any differently. That said, the policy is very much associated with Merkel personally - if she retired, I'm sure we'd see a tightening.
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
Galileo uses Russian Soyuz rockets for launching Galileo satellites.
International partnerships.
What a great idea!
oh, wait...
Indeed you don't need to be in a bureaucratic, monolithic, sclerotic and incompetent multinational organisation to partner with Russia ... or SpaceX for a fraction of the cost.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
GPS is a legacy system with some weaknesses which is why the US is developing a successor. Galileo addresses some of the deficiencies of GPS by being more accurate, more resistant to disruption via strong encryption and capable of downstream comms to the receivers.
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
Or the other way of looking at it is if your were a partner in a business, when you leave that business you would expect your share back, or the other partners to buy you out....
So basically similies like the above can just be spun however you like, so it's pointless.
Oh it's a simile now is it?
Well in yours, I think you'll find that it all depends on what was in the partnership agreement. If it said if you leave and get zilch, then zilch you get. The EU would be treating us like a Third Country as per, er, the agreement.
Oh, silly me! Since the partnership agreement (EU treaties) contain no provisions saying that any country leaving has to pay anything to the EU, then according to you we don't have to pay the Brexit bill, right?
Yeah sure whatevs don't pay them. I thought it was contracted though?
The EU is process-based. In one of their many, many treaties and protocols it has rules for how a Third Country should be treated. Those treaties and protocols are ones that, in our lunacy, we actually signed up to. So as per whoever it was saying the partners would buy us out - only if it is in the agreement.
I mean by all means go hire an army and invade them if it makes you happier but we should continue to be bound be the law in our activities with other institutions and countries.
This is what is so funny about Remainers - their utterly delusional view of the EU.
The EU treaties are absolutely clear - the EU is funded ONLY via the EUs own resources, and the own resources part of the treaty ends on Brexit. No liability whatsoever.
The EU is not process based. They are not law based. They don't follow rules whenever it suits them. They had a tantrum about the Brexit bill, but EXACTLY the same argument also applies for giving the UK a refund. The EU broke their own laws on bailouts; Target 2 is illegal; the current ECB QE program is also illegal. Their obsession with the ECJ is founded on the fact that the ECJ is a political court, not a legal one, which will always turn a blind eye when asked by the 'colleagues'.
Please get a grip on reality. This is nothing to do with treaties, laws, or doing the right thing. The EU are throwing their weight around like they always do, until someone stands up to them. Russia comes to mind over Ukraine. And then you see how powerful the EU really is (not).
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
OK so its an emergency backup in case of war presumably? Considering the US would only turn it off in an emergency situation.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
The real use for the future is stuff like driverless cars, trucks etc. If you control the GPS signal you could shut down a countries entire economy in the future.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
OK so its an emergency backup in case of war presumably? Considering the US would only turn it off in an emergency situation.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
The real use for the future is stuff like driverless cars, trucks etc. If you control the GPS signal you could shut down a countries entire economy in the future.
If security and control are the issues then surely we should control our own? Put it in our Defence budget. Sharing a system with 27 other nations doesn't seem especially secure.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
OK so its an emergency backup in case of war presumably? Considering the US would only turn it off in an emergency situation.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
The real use for the future is stuff like driverless cars, trucks etc. If you control the GPS signal you could shut down a countries entire economy in the future.
If security and control are the issues then surely we should control our own? Put it in our Defence budget. Sharing a system with 27 other nations doesn't seem especially secure.
Correct, especially when the fancy encryption technology was developed by the MoD and GCHQ. Big security issue for all the other participants in Galileo.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
I was in Berlin this week - the media were highlighting CDU-CSU divisions, but downplaying the Austrian role: the visitor was being careful not to get involved, and hinting that he was more flexible than one might think. Historically the CSU have always grumbled that the CDU is too centrist but have always fallen into line, and it's hard to see this any differently. That said, the policy is very much associated with Merkel personally - if she retired, I'm sure we'd see a tightening.
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
I suspect this is more than the usual CDU\CSU jostling, I think Seehofer is having trouble managing his party and is looking a concession which Merkel wont give. Merkel's problem is Seehofer who was almost unseated after the 2017 result.
As for the polls it's the AfD and Die Linke who now have 27% of the vote something I never really imagined we'd see in the Bundesrepublik. Given AfD usually get under reported I'd say were nearing the point where one in three germans is backing a radical party.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
It’s a fall back if the US turns off GPS or degrades it’s accuracy...we should get on with it and build our own....
OK so its an emergency backup in case of war presumably? Considering the US would only turn it off in an emergency situation.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
Creating our own system is the obvious (and safe) thing to do. It would have the added benefit of creating several thousand well-paid jobs.
On topic, this is a fine, though not spectacular result, for the Lib Dems. The purpose of working a seat like this is to get your side match-fit, for when more winnable seats come up.
Mr. Brooke, months ago, saw an interesting graphic on German parties. Every single one except the AfD was to the left of median public opinion (of course, one would need the detail to make a firm assessment, but that does tally with the AfD having huge room to operate).
They do, and they have, but this was still an unusually large drop, which is a good measure that there was no great positive enthusiasm for any party, nor any great inclination to punish any of them. Yes, the result wasn't really in doubt and that always suppresses turnout, particularly when there's no larger election in which to cast a 'mandate' vote, but there is a message to take from the low turnout.
2. The Tory vote is hard to squeeze
It's hard for the Lib Dems to squeeze when they're running an ultra-Remain campaign and the Tories are chasing Leave votes (at least on a national level). Actually, I think the LDs did well to suppress the Con share as much as they did. There's also the tactical question of why vote LD to stop Lab when Farron and Cable have been solidly anti-Tory since 2015?
3. The LD canvas projection yet again proved to be remarkably predictive
Indeed. They did extremely well on that score.
4. Getting 50%+ is not too bad for Corbyn
Thoroughly disagree. In Newham NE in 1994, when Lab was looking to replace a weak Tory govt, divided by Europe with a small majority and a leader under threat, Labour put on 17% in a London by-election in a safe Labour seat, and swept up three-quarters of the vote. In Lewisham, Labour leaked votes badly, not just to the LDs but the Grns+WEP won 6% between them. Rod Crosby would say that this is a result that indicates a Con majority at the next GE (there was a nominal Lab-to-Con swing of more than 4%). I've always thought that Rod was too deterministic on that metric but there's no doubt that it's proven surprisingly accurate over the last 10 years. Lab should have hit 70%+ if they were on course to win.
5. The LDs have got their by-election mojo back
Hmm. Mojo is in the eye of the beholder. There's no doubt that:
- Quintupling their vote share; - Increasing absolute vote by 160%; - Advancing into second; and - Achieving the biggest Lab-LD swing in a Labour defence since 1983
is a great set of stats.
On the other hand:
- the LDs threw the kitchen sink at the election and still finished with a vote share smaller than that which they won in the seat in 2010; - they pre-announced the result (see (3) above) and so buggered up the expectations game; - they lost, comfortably, for the 44th consecutive time in a Labour-in-opposition defence.
You pays your money and you takes your choice on that one.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
I was in Berlin this week - the media were highlighting CDU-CSU divisions, but downplaying the Austrian role: the visitor was being careful not to get involved, and hinting that he was more flexible than one might think. Historically the CSU have always grumbled that the CDU is too centrist but have always fallen into line, and it's hard to see this any differently. That said, the policy is very much associated with Merkel personally - if she retired, I'm sure we'd see a tightening.
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
I suspect this is more than the usual CDU\CSU jostling, I think Seehofer is having trouble managing his party and is looking a concession which Merkel wont give. Merkel's problem is Seehofer who was almost unseated after the 2017 result.
As for the polls it's the AfD and Die Linke who now have 27% of the vote something I never really imagined we'd see in the Bundesrepublik. Given AfD usually get under reported I'd say were nearing the point where one in three germans is backing a radical party.
There's a huge belt of adjoining countries and regions, Bavaria, Northern Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Poland, that has moved sharply Right.
Mr. Brooke, months ago, saw an interesting graphic on German parties. Every single one except the AfD was to the left of median public opinion (of course, one would need the detail to make a firm assessment, but that does tally with the AfD having huge room to operate).
the more Merkel has pushed the CDU to the centre the more she has left her traditional supporters feeling ignored and looking for an alternative.
Have to disagree with the comments about the Lib Dems. As I far as I see, they threw a lot of money and resources at a safe Labour seat and didn't get anywhere close. Next time round it will probably revert to type. Look at Witney:
In 2010 the LDs were 2nd with 19%. In 2015 after the coalition they dropped to 4th with 7%. At the by-election they soared to 30%, but then last time round they dropped back to 20% in 3rd just behind Labour.
Ultimately, while they can throw resources at by-elections, the LDs won't get more than 20 seats tops at a general election unless they can get their national poll rating out of single figures. In my view to do that they will need a new leader who is willing to bring on board former LD voters who backed Brexit
They do, and they have, but this was still an unusually large drop, which is a good measure that there was no great positive enthusiasm for any party, nor any great inclination to punish any of them. Yes, the result wasn't really in doubt and that always suppresses turnout, particularly when there's no larger election in which to cast a 'mandate' vote, but there is a message to take from the low turnout.
2. The Tory vote is hard to squeeze
It's hard for the Lib Dems to squeeze when they're running an ultra-Remain campaign and the Tories are chasing Leave votes (at least on a national level). Actually, I think the LDs did well to suppress the Con share as much as they did. There's also the tactical question of why vote LD to stop Lab when Farron and Cable have been solidly anti-Tory since 2015?
3. The LD canvas projection yet again proved to be remarkably predictive
Indeed. They did extremely well on that score.
4. Getting 50%+ is not too bad for Corbyn
Thoroughly disagree. In Newham NE in 1994, when Lab was looking to replace a weak Tory govt, divided by Europe with a small majority and a leader under threat, Labour put on 17% in a London by-election in a safe Labour seat, and swept up three-quarters of the vote. In Lewisham, Labour leaked votes badly, not just to the LDs but the Grns+WEP won 6% between them. Rod Crosby would say that this is a result that indicates a Con majority at the next GE (there was a nominal Lab-to-Con swing of more than 4%). I've always thought that Rod was too deterministic on that metric but there's no doubt that it's proven surprisingly accurate over the last 10 years. Lab should have hit 70%+ if they were on course to win.
5. The LDs have got their by-election mojo back
Hmm. Mojo is in the eye of the beholder. There's no doubt that:
- Quintupling their vote share; - Increasing absolute vote by 160%; - Advancing into second; and - Achieving the biggest Lab-LD swing in a Labour defence since 1983
is a great set of stats.
On the other hand:
- the LDs threw the kitchen sink at the election and still finished with a vote share smaller than that which they won in the seat in 2010; - they pre-announced the result (see (3) above) and so buggered up the expectations game; - they lost, comfortably, for the 44th consecutive time in a Labour-in-opposition defence.
You pays your money and you takes your choice on that one.
" they pre-announced the result " They also did this in the Richmond By-election and others I think. Accurate there too.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
I was in Berlin this week - the media were highlighting CDU-CSU divisions, but downplaying the Austrian role: the visitor was being careful not to get involved, and hinting that he was more flexible than one might think. Historically the CSU have always grumbled that the CDU is too centrist but have always fallen into line, and it's hard to see this any differently. That said, the policy is very much associated with Merkel personally - if she retired, I'm sure we'd see a tightening.
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
I suspect this is more than the usual CDU\CSU jostling, I think Seehofer is having trouble managing his party and is looking a concession which Merkel wont give. Merkel's problem is Seehofer who was almost unseated after the 2017 result.
As for the polls it's the AfD and Die Linke who now have 27% of the vote something I never really imagined we'd see in the Bundesrepublik. Given AfD usually get under reported I'd say were nearing the point where one in three germans is backing a radical party.
There's a huge belt of adjoining countries and regions, Bavaria, Northern Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Poland, that has moved sharply Right.
I found this article in english which is a reasonable summary of where Merkel is.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
You will obviously be reading more widely than me but it does seem that this is an issue that could drive a serious wedge between the CDU and the CSU. Under Merkel the CDU has consistently been more centrist than the CSU. Merkel seems perfectly comfortable with a grand coalition, for example. The CSU’s threat is more to the right than the left and there is only so much of that they can take without sustaining damage. In contrast Merkel has been feeding off an historically weak SDP and doing well by being more centrist.
As in this country Immigration is the sort of visceral issue that can blow this apart. There may be some grandstanding but this coalition is under more strain than it has been for decades.
Merkel is currently having a hellish fourth term with everything going wrong at the same time.
duff election weak coalition Europe = Italy, Austria, Brexit, Immigration crises - bribes, integration, AfD, CSU Diesel scandal -Daimler were forced to recall 772,00 cars last week Trump
and now just possibly the economy is about to slow down
There's also the Susanna F affair - young girl murdered by an Iraqi migrant and authorities let him fly home - which gets no reporting here but has filled the German media for the last couple of weeks. English summary below but cant find any article in UK press.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
You will obviously be reading more widely than me but it does seem that this is an issue that could drive a serious wedge between the CDU and the CSU. Under Merkel the CDU has consistently been more centrist than the CSU. Merkel seems perfectly comfortable with a grand coalition, for example. The CSU’s threat is more to the right than the left and there is only so much of that they can take without sustaining damage. In contrast Merkel has been feeding off an historically weak SDP and doing well by being more centrist.
As in this country Immigration is the sort of visceral issue that can blow this apart. There may be some grandstanding but this coalition is under more strain than it has been for decades.
Merkel is currently having a hellish fourth term with everything going wrong at the same time.
duff election weak coalition Europe = Italy, Austria, Brexit, Immigration crises - bribes, integration, AfD, CSU Diesel scandal -Daimler were forced to recall 772,00 cars last week Trump
and now just possibly the economy is about to slow down
There's also the Susanna F affair - young girl murdered by an Iraqi migrant and authorities let him fly home - which gets no reporting here but has filled the German media for the last couple of weeks. English summary below but cant find any article in UK press.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
I was in Berlin this week - the media were highlighting CDU-CSU divisions, but downplaying the Austrian role: the visitor was being careful not to get involved, and hinting that he was more flexible than one might think. Historically the CSU have always grumbled that the CDU is too centrist but have always fallen into line, and it's hard to see this any differently. That said, the policy is very much associated with Merkel personally - if she retired, I'm sure we'd see a tightening.
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
I suspect this is more than the usual CDU\CSU jostling, I think Seehofer is having trouble managing his party and is looking a concession which Merkel wont give. Merkel's problem is Seehofer who was almost unseated after the 2017 result.
As for the polls it's the AfD and Die Linke who now have 27% of the vote something I never really imagined we'd see in the Bundesrepublik. Given AfD usually get under reported I'd say were nearing the point where one in three germans is backing a radical party.
There's a huge belt of adjoining countries and regions, Bavaria, Northern Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Poland, that has moved sharply Right.
This is why Merkel was monumentally stupid with her policy on immigration. If it had happened that immigrants made there way across borders to reach Germany it would have been an international scale problem. By taking them in in such large numbers Merkel has owned that policy and is continuing to pay, and her old partners are paying by association,
She learned no lessons from the UK experience of mass immigration. Normal people, not racists, are unconformortable with large scale change in areas. This can also be seen in things such as opposition to new housing where insufficient additional services are provided.
Maybe I'm being thick but I for one still don't understand what purpose Galileo is meant to serve that GPS doesn't. It seems to be creating a system for the sake of creating one.
Arguable. Although perfectly possible, I doubt the UK will create its own positioning system. To be effective you need scale and standardisation. The US, the EU and China can do that. We can't. So we might have some bespoke military equipment that can work with the UK system but off the shelf systems for companies, emergency services etc will be restricted to GPS and Galileo.
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
3.5 - plenty of people who didn't fund the library can be members of a library, so it might be they are arguing they are off the library funding committee but could still ask to be a member
As can the UK in terms of access to Galileo. I think the library analogy is a good one because -this is the key thing - the rules for full membership and external access were setup at the time of founding. The UK helped draft those rules. The rest of the committee don't see a reason to change them as a special case for an ex member. Which is pretty much an analogy for the whole of Brexit.
The difference is that in this case the ex member has a small specialst library (one of the best in the world in its field).
The members of the big library want full access to it, but won’t let the owner of the small library borrow books from them because they think he’ll steal them
Mr. Brooke, months ago, saw an interesting graphic on German parties. Every single one except the AfD was to the left of median public opinion (of course, one would need the detail to make a firm assessment, but that does tally with the AfD having huge room to operate).
the more Merkel has pushed the CDU to the centre the more she has left her traditional supporters feeling ignored and looking for an alternative.
reminds me of Cameron in some ways.
Cameron was to the left of many of his parties traditional supporters but still to the right of median British opinion.
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
3.5 - plenty of people who didn't fund the library can be members of a library, so it might be they are arguing they are off the library funding committee but could still ask to be a member
As can the UK in terms of access to Galileo. I think the library analogy is a good one because -this is the key thing - the rules for full membership and external access were setup at the time of founding. The UK helped draft those rules. The rest of the committee don't see a reason to change them as a special case for an ex member. Which is pretty much an analogy for the whole of Brexit.
The difference is that in this case the ex member has a small specialst library (one of the best in the world in its field).
The members of the big library want full access to it, but won’t let the owner of the small library borrow books from them because they think he’ll steal them
I think that's overstating. The UK is good, but not uniquely good.
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
Really? Wasn't lib dem overconfidence in 2015 largely based on the idea of "strongholds"?
Supported by all that Ashcroft constituency polling
And ignoring what was being said by pb.com contributors on the ground....
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
You will obviously be reading more widely than me but it does seem that this is an issue that could drive a serious wedge between the CDU and the CSU. Under Merkel the CDU has consistently been more centrist than the CSU. Merkel seems perfectly comfortable with a grand coalition, for example. The CSU’s threat is more to the right than the left and there is only so much of that they can take without sustaining damage. In contrast Merkel has been feeding off an historically weak SDP and doing well by being more centrist.
As in this country Immigration is the sort of visceral issue that can blow this apart. There may be some grandstanding but this coalition is under more strain than it has been for decades.
Merkel is currently having a hellish fourth term with everything going wrong at the same time.
duff election weak coalition Europe = Italy, Austria, Brexit, Immigration crises - bribes, integration, AfD, CSU Diesel scandal -Daimler were forced to recall 772,00 cars last week Trump
and now just possibly the economy is about to slow down
There's also the Susanna F affair - young girl murdered by an Iraqi migrant and authorities let him fly home - which gets no reporting here but has filled the German media for the last couple of weeks. English summary below but cant find any article in UK press.
The Lib Dems may be the biggest winner of a hard Brexit. Even the most ardent leavers here admit this option is a risk. If it goes wrong then Labour have blown their opportunity to be the true opposition.
It's another symptom of the more general high-street malaise as many people switch to online. As for shopping, so for banking - much reduced footfall in most branches, it becomes harder and harder to justify keeping them open.
You have to be careful on understanding how the figure is worked out too. I know of a branch closure where the bank is now situated in the adjacent Asda. Normally when they do these stories that would count as a closure. I work in the pub industry and know that Camra's figures about pub closures are nonsense as they count a pub closure in their figures even if it reopens shortly after and things like TUPE apply to staff. I think they even include pubs that stop operating as they are being refurbished.
That said I do all my banking online and only go to a bank to pay in a cheque, and they have machines to do that now.
You don't think the Second World War allusion is just a little overdramatic?
Is there really a power grab going on?
At the moment powers are reserved to the EU and then to the UK. Everything else is devolved to Scotland. The UK government is saying, we'll take the EU powers and then decide if devolve anything down. So Scotland doesn't lose powers through Brexit, but the arrangement arguably goes against the spirit of the devolution settlement where everything is devolved unless explicitly reserved.
BBC report on Merkel says her CSU agitator is probably grandstanding, so I assume she'll come up with some fudged words over migration and it'll blow over for now?
Hard to know.
I think the beeb is downplaying the problems the CSU boss Seehofer is having with his party. Bavaria has borne the brunt of the Merkel created asylum crisis and the CSU is watching its support drift away to the AfD. Seehofer's job is on the line and he has very little room for manoeuvre. Merkel has rejected every proposed compromise. Over the border the Austrians are telling the CSU to push a hard line on immigration much as they are doing, so Seehofer is between a rock and a hard place.
You will obviously be reading more widely than me but it does seem that this is an issue that could drive a serious wedge between the CDU and the CSU. Under Merkel the CDU has consistently been more centrist than the CSU. Merkel seems perfectly comfortable with a grand coalition, for example. The CSU’s threat is more to the right than the left and there is only so much of that they can take without sustaining damage. In contrast Merkel has been feeding off an historically weak SDP and doing well by being more centrist.
As in this country Immigration is the sort of visceral issue that can blow this apart. There may be some grandstanding but this coalition is under more strain than it has been for decades.
Merkel is currently having a hellish fourth term with everything going wrong at the same time.
duff election weak coalition Europe = Italy, Austria, Brexit, Immigration crises - bribes, integration, AfD, CSU Diesel scandal -Daimler were forced to recall 772,00 cars last week Trump
and now just possibly the economy is about to slow down
There's also the Susanna F affair - young girl murdered by an Iraqi migrant and authorities let him fly home - which gets no reporting here but has filled the German media for the last couple of weeks. English summary below but cant find any article in UK press.
Talking of diplomatic immunity, has Assange reached any agreement with Ecuador? Its government has changed. I gathered from a R4 programme that the new one would probably like him out of his 'temporary home'.
So as I understand it from R4 this morning on Galileo, the UK is like a member of a club, who contributed to a new library when a member, and then after he resigned, still wants to be able to take books away rather than just come in to use the library?
3.5 - plenty of people who didn't fund the library can be members of a library, so it might be they are arguing they are off the library funding committee but could still ask to be a member
As can the UK in terms of access to Galileo. I think the library analogy is a good one because -this is the key thing - the rules for full membership and external access were setup at the time of founding. The UK helped draft those rules. The rest of the committee don't see a reason to change them as a special case for an ex member. Which is pretty much an analogy for the whole of Brexit.
The difference is that in this case the ex member has a small specialst library (one of the best in the world in its field).
The members of the big library want full access to it, but won’t let the owner of the small library borrow books from them because they think he’ll steal them
Do you ever wonder whether these tales of derring-do ang British glory might be a little over-egged? Is it just possible that in some fields we might not be as pre-eminent as The Sun might have us believe?
It's another symptom of the more general high-street malaise as many people switch to online. As for shopping, so for banking - much reduced footfall in most branches, it becomes harder and harder to justify keeping them open.
You have to be careful on understanding how the figure is worked out too. I know of a branch closure where the bank is now situated in the adjacent Asda. Normally when they do these stories that would count as a closure. I work in the pub industry and know that Camra's figures about pub closures are nonsense as they count a pub closure in their figures even if it reopens shortly after and things like TUPE apply to staff. I think they even include pubs that stop operating as they are being refurbished.
That said I do all my banking online and only go to a bank to pay in a cheque, and they have machines to do that now.
I think now you can pay in a cheque by snapping it on your phone.
Good work, Mike. I think Lab vote would have suffered more in a Leave constituency. Lewisham will revert to 70% red in 2022, as Libs won't have the manpower.
Mr. Divvie, those with a political interest in stoking division between Scotland and the rest of the UK certainly seem to believe Brussels is lovelier than London. Can't imagine why...
Spending money and effort to become clear challenger in never-going-to-change-hands seats is the very definition of a waste of resources.
There's no such thing as a seat that can never change hands. Just varying degrees of likelihood of them doing so. No Lib Dem thinks of any seat as being safe... not even any of our own.
Really? Wasn't lib dem overconfidence in 2015 largely based on the idea of "strongholds"?
Supported by all that Ashcroft constituency polling
And ignoring what was being said by pb.com contributors on the ground....
I think that the biggest problem for Lib dems is nothing to do with their own performance or leader but everything to do with Corbyn and the risk he poses. It is no longer safe to vote Lib dem when John McDonnell could end up running the economy. I mean May is not very right wing, having adopted a number of Ed Millibands proposals.
You don't think the Second World War allusion is just a little overdramatic?
Is there really a power grab going on?
At the moment powers are reserved to the EU and then to the UK. Everything else is devolved to Scotland. The UK government is saying, we'll take the EU powers and then decide if devolve anything down. So Scotland doesn't lose powers through Brexit, but the arrangement arguably goes against the spirit of the devolution settlement where everything is devolved unless explicitly reserved.
Except these already are explicitly reserved powers not devolved ones.
Comments
Apart from that...
The EU is process-based. In one of their many, many treaties and protocols it has rules for how a Third Country should be treated. Those treaties and protocols are ones that, in our lunacy, we actually signed up to. So as per whoever it was saying the partners would buy us out - only if it is in the agreement.
I mean by all means go hire an army and invade them if it makes you happier but we should continue to be bound be the law in our activities with other institutions and countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeds_East_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Making a lot of sense until your last point, then you switched to fantasy mode: "If Germany go out in the first round..."? What are you smoking?!
Since the Orpington By-election 55 years ago the Liberals/SDP/LDs have had often had great by-election results but have had disappointment in the same seats at the following election.
What purpose does sharing an emergency backup with nearly 30 other countries serve then? In that situation it would be far more secure if we had our own surely?
And then going on to the internet and searching Man-with-a-Van to get a few quotes for launch capacity.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m-M1AtrxztU
Each shop or bank closing in a town makes it a less useful place to go which reduces potential customers for other shops and banks there.
Duh.........
The polls are showing the usual drift from government parties to opposition parties (Greens mostly, then AfD and Linke), but nothing existential yet.
What a great idea!
oh, wait...
That isn't the point - the point is that if we are going to do our own thing then we should take back control of it all. Or why bother?
The EU treaties are absolutely clear - the EU is funded ONLY via the EUs own resources, and the own resources part of the treaty ends on Brexit. No liability whatsoever.
The EU is not process based. They are not law based. They don't follow rules whenever it suits them. They had a tantrum about the Brexit bill, but EXACTLY the same argument also applies for giving the UK a refund. The EU broke their own laws on bailouts; Target 2 is illegal; the current ECB QE program is also illegal. Their obsession with the ECJ is founded on the fact that the ECJ is a political court, not a legal one, which will always turn a blind eye when asked by the 'colleagues'.
Please get a grip on reality. This is nothing to do with treaties, laws, or doing the right thing. The EU are throwing their weight around like they always do, until someone stands up to them. Russia comes to mind over Ukraine. And then you see how powerful the EU really is (not).
As for the polls it's the AfD and Die Linke who now have 27% of the vote something I never really imagined we'd see in the Bundesrepublik. Given AfD usually get under reported I'd say were nearing the point where one in three germans is backing a radical party.
1. Voters tend to avoid avoidable by-elections
They do, and they have, but this was still an unusually large drop, which is a good measure that there was no great positive enthusiasm for any party, nor any great inclination to punish any of them. Yes, the result wasn't really in doubt and that always suppresses turnout, particularly when there's no larger election in which to cast a 'mandate' vote, but there is a message to take from the low turnout.
2. The Tory vote is hard to squeeze
It's hard for the Lib Dems to squeeze when they're running an ultra-Remain campaign and the Tories are chasing Leave votes (at least on a national level). Actually, I think the LDs did well to suppress the Con share as much as they did. There's also the tactical question of why vote LD to stop Lab when Farron and Cable have been solidly anti-Tory since 2015?
3. The LD canvas projection yet again proved to be remarkably predictive
Indeed. They did extremely well on that score.
4. Getting 50%+ is not too bad for Corbyn
Thoroughly disagree. In Newham NE in 1994, when Lab was looking to replace a weak Tory govt, divided by Europe with a small majority and a leader under threat, Labour put on 17% in a London by-election in a safe Labour seat, and swept up three-quarters of the vote. In Lewisham, Labour leaked votes badly, not just to the LDs but the Grns+WEP won 6% between them. Rod Crosby would say that this is a result that indicates a Con majority at the next GE (there was a nominal Lab-to-Con swing of more than 4%). I've always thought that Rod was too deterministic on that metric but there's no doubt that it's proven surprisingly accurate over the last 10 years. Lab should have hit 70%+ if they were on course to win.
5. The LDs have got their by-election mojo back
Hmm. Mojo is in the eye of the beholder. There's no doubt that:
- Quintupling their vote share;
- Increasing absolute vote by 160%;
- Advancing into second; and
- Achieving the biggest Lab-LD swing in a Labour defence since 1983
is a great set of stats.
On the other hand:
- the LDs threw the kitchen sink at the election and still finished with a vote share smaller than that which they won in the seat in 2010;
- they pre-announced the result (see (3) above) and so buggered up the expectations game;
- they lost, comfortably, for the 44th consecutive time in a Labour-in-opposition defence.
You pays your money and you takes your choice on that one.
reminds me of Cameron in some ways.
In 2010 the LDs were 2nd with 19%. In 2015 after the coalition they dropped to 4th with 7%. At the by-election they soared to 30%, but then last time round they dropped back to 20% in 3rd just behind Labour.
Ultimately, while they can throw resources at by-elections, the LDs won't get more than 20 seats tops at a general election unless they can get their national poll rating out of single figures. In my view to do that they will need a new leader who is willing to bring on board former LD voters who backed Brexit
They also did this in the Richmond By-election and others I think. Accurate there too.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/angela-merkel-is-no-longer-the-queen-of-europe-a-1211950.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44489798
She learned no lessons from the UK experience of mass immigration. Normal people, not racists, are unconformortable with large scale change in areas. This can also be seen in things such as opposition to new housing where insufficient additional services are provided.
"It must be surreal to be accused of organising a publicity stunt by members of the party that brought us the Great Blue British passport."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44489798
The members of the big library want full access to it, but won’t let the owner of the small library borrow books from them because they think he’ll steal them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGM7Na5Nv9Q
That said I do all my banking online and only go to a bank to pay in a cheque, and they have machines to do that now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP-FqtPFSV0