Conservatives 13,142 votes (37% +3% on last time) winning 11 seats (-1 seat on last time) Labour 11,198 votes (31% +2% on last time) winning 9 seats (-1 seat on last time) Liberal Democrats 5,670 votes (16% +5% on last time) winning 3 seats (+1 seat on last time) Independent Candidates 2,278 votes (6% +3% on last time) winning 2 seats (+2 seats on last time) Green Party 862 votes (2% -5% on last time) winning 0 seats (unchanged on last time) Plaid Cymru 747 votes (2% +1% on last time) winning 1 seat (unchanged on last time) Local Independent Candidates 737 votes (2% -1% on last time) winning 0 seats (unchanged on last time) United Kingdom Independence Party 515 votes (1% -9% on last time) winning 0 seats (-1 seat on last time) Other Parties 498 votes (1% +0% on last time) winning 0 seats ((unchanged on last time) Conservative lead of 1,944 votes (6%) on a swing of 0.5% from Lab to Con
Comments
Probably.
https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1024910764451266561
That said I do expect the Tories to do poorly next May.
The blue meanies led Labour by 6% back in 2015 and it coincided with the only time in the last 27 years the Tories have won a majority in a general election.
It is fair to say Theresa May is no David Cameron (pbuh)
So it is not true that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
Remember Blair's negotiations with the EEC, where the UK agreed to a reduced rebate (which happened) in return for vague aspirations to revise the CAP (which never happened). The Brexit agreement sounds like it is going the same way.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with Sarah Sands becoming editor.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/02/bbcs-today-programme-sheds-800000-listeners
R4 also straight into Evan Davis with Jordan Peterson at 9am. If there is a culture war, the far right are winning the air war.
The Today programme has always been drivel. They pretty much invented the BBC "balance fallacy" where you take a sane person and a mad person, make them argue, and then imply the Objective Truth is halfway in between.
It was nonsense then and it's nonsense now.
And do not get me fucking STARTED on Thought For The Day.
Either that or there are some fringe fellows on both sides and a far larger number of quieter people closer to the middle.
The government could do a lot to ease business jitters over Brexit by announcing a huge matched investment fund for brexit preparation and have a very loose set of rules as to what counts. It may look like a gigantic bung to big business (because it would be) but it would have the effect of getting big business to commit to the UK for the medium term and making it work in some manner.
United Utilities calls off summer hosepipe ban in England
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45043191
As a matter of interest, do you / will you be working for big business?
The sort of quiet but essential things we used to shift off into quangos in decades past and without which we couldn't function. We railed against quangos as well thinking them a nonsense.
You may talk of the political and federalising ambitions of the EU if you will, but that is somewhat separate from the superquango function it performs.
https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto
Any and all disruption will have been cause by a complete failure of the UK government to have any idea how supply chains work until it was already too late.
Where I work is irrelevant and I'm not sure my employer would benefit from a Brexit preparation fund, mainly because they've already spent the money without it!
I see we now have to bribe companies to stay after we leave the EU. I thought the post-EU scenario would involve slashing regulations, corporation tax and employment protection to encourage companies to stay - the so-called "Singapore-on-Thames" option.
Or am I forgetting that leaving the EU is meant to benefit all of us not just the wealthy or big business ? Interesting to see one of the most "popular" policies any new Party could follow would be harsh regulation on big business. There's not an anti-business climate here but there is an anti-global big business climate.
On a tangent, the Single Market is of course Thatcherism Triumphant - instead of getting on a bike and looking for work as Norman Tebbit's father did (allegedly), hundreds of thousands have got on coaches, vans, buses, trains and lorries and come to western Europe looking for work.
The hardcore Brexiteers really are a shower: the 'values' they vaunted during the campaign have not lasted long. It's almost as if they were lying ...
Let's put it this way: the idea that borrowing billions to bribe big businesses will not play well with the public, especially when a Brexit Bonus has been promised from EU savings to the NHS.
I shall leave both plucky, patriotic Leavers and filthy quisling Remainers to it for today, we're raising an awning on the verandah before the daystar returns in full force and turns us all into withered husks.
*edit* Eww on the avatar front.
If it helps to keep the big companies in the country for the next few years when it is going to be turbulent then it's money well spent. Some of your remainer allies can see that, it's a shame you can't.
My FY prediction is 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.5% and 0.4-0.6% for a total of 1.6-1.8%, barely any slowdown on last year (or the year before) and pretty much in the middle of the pack internationally.
As I said, the major downside risk is a slowdown or recession in Europe, what looked like a Q1 blip has spilled over fairly badly into Q2 and the EU economy is much more susceptible to a trade related slowdown than the UK.
President Mnangagwa said the government was in talks with Mr Chamisa to diffuse the crisis and "we must maintain this dialogue in order to protect the peace we hold dear".
Zimbabwe election: International calls for restraint
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45040594
*In case anyone is confused, that is intended as sarcasm.
I think we can agree that the much-touted "recession" in the Construction industry was so much horsehit, as several of us predicted.
There is one company – Wockhardt UK – that produces animal-based insulin at its site in Wrexham. They estimate that their products are used by about 1,500 to 2,000 patients a year.
But that’s less than half of one percent of the 421,000 people who rely on insulin in the UK (according to an estimate from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink in 2010).
So where does everyone else get theirs from? We spoke to the UK’s other leading suppliers of insulin – Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Lilly.
Sanofi told us that the company “does not manufacture insulin in the UK. All of our insulins are manufactured in Frankfurt.” Novo Nordisk told us that its insulin is made in Denmark and France. Lilly told us that they don’t make insulin in the UK either.
Your proposal will stink to high heaven, and be impossible to sell to a public promised there would be a bonus to the public purse after Brexit, not - as it will be sold - "fat cats getting fatter".
Besides, wasn't that a plan by May, and not a pre-referendum pledge by Brexiteers, which was what I asked?
"But what does the industry say now?
A spokesperson for HDA UK told FactCheck today that: “we are aware of proposals by the government and manufacturers to develop plans for stockpiling medicines of all types as a ‘buffer stock’ in the event of a ‘no deal Brexit’.”
He added: “The UK medicines supply chain has an inbuilt resilience and flexibility, which is now being supported by the plans for a ‘buffer stock’”, which he described as “sensible planning”.
It’s a similar story from the individual suppliers of insulin. Novo Nordisk – which produces its insulin in Denmark and France – told FactCheck that the company is “is in the process of planning for future contingencies however, at present, we do not anticipate stock shortages.”
Something doesn't add up...
I also think you are missing the point, any fund would be for matched investment. If a company spends plans a £200m investment, they propose it to the government and they get a £100m credit for it once it is complete. The company is still spending money it wouldn't otherwise have spent. Tbh, I doubt the public would even realise the fund existed as it would be all of three lines in the budget.
Tbh, big business bungs is in the nature of our party, I don't think it would be anywhere near as controversial as some are making out.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/981478/Brexit-news-UK-Jacob-Rees-Mogg-Theresa-May-tax-Andrew-Neil-BBC
The main mistake I made with the Bloody Crown trilogy was making the potential leaders too competent. In an era of Trump, May, and Corbyn, I think people will suspend disbelief for magic, but capable and intelligent leadership just looks too unrealistic.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/blog/misquoted-and-misrepresented-necs-pete-willsman/
I understand your point, but it's still a massive bung to big business. And the public would know about the fund the moment the papers and opposition tell them - the headlines are easy to imagine. There will also be endless arguments over whether the matched investment was really matched - and large companies will always try to do what advantages them when it comes to accounting.
And the small companies that did not qualify still get hit with the current rate, and will be squealing.
(*) Then again, I was out of it a little around that time.
I don't think it would be a wise choice for us as a country, but that's not really a consideration at the moment given the state of politics.
Eventually the doctor got fed up with this, and pulled the student to one side. 'You're arrogant, rude, and totally incompetent. Everything you've said is wrong and you've caused both totally unnecessary panic and given false hope to someone who has no chance. You're a rotten doctor and unfit to practise medicine.'
'You should retrain as a government economist and statistician.'