> @AndyJS said: > > @kle4 said: > > > @TheScreamingEagles said: > > > My legendary modesty prevents me from mentioning I tipped the Tories to poll <10% in the Euros at 12/1 and fifth at 6/1. > > > > At this rate they'd be closer to getting a pity vote from me. The core of the Tory party on Brexit are just plain awful, but those who sought a deal don't deserve this, and it is weird that those most responsible for not brexiting will get their way in the party as a result of this. > > It might have been better for the Tories not to contest these elections. Anything is better than going sub-10%. With that level of support, there are going to be a lot of ballot boxes in places like Liverpool and Glasgow with no Tory votes at all.
Makes the Tory vote more exclusive, no riff raff Brexiteers nor Corbynites, nor unwashed Green eco warriors nor Scottish Nationalists need apply, only toffs will do
> @justin124 said: > > @GIN1138 said: > > > @TheScreamingEagles said: > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour. > > > > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll > > > > > > BXP 35% (+1) > > > > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1) > > > > > > Lab 15% (-1) > > > > > > Greens 10% (-1) > > > > > > Tories 9% (-1) > > > > > > CUK 5% (nc) > > > > > > UKIP 3% (nc) > > > > > > Fieldwork notes > > > > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week. > > > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard! > > Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
We will almost certainly see the Brexit Party win though, all the pollsters agree on that, just depends whether the Tories and Labour are just humiliated by falling behind the LDs or annihilated by falling behind the Greens too
> @AndyJS said: > > @HYUFD said: > > > @AndyJS said: > > > > @GIN1138 said: > > > > > @TheScreamingEagles said: > > > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour. > > > > > > > > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll > > > > > > > > > > BXP 35% (+1) > > > > > > > > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1) > > > > > > > > > > Lab 15% (-1) > > > > > > > > > > Greens 10% (-1) > > > > > > > > > > Tories 9% (-1) > > > > > > > > > > CUK 5% (nc) > > > > > > > > > > UKIP 3% (nc) > > > > > > > > > > Fieldwork notes > > > > > > > > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week. > > > > > > > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard! > > > > > > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones. > > > > 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence > > Yes although the vast majority of Labour voters are now pro-Remain.
Given this poll has Labour behind the LDs in the Euro elections now and the Tories miles behind the Brexit Party I suspect both the Labour and Tory votes will be far more Leave and Remain respectively next Thursday than they were in 2017
> @williamglenn said: > > @justin124 said: > > > > Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week. > > For what it's worth, this poll has a sample size over 7000.
I know - but there appear to be methodological issues.
> > Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
>
> For what it's worth, this poll has a sample size over 7000.
I know - but there appear to be methodological issues.
Do there?
I don't know about methodological issues but YouGov are an outlier* in regards to their Labour scores. They seem to be pretty consistent in giving Labour lower scores than other pollsters and usually with quite a gap.
I assume that either their methodologies or samples (or maybe both) are different to produce different results.
@Cyclefree from a couple of threads back now, some of your criticism seems to be along the lines of those for the IHRA in terms of restricting free speech especially on the occupation of Palestine. This didn't seem to be an issue for many but now it suddenly is when it comes to a piece of Islamophobia legislation and the media seem to want to have this free speech argument now...
It is so obviously hypocritical, they went crazy on Corbyn for exactly this. It is has been pretty obvious from the start most of Corbyn's critics were completely cynical but this has made it blatantly obvious.
Has Theresa May really agreed to go, whatever happens to the WAB, and even if she has, what has changed, since it was widely believed (as the betting showed) that she would go this year anyway?
ChUK is going nowhere. A cynical new Conservative Prime Minister might invite the Tory Tiggers to return to the blue tent, as this would strengthen the government's almost-majority and potentially embarrass Labour who might not be so magnanimous, especially as the rules forbid standing against the party which will have happened in the Euros.
The May/Corbyn Brexit talks seem to have been a dead end but apparently Kit Malthouse is heading up yet another Conservative search for a way out (or a way to stay in).
And there's the US PGA (the second golf major), Eurovision, and the FA Cup final.
Is he trying to annoy people? The innuendo is past its sell-by date, it's in American, and those aren't even buns, they're scones. And why has he got his hands in his pockets?
Has Theresa May really agreed to go, whatever happens to the WAB, and even if she has, what has changed, since it was widely believed (as the betting showed) that she would go this year anyway?
ChUK is going nowhere. A cynical new Conservative Prime Minister might invite the Tory Tiggers to return to the blue tent, as this would strengthen the government's almost-majority and potentially embarrass Labour who might not be so magnanimous, especially as the rules forbid standing against the party which will have happened in the Euros.
The May/Corbyn Brexit talks seem to have been a dead end but apparently Kit Malthouse is heading up yet another Conservative search for a way out (or a way to stay in).
And there's the US PGA (the second golf major), Eurovision, and the FA Cup final.
I'm not sure how bringing the ex Tory MPs would go down with Tory voters and constituency members in that seat. In Labour there is almost no chance IMO, in the Conservatives I assume there would be a lot of bad feeling towards them even if not so much from other MPs.
Obviously useful from a parliamentary point of view but I think they would have to be desperate like 'avoiding a GE' desperate to do it.
Edit: We'll miss CUKs comedy moments when they're gone...
> @HYUFD said: > > @AndyJS said: > > > @GIN1138 said: > > > > @TheScreamingEagles said: > > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour. > > > > > > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll > > > > > > > > BXP 35% (+1) > > > > > > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1) > > > > > > > > Lab 15% (-1) > > > > > > > > Greens 10% (-1) > > > > > > > > Tories 9% (-1) > > > > > > > > CUK 5% (nc) > > > > > > > > UKIP 3% (nc) > > > > > > > > Fieldwork notes > > > > > > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week. > > > > > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard! > > > > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones. > > 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
Certainly right to exclude the Tories and Labour, but you are forgetting that the bulk of the remaining 7% are the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, who are very clearly remain.
Labour can just walk away now, on the grounds that May’s departure is imminent and any deal with her pretty much worthless as far as the future PM’s intentions are concerned.
If Mercer took his hands out of his pockets, the picture would show the woman bringing him a scone. As it is, we can only conclude the woman has taken both scones for herself.
If Mercer took his hands out of his pockets, the picture would show the woman bringing him a scone. As it is, we can only conclude the woman has taken both scones for herself.
Postal vote finally arrived in the sandpit. It’s going to cost me about £30 to send it back by courier. Can I be arsed to fill it in and send it back, having never abstained before?
> @Sandpit said: > Postal vote finally arrived in the sandpit. It’s going to cost me about £30 to send it back by courier. Can I be arsed to fill it in and send it back, having never abstained before?
Any chance of finding a random who is flying to the UK who could post it after arriving here?
Postal vote finally arrived in the sandpit. It’s going to cost me about £30 to send it back by courier. Can I be arsed to fill it in and send it back, having never abstained before?
I do appreciate it is important to vote and I would hate to discourage anyone but if you are paying £30 just to abstain might it be better to put it towards a good cause or just yourself/family...
Unless you feel you will send a message with your abstention.
> @IanB2 said: > > Certainly right to exclude the Tories and Labour, but you are forgetting that the bulk of the remaining 7% are the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, who are very clearly remain.
---
The leadership of the parties are Remain.
I don't think it follows that the voters are.
After all, it was not so long ago that the Nationalists (and Sinn Fein) were strongly eurosceptic.
At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
> @ydoethur said: > Labour leaflet received. > > Was it the same tissue of implausible lies written by a barely coherent lunatic that mine was? > > The first headline was, 'only Labour can reunite the country...'
There is some truth in that but not necessarily to their advantage. Contempt is pretty universal in a Breakfast at Tiffany's sort of way.
> @CarlottaVance said: > At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both. > > Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity. > > So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister. > > I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished. > > But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour. > > https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
I would have more sympathy for this view had Theresa May not spent most of her Premiership pandering to the extreme Leavers. The basic problem with Brexit is that no one has ever confronted the nutjobs and told them that they have choices to make. Naturally they now do not understand why they should.
> @CarlottaVance said: > At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both. > > Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity. > > So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister. > > I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished. > > But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour. > > https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh.
My default assumption now is that Brexit won’t happen.
If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
> @ydoethur said: > Labour leaflet received. > > Was it the same tissue of implausible lies written by a barely coherent lunatic that mine was? > > The first headline was, 'only Labour can reunite the country...'
Yes, neither leave nor remain but not the only viable.halfway May's house deal either. Curious.
> At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh.
She is crap at the politics of Politics. Something I’d always taken for granted, or sneered at as “spin”.
I maintain that with basic political skills she could have got this over the line with her party, and even the DUP too, just as she did with the preceding Brexit enabling legislation.
> @CarlottaVance said: > At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both. > > Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity. > > So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister. > > I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished. > > But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour. > > https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Theresa May is the third recent Prime Minister to have been son or daughter of the Manse, following Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher, neither name synonymous with compromise.
Is compromise the right word? In the sense that her deal is some sort of middle position between two extremes, perhaps, but not in her human dealings with proponents of either side. She has not bought them off by negotiating a deal, just imposed her own view.
Where Gimson could be right is that conventional wisdom underestimated both May and Corbyn.
I've read his book (the one he plugs in the linked article) . The earlier PMs, whom he'd no personal knowledge of, are better dealt with than those he has known, where there is too much detail and assessment is based on whether he liked them or not.
> @DavidL said: All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh.
History may revise its opinion (for better, or worse) in the light of the performance of her successor.
> @Casino_Royale said: > My default assumption now is that Brexit won’t happen. > > If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
By which time Corbyn will be gone and RemainLabour will be in the ascendency.
Paddy's are 11/10 we dont leave the EU in 2019. bet365 are 6/5 that we do. At least one of those is wrong. I think Paddy's price will be the one to move. I think we're staying in.
When this EU campaign started I ventured to suggest the Lib Dems would beat labour into second place and I received a fair amount of scepticism. Seems you gov are indicating crossover has happened and the trend is now to Farage and the Lib Dems as the conservative and labour parties face complete humilation. It will be very interesting to see the fallout over the coming weeks but TM going is the correct decision but how long can Corbyn last as well
Corbyn and Rebecca Long Bailey rehearsed their Venezeula tribute act with their idiotic scheme to nationalise the national grid confiscating share value and in one stroke undermining uk pension values and seeing foreign investment draining out of the country. These people are a real threat to everyone's economic wellbeing and need calling out.
Sky have an excellent article on their website taking apart labour's proposals in a non political way
> @Casino_Royale said: > > @CarlottaVance said: > > > At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both. > > > > > > Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity. > > > > > > So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister. > > > > > > I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished. > > > > > > But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour. > > > > > > https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html > > > > All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh. > > She is crap at the politics of Politics. Something I’d always taken for granted, or sneered at as “spin”. > > I maintain that with basic political skills she could have got this over the line with her party, and even the DUP too, just as she did with the preceding Brexit enabling legislation.
Yep, that is her fundamental failing. Alastair is right to say that she failed to confront the ERG loons. That is true but not the full extent of the problem. She didn't confront the Euro fanatics either. She hid behind meaningless drivel like "Brexit means Brexit" to avoid the necessary debates and consensus building. When she produced her deal ex cathedra she was amazed to find that there was no consensus to be had.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
> @AlastairMeeks said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > There were many others but these stand out.
She's just no good at this politics stuff. She ended up leading no one with both wings of her party distrusting her and repeatedly feeling let down.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
The Election That Never Wasn't where she lost Dave's hard won majority was the act of vanity and greed from which all of her other calamities flow.
Has Theresa May really agreed to go, whatever happens to the WAB, and even if she has, what has changed, since it was widely believed (as the betting showed) that she would go this year anyway?
ChUK is going nowhere. A cynical new Conservative Prime Minister might invite the Tory Tiggers to return to the blue tent, as this would strengthen the government's almost-majority and potentially embarrass Labour who might not be so magnanimous, especially as the rules forbid standing against the party which will have happened in the Euros.
The May/Corbyn Brexit talks seem to have been a dead end but apparently Kit Malthouse is heading up yet another Conservative search for a way out (or a way to stay in).
And there's the US PGA (the second golf major), Eurovision, and the FA Cup final.
I'm not sure how bringing the ex Tory MPs would go down with Tory voters and constituency members in that seat. In Labour there is almost no chance IMO, in the Conservatives I assume there would be a lot of bad feeling towards them even if not so much from other MPs.
Obviously useful from a parliamentary point of view but I think they would have to be desperate like 'avoiding a GE' desperate to do it.
Edit: We'll miss CUKs comedy moments when they're gone...
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
Surely “Brexit means Brexit” deserves a place on that list of disastrous messages?
> @not_on_fire said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > > > There were many others but these stand out. > > Surely “Brexit means Brexit” deserves a place on that list of disastrous messages?
By itself that was harmless. What it was wrapped in became the problem.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
She does politics by writing speeches many weeks in advance in a very tight knit group of aides loyal to her personally. Because she doesn’t talk to anyone else, particularly fellow politicians, who she mistrusts, she is impervious to feedback on content or tone.
She is also entirely inflexible when things change where she’s already decided on a course of action. You could also mention her speech after the GE2017, which was utterly ludicrous and clearly written as if she’d just won a big majority. And you can see it now too.
Ken Clarke was right when she said she was a bloody difficult woman (it wasn’t in a good, determined and resolute Thatcher way, who always understood politics, but in a bad way of someone who can’t and won’t listen and engage) and the anonymous cabinet minister who said her ideal job would be one where she didn’t have to talk to or meet anyone. Ever.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
I'm pretty sure she'll end by delivering no deal.
At this moment, it might look suspiciously like no departure as well.
On the next Conservative leader markets, we are all looking at this from the Brexit / Remainer angle in terms of candidates but, to many MPs, what is also likely to be as important (given May's performance at the last election) is picking a candidate who can debate with the likes of Farage and Corbyn and who comes across as vaguely human. On that basis, knock out most of the candidates such as Raab, Hancock etc etc. The ones who would probably be able to come across as the least wooden are Johnson, McVey, possibly Mourdant and Truss.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
I agree 100%. If she had reached out to Remainers early on, we would have left the EU by now.
The weirdest part of this Gov'ts messaging/strategy is the way they always leak something or other to the press, or make a unilateral announcement in an attempt to bounce the other side into agreement.
They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers.
The weirdest part of this Gov'ts messaging/strategy is the way they always leak something or other to the press, or make a unilateral announcement in an attempt to bounce the other side into agreement.
They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers.
It's worked with precisely none of them.
Has she tried empathy? Sitting down, talking to them and listening to them?
> @AlastairMeeks said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > There were many others but these stand out.
Her policy from the beginning of her premiership was - as far as the UK electorate was concerned - to compromise only with the hard line section of those in favour of Brexit. Any effort to persuade those who voted remain was therefore doomed from the start.
Naturally any deal which might be agreed with the EU required a different set of compromises not compatible with retaining the support of the hard liners.
> @Dura_Ace said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > > > There were many others but these stand out. > > The Election That Never Wasn't where she lost Dave's hard won majority was the act of vanity and greed from which all of her other calamities flow.
Again because of the lack of political skills. Cameron and Osborne had to have a coalition. They made it work and sucked the life out of the Lib Dems whilst they were at it. She was completely incapable of appreciating the importance of constantly paying attention to the DUP on whom her majority depended. The epitome of that was when she agreed her first deal without discussing the implications of the border with them and was astonished when they said no. She behaved like she had a Blair like majority when she in fact had no majority at all.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
Her words upset Remainers and her actions Leave Ministers.
Not having ‘Citizens of nowhere’ though. You must know she was talking about tax avoiding corporates, I’m surprised you go for that one.
> @Casino_Royale said: > The weirdest part of this Gov'ts messaging/strategy is the way they always leak something or other to the press, or make a unilateral announcement in an attempt to bounce the other side into agreement. > > > > They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers. > > > > It's worked with precisely none of them. > > Has she tried empathy? Sitting down, talking to them and listening to them? > > This is how humans work.
The story goes that a woman met both Gladstone and Disraeli at the same party. “How was it?” her friend asked.
“Well first I met Mr Gladstone and after talking with him for fifteen minutes I was convinced that he was the cleverest man in England. And then I met Mr Disraeli and after talking with him for fifteen minutes I was convinced that I was the cleverest woman in England.”
> @Casino_Royale said: > My default assumption now is that Brexit won’t happen. > > If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
Putting it on the back burner is not going to keep any replacement Tory PM in office, Boris included.
> @Dura_Ace said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > > > There were many others but these stand out. > > The Election That Never Wasn't where she lost Dave's hard won majority was the act of vanity and greed from which all of her other calamities flow.
It boils down to GE17 as you rightly say. The DUP tail wagging the dog and May's intransigence led to too many unreconcilable red lines and a virtually unpassable WA. How the hell did they not give her the boot after she lost seats on a 20 point lead! Thought the Tories were merciless with their leaders
> @TheScreamingEagles said: > > @TheScreamingEagles said: > > > I picked the wrong to stop sniffing gl.. I mean I picked the wrong week to start a new job. > > > > How's it going? Is your garden pining? > > Six months of gardening leave ruined my body clock. > > Getting up at 5.30 am seems so unnatural.
Of course because it is. Although I find it helps a little at this time of year when it is already light and the dawn chorus is in full cry. In the winter its brutal.
Not everyone is going to vote in these elections - fact.
Not voting in these elections has gone from being a matter of misplaced pride to one of slight embarrassment - my opinion.
Confronted with a pollster people who are not intending to vote have to say something.
Opinion Polls feed on themselves and become a self-fulfilling prophesy - that has been a basis of LD campaigning since 1989.
In 2010 we had the Cleggasm - even I was surprised as to how there was no follow through at all in votes cast and so seats won.
I think we are seeing this again now with the LDs in opinion polls. If, but only if I am right they will come no where near Labour in seats won.
Cue lots of LDs denouncing this post. You cannot allow the possibility that your rise in the polls is imaginary and not real because that of itself could destroy the rise.
Hold your fire, we will see what happens in ten days time and the result will be interesting - either way.
The weirdest part of this Gov'ts messaging/strategy is the way they always leak something or other to the press, or make a unilateral announcement in an attempt to bounce the other side into agreement.
They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers.
It's worked with precisely none of them.
Has she tried empathy? Sitting down, talking to them and listening to them?
This is how humans work.
It’s a meeting of oil and water. The DUP, the ERG seem wholly emotion based and impervious to logic, reason or active thought. May is perhaps less emotional. Oddly, that’s how a potential arrangement had been reached with the EU. They are reason-based.
Brexit means Ulster-style politics seems to be our future. That doesn’t seem a very happy future.
> @isam said: > Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes: > > > > “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance. > > Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within. > > “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise. > > > > There were many others but these stand out. > > Her words upset Remainers and her actions Leave Ministers. > > Not having ‘Citizens of nowhere’ though. You must know she was talking about tax avoiding corporates, I’m surprised you go for that one.
She knew damn well what she was saying. It was her announcement that she was a Prime Minister for provincials.
> At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
I would have more sympathy for this view had Theresa May not spent most of her Premiership pandering to the extreme Leavers. The basic problem with Brexit is that no one has ever confronted the nutjobs and told them that they have choices to make. Naturally they now do not understand why they should.
She changed course too late and has had no answer on what to do, but while out weighing it she still gets the credit of trying dsmn hard once she did come to a deal. From the amount it first lost by it got closer than I would have thought as result in the end.
She thought the headbsngers alone could see it through and they cannot - as opposition to no deal shows. Softer was the only way and she was unwilling until too late to dare take on the headbsngers.
I'm surprised that Change UK seem to have reached a floor of 5% ish in the EU polls. I had expected the Liberal/Green surge to have reduced them further.
> @A_View_From_Cumbria5 said: > Not everyone is going to vote in these elections - fact. > > Not voting in these elections has gone from being a matter of misplaced pride to one of slight embarrassment - my opinion. > > Confronted with a pollster people who are not intending to vote have to say something. > > Opinion Polls feed on themselves and become a self-fulfilling prophesy - that has been a basis of LD campaigning since 1989. > > In 2010 we had the Cleggasm - even I was surprised as to how there was no follow through at all in votes cast and so seats won. > > I think we are seeing this again now with the LDs in opinion polls. If, but only if I am right they will come no where near Labour in seats won. > > Cue lots of LDs denouncing this post. You cannot allow the possibility that your rise in the polls is imaginary and not real because that of itself could destroy the rise. > > Hold your fire, we will see what happens in ten days time and the result will be interesting - either way.
One way of looking at it is that every vote actually cast is effectively worth 3. It makes abstention (which I have never done in my adult life) look even more indulgent and pointless since it will be assumed I am with the majority who simply don't care.
Mrs May’s other major mistake was right at the start.
When she appointed the disgraced national security risk Liam Fox, the lazy liar David Davis, and Boris Johnson to key Brexit roles but fired Gove and Osborne because they had clashed with her.
The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly.
The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
> @thecommissioner said: > The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly. > > The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
Leavers never ask themselves why they have completely failed to persuade Remainers that they should give Leave a chance. The answer to that question goes a long way to explaining why Brexit is failing.
> The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly.
>
> The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
Leavers never ask themselves why they have completely failed to persuade Remainers that they should give Leave a chance. The answer to that question goes a long way to explaining why Brexit is failing.
Most people expected a degree of honour in defeat from people who’d had it their way for 20 odd years. It’s not obvious that you have to wine and dine the people you’ve just beat to get them to accept they lost.
> @matt said: > > It’s a meeting of oil and water. The DUP, the ERG seem wholly emotion based and impervious to logic, reason or active thought. May is perhaps less emotional. Oddly, that’s how a potential arrangement had been reached with the EU. They are reason-based. > > Brexit means Ulster-style politics seems to be our future. That doesn’t seem a very happy future.
That is a tad unfair on the DUP whose position has been consistent and logical (whether it is reasonable can be left for another day). The ERG on the other hand has never had a coherent position or even a unanimous one because it never needed one.
This is one reason why Theresa May should have remedied Cameron's omission and set up a leaver-stuffed commission to establish just what Brexit meant, to force Farage, Ukip and the ERG into some sort of coherent position with which she could engage and where necessary compromise. She did not.
So here we are. No idea on Brexit. A week from the Euro elections with the polls headed by the Brexit Party who want, well, what exactly, other than not being betrayed?
> @thecommissioner said: > The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly. > > The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
There are mad minorities on both sides but most remainers were open to what was called a soft Brexit with a close working relationship with the EU which minimised any disruption in trade and investment. Similarly, most leavers were minded to find compromises which reflected the narrow win and dealt with the practicalities of Brexit.
The problem was these compromises were not self evident or self selecting. There needed to be debate led by the PM as to what and where they were so that a consensus could be formed and a majority achieved. May refused to engage in that. It went against her Home Office instincts and she was concerned that it might develop cracks in her party. The result was when she came up with a workable compromise (which in fairness she did) everyone was underwhelmed and didn't own any part of the project.
Comments
> > @kle4 said:
> > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > My legendary modesty prevents me from mentioning I tipped the Tories to poll <10% in the Euros at 12/1 and fifth at 6/1.
> >
> > At this rate they'd be closer to getting a pity vote from me. The core of the Tory party on Brexit are just plain awful, but those who sought a deal don't deserve this, and it is weird that those most responsible for not brexiting will get their way in the party as a result of this.
>
> It might have been better for the Tories not to contest these elections. Anything is better than going sub-10%. With that level of support, there are going to be a lot of ballot boxes in places like Liverpool and Glasgow with no Tory votes at all.
Makes the Tory vote more exclusive, no riff raff Brexiteers nor Corbynites, nor unwashed Green eco warriors nor Scottish Nationalists need apply, only toffs will do
> > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> >
> > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> >
> > BXP 35% (+1)
> >
> > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> >
> > Lab 15% (-1)
> >
> > Greens 10% (-1)
> >
> > Tories 9% (-1)
> >
> > CUK 5% (nc)
> >
> > UKIP 3% (nc)
> >
> > Fieldwork notes
> >
> > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
>
> LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
> > @GIN1138 said:
> > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > >
> > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > >
> > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > >
> > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > >
> > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > >
> > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > >
> > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > >
> > > Fieldwork notes
> > >
> > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> >
> > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
>
> The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
> > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> >
> > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> >
> > BXP 35% (+1)
> >
> > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> >
> > Lab 15% (-1)
> >
> > Greens 10% (-1)
> >
> > Tories 9% (-1)
> >
> > CUK 5% (nc)
> >
> > UKIP 3% (nc)
> >
> > Fieldwork notes
> >
> > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
>
> LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
>
> Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
For what it's worth, this poll has a sample size over 7000.
> > @GIN1138 said:
> > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > >
> > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > >
> > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > >
> > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > >
> > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > >
> > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > >
> > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > >
> > > Fieldwork notes
> > >
> > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> >
> > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
>
> Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
We will almost certainly see the Brexit Party win though, all the pollsters agree on that, just depends whether the Tories and Labour are just humiliated by falling behind the LDs or annihilated by falling behind the Greens too
> > @GIN1138 said:
> > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > >
> > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > >
> > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > >
> > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > >
> > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > >
> > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > >
> > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > >
> > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > >
> > > Fieldwork notes
> > >
> > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> >
> > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
>
> Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
I'm sure YouGov did best of all pollsters in the 2009 and 2014 EU elections.
Doesn't mean they'll necessarily do best again this year but their record is good.
> > @AndyJS said:
> > > @GIN1138 said:
> > > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > > >
> > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > > >
> > > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > > >
> > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > > >
> > > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > > >
> > > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > > >
> > > > Fieldwork notes
> > > >
> > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> > >
> > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
> >
> > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
>
> 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
Yes although the vast majority of Labour voters are now pro-Remain.
> > @HYUFD said:
> > > @AndyJS said:
> > > > @GIN1138 said:
> > > > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > > > >
> > > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > > > >
> > > > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > > > >
> > > > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > > > >
> > > > > Fieldwork notes
> > > > >
> > > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> > > >
> > > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
> > >
> > > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
> >
> > 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
>
> Yes although the vast majority of Labour voters are now pro-Remain.
Given this poll has Labour behind the LDs in the Euro elections now and the Tories miles behind the Brexit Party I suspect both the Labour and Tory votes will be far more Leave and Remain respectively next Thursday than they were in 2017
> > @justin124 said:
> >
> > Yougov is consistently out of line with other pollsters. I doubt that we will see these figures next week.
>
> For what it's worth, this poll has a sample size over 7000.
I know - but there appear to be methodological issues.
Edit: flavible say as follows
BRX: 31
LDem: 12
Lab: 11
Grn: 5
Con: 5
SNP: 3
CHUK: 2
PC: 1
BRX winning most seats or joint most everywhere in Eng and Wal. Even London.
I assume that either their methodologies or samples (or maybe both) are different to produce different results.
*Which doesn't mean wrong
It is so obviously hypocritical, they went crazy on Corbyn for exactly this. It is has been pretty obvious from the start most of Corbyn's critics were completely cynical but this has made it blatantly obvious.
Has Theresa May really agreed to go, whatever happens to the WAB, and even if she has, what has changed, since it was widely believed (as the betting showed) that she would go this year anyway?
ChUK is going nowhere. A cynical new Conservative Prime Minister might invite the Tory Tiggers to return to the blue tent, as this would strengthen the government's almost-majority and potentially embarrass Labour who might not be so magnanimous, especially as the rules forbid standing against the party which will have happened in the Euros.
The May/Corbyn Brexit talks seem to have been a dead end but apparently Kit Malthouse is heading up yet another Conservative search for a way out (or a way to stay in).
And there's the US PGA (the second golf major), Eurovision, and the FA Cup final.
> https://twitter.com/JohnnyMercerUK/status/1129082069697609728
>
>
>
> Why’s he taken a photo with “labor” behind his head?
Is he trying to annoy people? The innuendo is past its sell-by date, it's in American, and those aren't even buns, they're scones. And why has he got his hands in his pockets?
Obviously useful from a parliamentary point of view but I think they would have to be desperate like 'avoiding a GE' desperate to do it.
Edit: We'll miss CUKs comedy moments when they're gone...
> > @AndyJS said:
> > > @GIN1138 said:
> > > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > > >
> > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > > >
> > > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > > >
> > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > > >
> > > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > > >
> > > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > > >
> > > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > > >
> > > > Fieldwork notes
> > > >
> > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> > >
> > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
> >
> > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
>
> 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
Certainly right to exclude the Tories and Labour, but you are forgetting that the bulk of the remaining 7% are the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, who are very clearly remain.
> > @Charles said:
> > https://twitter.com/JohnnyMercerUK/status/1129082069697609728
> >
> >
> >
> > Why’s he taken a photo with “labor” behind his head?
>
> And why has he got his hands in his pockets?
Pocket biliards?
> https://twitter.com/mattholehouse/status/1129087341073764359?s=20
Boris - believes in precisely nothing
> > @HYUFD said:
> > https://twitter.com/mattholehouse/status/1129087341073764359?s=20
>
> Boris - believes in precisely nothing
And posted by the same HY who has been telling us for months that Boris would go hard for no deal.
> > @DecrepitJohnL said:
> > > @Charles said:
> > > https://twitter.com/JohnnyMercerUK/status/1129082069697609728
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Why’s he taken a photo with “labor” behind his head?
> >
> > And why has he got his hands in his pockets?
>
> Pocket biliards?
If Mercer took his hands out of his pockets, the picture would show the woman bringing him a scone. As it is, we can only conclude the woman has taken both scones for herself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vO8E2e6G0
And some rather nice cakes.
Took three attempts to stay signed in.
On-topic: a negotiation failure? Gosh.
> Postal vote finally arrived in the sandpit. It’s going to cost me about £30 to send it back by courier. Can I be arsed to fill it in and send it back, having never abstained before?
Any chance of finding a random who is flying to the UK who could post it after arriving here?
Unless you feel you will send a message with your abstention.
>
> Certainly right to exclude the Tories and Labour, but you are forgetting that the bulk of the remaining 7% are the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, who are very clearly remain.
---
The leadership of the parties are Remain.
I don't think it follows that the voters are.
After all, it was not so long ago that the Nationalists (and Sinn Fein) were strongly eurosceptic.
Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
The first headline was, 'only Labour can reunite the country...'
> Labour leaflet received.
>
> Was it the same tissue of implausible lies written by a barely coherent lunatic that mine was?
>
> The first headline was, 'only Labour can reunite the country...'
There is some truth in that but not necessarily to their advantage. Contempt is pretty universal in a Breakfast at Tiffany's sort of way.
> Good morning, everyone.
>
> Took three attempts to stay signed in.
>
> On-topic: a negotiation failure? Gosh.
The world is full of surprises Morris.
> At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
>
> https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
I would have more sympathy for this view had Theresa May not spent most of her Premiership pandering to the extreme Leavers. The basic problem with Brexit is that no one has ever confronted the nutjobs and told them that they have choices to make. Naturally they now do not understand why they should.
Nothing else.
> At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
>
> https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh.
If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
> Labour leaflet received.
>
> Was it the same tissue of implausible lies written by a barely coherent lunatic that mine was?
>
> The first headline was, 'only Labour can reunite the country...'
Yes, neither leave nor remain but not the only viable.halfway May's house deal either. Curious.
I maintain that with basic political skills she could have got this over the line with her party, and even the DUP too, just as she did with the preceding Brexit enabling legislation.
> I picked the wrong to stop sniffing gl.. I mean I picked the wrong week to start a new job.
How's it going? Is your garden pining?
> At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
>
> https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Theresa May is the third recent Prime Minister to have been son or daughter of the Manse, following Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher, neither name synonymous with compromise.
Is compromise the right word? In the sense that her deal is some sort of middle position between two extremes, perhaps, but not in her human dealings with proponents of either side. She has not bought them off by negotiating a deal, just imposed her own view.
Where Gimson could be right is that conventional wisdom underestimated both May and Corbyn.
I've read his book (the one he plugs in the linked article) . The earlier PMs, whom he'd no personal knowledge of, are better dealt with than those he has known, where there is too much detail and assessment is based on whether he liked them or not.
History may revise its opinion (for better, or worse) in the light of the performance of her successor.
> My default assumption now is that Brexit won’t happen.
>
> If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
By which time Corbyn will be gone and RemainLabour will be in the ascendency.
Getting up at 5.30 am seems so unnatural.
When this EU campaign started I ventured to suggest the Lib Dems would beat labour into second place and I received a fair amount of scepticism. Seems you gov are indicating crossover has happened and the trend is now to Farage and the Lib Dems as the conservative and labour parties face complete humilation. It will be very interesting to see the fallout over the coming weeks but TM going is the correct decision but how long can Corbyn last as well
Corbyn and Rebecca Long Bailey rehearsed their Venezeula tribute act with their idiotic scheme to nationalise the national grid confiscating share value and in one stroke undermining uk pension values and seeing foreign investment draining out of the country. These people are a real threat to everyone's economic wellbeing and need calling out.
Sky have an excellent article on their website taking apart labour's proposals in a non political way
> > @CarlottaVance said:
>
> > At Cabinet this week, May spoke of the need for compromise. That is a quintessentially Anglican idea: the national Church saw the need to unite the country round a compromise which can be regarded, according to taste, as either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed as both.
>
> >
>
> > Dogmatists of both persuasions threw up their hands in horror, which is what has happened during Brexit. Nothing is pure enough to satisfy the most dogmatic Leavers’ and Remainers’ ideas of purity.
>
> >
>
> > So it is not difficult to find a stick, or indeed two sticks, with which to beat the Prime Minister.
>
> >
>
> > I had not expected, when I started this article, to end up defending her. For I am a conventional person, and accept the conventional verdict that she is finished.
>
> >
>
> > But once she has been dragged out of Downing Street, perhaps it will be seen that her deal, her compromise, was not so bad after all. She has tried to hold us together through difficult times, and that is a noble endeavour.
>
> >
>
> > https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/05/once-may-has-been-dragged-out-of-downing-street-perhaps-it-will-be-seen-that-she-was-pursuing-a-noble-anglican-compromise.html
>
>
>
> All of which is true but does not excuse her deficiencies in being totally unpersuasive, tactically inept and generally incompetent in the way that she tried to sell it. She may well have been right but history is going to be harsh.
>
> She is crap at the politics of Politics. Something I’d always taken for granted, or sneered at as “spin”.
>
> I maintain that with basic political skills she could have got this over the line with her party, and even the DUP too, just as she did with the preceding Brexit enabling legislation.
Yep, that is her fundamental failing. Alastair is right to say that she failed to confront the ERG loons. That is true but not the full extent of the problem. She didn't confront the Euro fanatics either. She hid behind meaningless drivel like "Brexit means Brexit" to avoid the necessary debates and consensus building. When she produced her deal ex cathedra she was amazed to find that there was no consensus to be had.
“Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
There were many others but these stand out.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
She's just no good at this politics stuff. She ended up leading no one with both wings of her party distrusting her and repeatedly feeling let down.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
>
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
>
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
>
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
>
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
>
> Surely “Brexit means Brexit” deserves a place on that list of disastrous messages?
By itself that was harmless. What it was wrapped in became the problem.
She is also entirely inflexible when things change where she’s already decided on a course of action. You could also mention her speech after the GE2017, which was utterly ludicrous and clearly written as if she’d just won a big majority. And you can see it now too.
Ken Clarke was right when she said she was a bloody difficult woman (it wasn’t in a good, determined and resolute Thatcher way, who always understood politics, but in a bad way of someone who can’t and won’t listen and engage) and the anonymous cabinet minister who said her ideal job would be one where she didn’t have to talk to or meet anyone. Ever.
At this moment, it might look suspiciously like no departure as well.
is picking a candidate who can debate with the likes of Farage and Corbyn and who comes across as vaguely human. On that basis, knock out most of the candidates such as Raab, Hancock etc etc. The ones who would probably be able to come across as the least wooden are Johnson, McVey, possibly Mourdant and Truss.
Are YouGov still doing the same jiggery pokery that served them well in 2017?
They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers.
It's worked with precisely none of them.
This is how humans work.
> > @HYUFD said:
> > > @AndyJS said:
> > > > @GIN1138 said:
> > > > > @TheScreamingEagles said:
> > > > > Crossover time - Lib Dems ahead of Labour.
> > > > >
> > > > > YouGov/The Times Euro poll
> > > > >
> > > > > BXP 35% (+1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Lib Dems 16% (+1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Lab 15% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Greens 10% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > Tories 9% (-1)
> > > > >
> > > > > CUK 5% (nc)
> > > > >
> > > > > UKIP 3% (nc)
> > > > >
> > > > > Fieldwork notes
> > > > >
> > > > > YouGov interviewed 7,192 British adults between Sunday and Thursday this week.
> > > >
> > > > LOL! Brexit Party is going to pound the political class so hard!
> > >
> > > The country is still divided if you add up the shares for the various parties: 47% for Brexit parties and 46% for Remain ones.
> >
> > 31% for Remain parties given Corbyn is still on the fence
>
> Certainly right to exclude the Tories and Labour, but you are forgetting that the bulk of the remaining 7% are the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, who are very clearly remain.
They are against remaining in the UK.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
Her policy from the beginning of her premiership was - as far as the UK electorate was concerned - to compromise only with the hard line section of those in favour of Brexit.
Any effort to persuade those who voted remain was therefore doomed from the start.
Naturally any deal which might be agreed with the EU required a different set of compromises not compatible with retaining the support of the hard liners.
Result our current polarisation.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
>
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
>
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
>
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
>
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
>
> The Election That Never Wasn't where she lost Dave's hard won majority was the act of vanity and greed from which all of her other calamities flow.
Again because of the lack of political skills. Cameron and Osborne had to have a coalition. They made it work and sucked the life out of the Lib Dems whilst they were at it. She was completely incapable of appreciating the importance of constantly paying attention to the DUP on whom her majority depended. The epitome of that was when she agreed her first deal without discussing the implications of the border with them and was astonished when they said no. She behaved like she had a Blair like majority when she in fact had no majority at all.
Not having ‘Citizens of nowhere’ though. You must know she was talking about tax avoiding corporates, I’m surprised you go for that one.
> The weirdest part of this Gov'ts messaging/strategy is the way they always leak something or other to the press, or make a unilateral announcement in an attempt to bounce the other side into agreement.
>
>
>
> They've done this with the EU, the DUP, Labour and occasionally their own backbenchers.
>
>
>
> It's worked with precisely none of them.
>
> Has she tried empathy? Sitting down, talking to them and listening to them?
>
> This is how humans work.
The story goes that a woman met both Gladstone and Disraeli at the same party. “How was it?” her friend asked.
“Well first I met Mr Gladstone and after talking with him for fifteen minutes I was convinced that he was the cleverest man in England. And then I met Mr Disraeli and after talking with him for fifteen minutes I was convinced that I was the cleverest woman in England.”
> My default assumption now is that Brexit won’t happen.
>
> If Boris makes it to PM he will do whatever is necessary to stay in office, up to and including putting it on the back burner to be revisited after the next General Election.
Putting it on the back burner is not going to keep any replacement Tory PM in office, Boris included.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
>
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
>
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
>
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
>
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
>
> The Election That Never Wasn't where she lost Dave's hard won majority was the act of vanity and greed from which all of her other calamities flow.
It boils down to GE17 as you rightly say. The DUP tail wagging the dog and May's intransigence led to too many unreconcilable red lines and a virtually unpassable WA. How the hell did they not give her the boot after she lost seats on a 20 point lead! Thought the Tories were merciless with their leaders
> > @TheScreamingEagles said:
>
> > I picked the wrong to stop sniffing gl.. I mean I picked the wrong week to start a new job.
>
>
>
> How's it going? Is your garden pining?
>
> Six months of gardening leave ruined my body clock.
>
> Getting up at 5.30 am seems so unnatural.
Of course because it is. Although I find it helps a little at this time of year when it is already light and the dawn chorus is in full cry. In the winter its brutal.
Not voting in these elections has gone from being a matter of misplaced pride to one of slight embarrassment - my opinion.
Confronted with a pollster people who are not intending to vote have to say something.
Opinion Polls feed on themselves and become a self-fulfilling prophesy - that has been a basis of LD campaigning since 1989.
In 2010 we had the Cleggasm - even I was surprised as to how there was no follow through at all in votes cast and so seats won.
I think we are seeing this again now with the LDs in opinion polls. If, but only if I am right they will come no where near Labour in seats won.
Cue lots of LDs denouncing this post. You cannot allow the possibility that your rise in the polls is imaginary and not real because that of itself could destroy the rise.
Hold your fire, we will see what happens in ten days time and the result will be interesting - either way.
Brexit means Ulster-style politics seems to be our future. That doesn’t seem a very happy future.
> Theresa May made some serious messaging mistakes:
>
>
>
> “Citizens of nowhere”, ensuring that disaffected Remainers would never give her a chance.
>
> Not condemning “enemies of the people” and “crush the saboteurs”, ensuring that both sides saw her as a hardline Leaver treating Remainers as the enemy within.
>
> “No deal is better than a bad deal”, ensuring Leavers felt no need to compromise.
>
>
>
> There were many others but these stand out.
>
> Her words upset Remainers and her actions Leave Ministers.
>
> Not having ‘Citizens of nowhere’ though. You must know she was talking about tax avoiding corporates, I’m surprised you go for that one.
She knew damn well what she was saying. It was her announcement that she was a Prime Minister for provincials.
She thought the headbsngers alone could see it through and they cannot - as opposition to no deal shows. Softer was the only way and she was unwilling until too late to dare take on the headbsngers.
> Not everyone is going to vote in these elections - fact.
>
> Not voting in these elections has gone from being a matter of misplaced pride to one of slight embarrassment - my opinion.
>
> Confronted with a pollster people who are not intending to vote have to say something.
>
> Opinion Polls feed on themselves and become a self-fulfilling prophesy - that has been a basis of LD campaigning since 1989.
>
> In 2010 we had the Cleggasm - even I was surprised as to how there was no follow through at all in votes cast and so seats won.
>
> I think we are seeing this again now with the LDs in opinion polls. If, but only if I am right they will come no where near Labour in seats won.
>
> Cue lots of LDs denouncing this post. You cannot allow the possibility that your rise in the polls is imaginary and not real because that of itself could destroy the rise.
>
> Hold your fire, we will see what happens in ten days time and the result will be interesting - either way.
One way of looking at it is that every vote actually cast is effectively worth 3. It makes abstention (which I have never done in my adult life) look even more indulgent and pointless since it will be assumed I am with the majority who simply don't care.
When she appointed the disgraced national security risk Liam Fox, the lazy liar David Davis, and Boris Johnson to key Brexit roles but fired Gove and Osborne because they had clashed with her.
The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
> The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly.
>
> The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
Leavers never ask themselves why they have completely failed to persuade Remainers that they should give Leave a chance. The answer to that question goes a long way to explaining why Brexit is failing.
Leavers have never seen her as a hardline leaver
>
> It’s a meeting of oil and water. The DUP, the ERG seem wholly emotion based and impervious to logic, reason or active thought. May is perhaps less emotional. Oddly, that’s how a potential arrangement had been reached with the EU. They are reason-based.
>
> Brexit means Ulster-style politics seems to be our future. That doesn’t seem a very happy future.
That is a tad unfair on the DUP whose position has been consistent and logical (whether it is reasonable can be left for another day). The ERG on the other hand has never had a coherent position or even a unanimous one because it never needed one.
This is one reason why Theresa May should have remedied Cameron's omission and set up a leaver-stuffed commission to establish just what Brexit meant, to force Farage, Ukip and the ERG into some sort of coherent position with which she could engage and where necessary compromise. She did not.
So here we are. No idea on Brexit. A week from the Euro elections with the polls headed by the Brexit Party who want, well, what exactly, other than not being betrayed?
> The idea that a significant core of remainers ever intended to compromise is for the birds. The various votes and the charade of these cross-party talks have illustrated it vividly.
>
> The idea that London Liberal voters and Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists have the same remain vision for the future of the UK is also a fantasy.
There are mad minorities on both sides but most remainers were open to what was called a soft Brexit with a close working relationship with the EU which minimised any disruption in trade and investment. Similarly, most leavers were minded to find compromises which reflected the narrow win and dealt with the practicalities of Brexit.
The problem was these compromises were not self evident or self selecting. There needed to be debate led by the PM as to what and where they were so that a consensus could be formed and a majority achieved. May refused to engage in that. It went against her Home Office instincts and she was concerned that it might develop cracks in her party. The result was when she came up with a workable compromise (which in fairness she did) everyone was underwhelmed and didn't own any part of the project.