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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » TMay ends the week extending her satisfaction margin over Corb
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » TMay ends the week extending her satisfaction margin over Corbyn
The latest numbers in what is by far the longest series of leader ratings in British politics, the satisfied/dissatisfied figures from Ipsos-MORI, are out and show TMay just about holding steady but with a sizeable drop for Corbyn. Fieldwork took place before yesterday’s EU summit in Salzburg.
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Edited for more recent figures.
I wonder if May’s mistake was to take her UK message “my deal or no deal” ( fair enough for a domestic audience as there isn’t an alternative deal from the U.K. ) and repeat it to the EU- which is foolish as it’s “her deal subject to negotiation with the EU” - which would explain the EU feedback of intransigence. Time will tell.
As Guy Verhofstadt once said
Most of the political leaders [in continental Europe] are simply following nationalist and populist rhetoric, and that is for me not a democracy. A democracy, in my opinion, is a political leader developing a vision and then trying to convince the public opinion to follow his vision, and not what is happening now.
https://twitter.com/CER_Grant/status/1043171707803066371?s=20
"I like to watch...."
The EU cannot have it both ways on this - either they rejected the proposals as fundamentally flawed for principled reasons, which mean that tweaking the agreement will not work and fair on them for being very very clear on that, or the proposals were broadly ok and with a bit more work on the big two issues we can get there. The two positions are contradictory. It wouldn't be de dramatising it, it would be pretending for a few more days or weeks that what May offered might be broadly acceptable, when they've already said it isn't, and she has been just as clear what they offered, particularly on Ireland, is not acceptable.
Saying no and putting a ticking clock on different options was positive of them, if stronger in tone that was expected. It means we can stop pretending and try something different, rather than try to salvage the unsalvagable.
https://twitter.com/rafaelbehr/status/1043189470328184843?s=20
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics/#create-graph
Such an admirer he insulted her with a puerile Instagram stunt.
"We are, then, approaching that point every negotiator most fears: when one side’s maximum falls irretrievably short of the other’s minimum."
Probably the sentence that sums up the situation best. Excellent article.
It has long been my view that we should have insisted on an independent chair of the negotiations - someone who can bash heads together and force both sides to act constructively.
And I say this as someone who did vote for Remain. But having seen the way the EU has comported itself, I would almost certainly never vote to return.
The reality is the "none of the above" candidate is rather popular.
Ed Whelan going as far as to name the 'real' attacker.
Absolutely barmy.
It is not at all fair to either Kavanaugh or his accuser.
The whole thing is a damning indictment of American politics as a whole.
"Furious animal lovers accuse Croydon cat killer police of trying to tarnish the reputation of foxes"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/croydon-cat-killer-foxes-police-backlash-animal-lovers-snarl-hunting-rspca-ripper-denial-boudicca-a8549286.html
For good or ill, TM has shown a willingness to be flexible. But eventually you will reach a snapping point.
Indeed, they have come up with options in some places, Ireland for example, so by your words above you should be criticising the EU because they did present us an alternative.
It's another of those bizarre situations where people act like the EU making a concession would be doing us a favour and it is not up to them to do us favours - not automatically it would be a favour. There are concessions that would not be worth the cost, clearly, that is what is being argued over, but 'giving' us something in exchange for a deal is not a favour it is mutually beneficial, and so nor would suggesting other options be doing us a favour. They have in fact offered us some options, which so far we have rejected (we shall see in future), so once again you must be fuming at the EU.
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1043198062708043783
It is very little to do with securing justice for a sexual assault and everything to do with US national politics. I find it very distasteful on both sides.
A landmark ruling against two leading drug companies could save the NHS in England "hundreds of millions" a year.
Novartis and Bayer were trying to stop NHS doctors from prescribing a cheaper treatment for a serious eye condition.
Health bosses said the judgement in the High Court may reduce the power of companies to set prices.
Drug company Novartis said they were "disappointed" because patients were being asked to accept an unlicensed treatment to save the NHS money.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45588983
https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1043204798114344960
https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1043205332011548673
- Prof Ford will not testify if Judge Kavanaugh is in the room
- Judge Kavanaugh must testify first
- There can be no appearance before next Thursday
- Questions to be posed preferably by senators and not outside counsel
- Mark Judge, who is reported to have been a witness to the alleged assault, should be subpoenaed to appear
- Agrees to a public hearing but wants limits on the media coverage
In no way is justice served by requiring the accused to answer first and to have no chance of rebuttal. In no way is justice served by having a public hearing but then attempting to limit how the media can report it (given how much is already out in the public domain)
A Senate confirmation committee hearing is not the place to carry out a quasi-judicial process. If charges were eventually brought and a trial attempted, it would be completely undermined by this sort of hearing.
Inevitably with historical cases like this, evidence will be nigh on impossible to collect and so achieving justice for an alleged assault similarly nigh on impossible to achieve.
But what is going on now is a mockery of legal process and it is despicable.
He did what he did deliberately and got caught out by the reaction
It is like leaving your job and asking to keep the company car.
Whereas Jezbollah just gets to snipe from the sidelines whilst not being constrained by political realities.
For him to be viewed worse than May in those circumstances takes a special sort of crapness.
https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/1043205358372761601?s=21
I understand the politics of it and no doubt the Prime Minister will get a short-term considerable boost from all this as being "tough" with Europe always plays well.
I'm still convinced there will be a deal of sorts knocked together three or four minutes after the last possible minute. It won't satisfy anyone on either side (these things rarely do) but we will be so anxious to avoid the cliff edge that "No Deal" seems to be that we will sign up to almost anything.
I am guessing two possibilities - we make some tough talk, then attempt to sell a climb down in position as actually not a climbdown somehow, relying on the goodwill of talking tough to sees us through. Or we do tack harder, see if that has the numbers in the Commons, and if that fails all options become open (since they son't until harder brexit is tried).
She has spent the last two years in a fantasy world, building castles in the air. Reality was always going to be a shock.
So the question is what can the EU budge on so that we can budge even more on something else? How it could occur I don't know, but the EU backing down a bit on Ireland could make it work? Yes May would still look bloody silly accepting full customs union or whatever the option would be, given she has trashed that idea too, but it seems easier to get people to accept than the EU's Irish option.
If the FBI were presented with a case, they would judge it as to whether it falls within their remit to investigate and proceed accordingly.
As far as I am aware, that has not yet happened.
Instead I think they genuinely believed they could force the Brits into cancelling Brexit (encouraged by some politicians and media folk in the UK). I don’t believe that it’s going to happen
As s result of intransigence and stupidity on the EU’s side there’s a real risk of a bad outcome for everyone
It was all summarised into 1 powerpoint slide in a very elegant precis. The higher steps are still there, but it is May's redlines that prevent ascending that far up the steps:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/michel-barnier-killer-graphic-brexit-theresa-mays-red-lines-on-bespoke-model_uk_5a39497ce4b0fc99878f2058
They had previously done one for Kavanaugh, at the request of the Whitehouse, and Ford would like it reopened.
But Javid is about to ride a coach and horse through pharma regulation
I am surprised Tusk would act so, frankly, I did not have him down as an insulting person. But I find his pretend de-dramatisation far more despicable than what occurred yesterday, which was diplomatically rough but perfectly defendable as the EU laying down, unequivocally, once again, their red line, and telling us to stop having false hope.
Sometimes politicians have to do things which while not in their best political interests are in the best interests of the country as a whole - that's leadership. This is where I part company with the adherents of May. She seems obsessed with her popularity and image - everything she has done since July 2016 has been around her popularity and the maintenance of her good self in office.
Looking and sounding angry with the EU goes down well with the Conservative vote (as I'm sure she knows) but there will come a point when the road will run out and, as you say, whatever ground the EU gives, the UK will have to go further than May might like and that will be when she has to take the risk - her interest against the country's interests ? It shouldn't be a question at all of course.
Big Pharma is the winner either way in this case, as now they can agitate for accelerated drug approvals without safety or efficacy for other products.
This is quite a sentinal case, but probably the right judgement. The implications are far wider than this particular disease.
Incidentally the Novartis product goes generic in the USA in 2020 and in the UK in 2022, so then the argument becomes moot because of generic production.
You say it takes two to tango, and May has clearly been tangoing with the EU - her MPs and members were so angry with her because they thought she gave them too much. SHe hasn't called it right, clearly, and I don't put that entirely at the foot of the EU but at the two sides just being diametrically opposed. I think May is quite prepared to give further if she has to despite her rhetoric, but so far the EU hasn't given any ground to give her cover to do even try that.
The crunch then becomes October 18th.
Indeed if this results in a deal she will deserve a lot of credit and I would expect that to show eventually in the polls and secure her mid term future
The whole dynamic has shifted as the EU get a canning in the UK from the media and press.
The men in suits (apart from 3 women) really have provided a sorry spectacle to the Country and in trying to be clever and ever so childish will have recruited anti EU sentiment more than anything Farage could have done
It is an entirely self administered mistake by them
I have absolutely no doubt that Trump is personally up to his neck in it, the only thing that would convince me otherwise would be Mueller clearing Trump, but if he fires him I'm going to take it as red that essentially all the allegations against Trump are true, whether they originated with the FBI/CIA investigation, or the later Steele dossier.
Second, I wanted to reply to your response on the previous thread but the world (and my dinner) decreed otherwise.
Theresa May dug her own political bed not just by seeking to become Prime Minister in 2016 but through the disaster of her own self-indulgent GE last year which weakened her appreciably and will probably do this country untold damage in terms of the deal we might have been able to get.
I also recognise her dogged attempts at inclusivity from day one - everyone has a home in the May tent - but the problem with trying to get a deal which pleases everyone is no such deal exists so all that can be done is to get a deal which irritates everybody equally and that may be where we finish up.
As for the EU, well, yes, but we are the ones leaving. We are the ones that have to come up with something that works both for us and for them. If it were Finland or Italy leaving it would be exactly the same. There is no "one size fits all off-the-shelf" deal as an excuse for actually doing the hard graft to work out a deal (or series of bilateral deals) which works.
I will cheerfully concede the EU "could" be more helpful but there's little in it for them. The risk for them is the UK going out without a deal isn't a disaster but in fact goes smoothly because it will encourage anyone and everyone else to leave.
Which hardly anyone can remember now.
Quinton Letts just tweeted that a rock solid remainer has just said that is it, I want out.
Wonder how many more