Surely a GP who has worked for the NHS for years, is, in effect, a quasi government employee? Shouldn't 23 years of tax records be proof of settled status? Or is that naive?
I had to fill in the form for my Mother-in-Law, who is a Portuguese citizen.
It was confusing. It was ridiculously long.
It was rejected the first time because she'd not applied for a "EU Residence Card".
It was rejected the second time because her pension is from South Africa, not Portugal. If she'd had the minimum state Portugese pension, whe would have been fine (even though that would certainly not be enough for her to live on in London).
But her (significantly larger) private sector South African pension did not demonstrate her self sufficiency, and the fact she'd paid five or six years of income tax in the UK didn't cut any ice.
We've hired an immigration lawyer - at significant expense - and he's confident that she'll be allowed to stay. But it's all a bit of a pain.
And I can see that the people we're most keen to keep - the young and the upwardly mobile - are the ones who when faced with massive forms, will choose to go somewhere else.
I find it astonishing that my E2 visa application for the US required significantly less paperwork than the Settled Status application in the UK.
Are you suggesting that that UK immigration policy is not fit for purpose ?
What an astonishing surprise that the Home Office under May's government made it so onerous.
It should be possible to do within 1-2 pages maximum. Are you an EU citizen? Have you been living in the UK? Here's your status.
All this claptrap about how often have you flown or whatever should be moot and utterly irrelevant.
Change since Jul 27: Con 33 (+2), Lab 21 (n/c), LDem19 (-1), BXP 14 (+1). So slight increase in CON, no real change in others.
See h ttps://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1165366743575027717 See h ttps://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1155213186548797440
Not sure which is the most shocking in how unshocking it is . . . Tories struggling to get past 33% but seeming to be a good score . . . or Labour struggling to remain in the 20s and not dip into the teens.
Surely a GP who has worked for the NHS for years, is, in effect, a quasi government employee? Shouldn't 23 years of tax records be proof of settled status? Or is that naive?
I had to fill in the form for my Mother-in-Law, who is a Portuguese citizen.
It was confusing. It was ridiculously long.
It was rejected the first time because she'd not applied for a "EU Residence Card".
It was rejected the second time because her pension is from South Africa, not Portugal. If she'd had the minimum state Portugese pension, whe would have been fine (even though that would certainly not be enough for her to live on in London).
But her (significantly larger) private sector South African pension did not demonstrate her self sufficiency, and the fact she'd paid five or six years of income tax in the UK didn't cut any ice.
We've hired an immigration lawyer - at significant expense - and he's confident that she'll be allowed to stay. But it's all a bit of a pain.
And I can see that the people we're most keen to keep - the young and the upwardly mobile - are the ones who when faced with massive forms, will choose to go somewhere else.
I find it astonishing that my E2 visa application for the US required significantly less paperwork than the Settled Status application in the UK.
Are you suggesting that that UK immigration policy is not fit for purpose ?
What an astonishing surprise that the Home Office under May's government made it so onerous.
It should be possible to do within 1-2 pages maximum. Are you an EU citizen? Have you been living in the UK? Here's your status.
All this claptrap about how often have you flown or whatever should be moot and utterly irrelevant.
For my m-i-l, you had to do the dates and destinations of each trip outside the country. It involved searching through Google calendar and email to find receipts for Virgin flights. And it's really unclear *why* they need it?
Change since Jul 27: Con 33 (+2), Lab 21 (n/c), LDem19 (-1), BXP 14 (+1). So slight increase in CON, no real change in others.
See h ttps://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1165366743575027717 See h ttps://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1155213186548797440
Not sure which is the most shocking in how unshocking it is . . . Tories struggling to get past 33% but seeming to be a good score . . . or Labour struggling to remain in the 20s and not dip into the teens.
It's pausing. Many people are content with Boris's approach (I assume) but the contentness is provisional upon the events of Oct 31: if we Leave and there is no apocalypse, Con will own the next ten years.
Conversely, if Lab engineers a further delay, then Lab will unite the Remain opposition, Con will split to BXP, and Lab will own the next ten years.
Unfortunately Corbyn is a dumb c**t who will not do the necessary so I think Boris will win, and it turns into 1979 again.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
"The age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity." D Cameron, to Tory Conference 2009. It is a phrase which has been used repeatedly by Conservative ministers, often for partisan advantage. You surely can't be outraged when others use it.
If he didn’t want to send his passport away he could pay for the expedited service. To be frank the post seems like a long whinge: the form is too long, I don’t like Croydon, I don’t want to do what everyone else does and post my passport, it took several goes to get the app to work.
And if I don’t get what I want I’m going to Canada! That’ll teach you!
I agree. I sympathised with him a bit over the 85 page form, but not over the impossible journey from Argyll to Glasgow - really? His status to remain in the UK wasn't worth taking a day off? This is the guy that flies abroad so much he can't remember his trips.
You expect a professional to give up a day to fill in paperwork designed to hound foreigners out of the country?
Uh, yes.
Meanwhile my daughter has just had her application for German citizenship fast tracked. She has only been there 5 years. Which country is going to have the best workforce in the near future?
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
As I say below the constant repetition of the term by the Conservative Party to describe their economic policies over the last 9 years is the proof. Words mean what they mean in common usage.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
That the poor have little money to spend simply follows from the definition of poor. That people are poor is the problem. There is nothing about people that makes it inevitable that they are poor.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Surely a GP who has worked for the NHS for years, is, in effect, a quasi government employee? Shouldn't 23 years of tax records be proof of settled status? Or is that naive?
I had to fill in the form for my Mother-in-Law, who is a Portuguese citizen.
It was confusing. It was ridiculously long.
It was rejected the first time because she'd not applied for a "EU Residence Card".
It was rejected the second time because her pension is from South Africa, not Portugal. If she'd had the minimum state Portugese pension, whe would have been fine (even though that would certainly not be enough for her to live on in London).
But her (significantly larger) private sector South African pension did not demonstrate her self sufficiency, and the fact she'd paid five or six years of income tax in the UK didn't cut any ice.
We've hired an immigration lawyer - at significant expense - and he's confident that she'll be allowed to stay. But it's all a bit of a pain.
And I can see that the people we're most keen to keep - the young and the upwardly mobile - are the ones who when faced with massive forms, will choose to go somewhere else.
I find it astonishing that my E2 visa application for the US required significantly less paperwork than the Settled Status application in the UK.
No one does pettifogging bureaucracy like the Brits.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
Volunteer for Citizens Advice and see whether you still think the same way after 6 months.
And you would have heard similar stories from them ten or twenty or fifty years ago.
Do you think that the poor and vulnerable only appeared after Cameron became PM ?
Now as I said there will be people suffering from government cuts but that's not austerity that is a government policy in the same way that triple lock pensions are.
Or do you think that triple lock pensions are also 'austerity' ?
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
That the poor have little money to spend simply follows from the definition of poor. That people are poor is the problem. There is nothing about people that makes it inevitable that they are poor.
Part two of post The alternative was to travel to an identity verification centre. So I checked those out. The nearest was in Lanarkshire, other side of Glasgow, I am in remote Argyll. Nevertheless, I called them. You.needed to make an appointment, not according to your choice but theirs (like NHS OPD in the bad old days) needed to be there in time and the times they offered the service were always during mid day working hours. So I would have to look at booking a full day locum at vast cost for a treck to Glasgow and beyond, hope not to end up in a traffic jam to arrive in time for someone to look at my passport - and all because my local council could not be arsed to set up a ID check centre themselves. The clamouring that EU citizens are welcome in Scotland clearly did not extend so far as to compel my council make an effort to check my ID in a place I can actually attend without paying hundreds of pounds for a locum. So I gave up again.
So this NHS worker gave up because he couldn't be bothered to deal with the kind of hassle that workers across Scotland who consume NHS services have to cope with as a matter of course?
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Private affluence, public squalor.
Public squalor with record pubic spending?
Look at Greece if you want to see real austerity? That's what happens when you don't try to live within your means - reality hits and you have to actually cut spending, not just increase spending at a slower rate and call it a cut!
The by-election might not be helpful for Boris - or it might; much harder for Lib-Lab co-operators to hawk their Remain Alliance fantasies when the headline vote is primarily between them, and much harder for Corbyn to appeal for tactical votes in an "it's me or Boris" way when the Lib Dems are legitimately in the headlines.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
That the poor have little money to spend simply follows from the definition of poor. That people are poor is the problem. There is nothing about people that makes it inevitable that they are poor.
But nobody in this country is poor on global standards. You try going to slums in Africa or South America or Asia or the Middle East and see what poverty really consists of.
We live in a lucky country and we are lucky that there are no really poor people here. There are relatively poor people here, there are struggling people here. There will always be relatively poor people, there will always be struggling people.
It is possible to eliminate genuine poverty - we have done already. It is not possibe to eliminate struggles or relative poorness.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
You forgot the record employment figures and steady real terms wage inflation.
Part two of post The alternative was to travel to an identity verification centre. So I checked those out. The nearest was in Lanarkshire, other side of Glasgow, I am in remote Argyll. Nevertheless, I called them. You.needed to make an appointment, not according to your choice but theirs (like NHS OPD in the bad old days) needed to be there in time and the times they offered the service were always during mid day working hours. So I would have to look at booking a full day locum at vast cost for a treck to Glasgow and beyond, hope not to end up in a traffic jam to arrive in time for someone to look at my passport - and all because my local council could not be arsed to set up a ID check centre themselves. The clamouring that EU citizens are welcome in Scotland clearly did not extend so far as to compel my council make an effort to check my ID in a place I can actually attend without paying hundreds of pounds for a locum. So I gave up again.
So this NHS worker gave up because he couldn't be bothered to deal with the kind of hassle that workers across Scotland who consume NHS services have to cope with as a matter of course?
We appear to have designed an immigration system which incentivises compulsive form fillers. Is that a good thing ?
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
Not if you've actually felt the effects of it, which plenty of people have. But you obviously haven't, so that's alright then, or something.
Yes if you've felt the effects of real austerity, like in Greece, you wouldn't throw the word about so lightly suggesting we'd had it in the UK.
Yes, austerity has not been as pronounced in the UK as it has been in Greece. So what?
Austerity in the UK was avoided because the government controlled spending, merely increasing expenditure at a slower rate.
Had we not done that as a country, real austerity would have been inevitable. It might still be if some mad left government gets in and blows the finances again.
Rebel Labour MPs have reacted angrily to a leaked memo which shows the government is considering cuts to disability and sickness benefits.
The memo to the Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, by her chief policy adviser was given to Channel 4 News.
It says: "A high proportion of the necessary savings will have to come from benefits paid to sick and disabled people, including compensatory benefits for industrial injury."
Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power. More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts.
More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget.
i can’t imagine what it might be about a convicted sex offender which might lead one to suspect their probity.... Prince Andrew: I did not suspect Epstein's behaviour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49460263
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
Not if you've actually felt the effects of it, which plenty of people have. But you obviously haven't, so that's alright then, or something.
Yes if you've felt the effects of real austerity, like in Greece, you wouldn't throw the word about so lightly suggesting we'd had it in the UK.
Yes, austerity has not been as pronounced in the UK as it has been in Greece. So what?
Austerity in the UK was avoided because the government controlled spending, merely increasing expenditure at a slower rate.
Had we not done that as a country, real austerity would have been inevitable. It might still be if some mad left government gets in and blows the finances again.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
That the poor have little money to spend simply follows from the definition of poor. That people are poor is the problem. There is nothing about people that makes it inevitable that they are poor.
But nobody in this country is poor on global standards. You try going to slums in Africa or South America or Asia or the Middle East and see what poverty really consists of.
We live in a lucky country and we are lucky that there are no really poor people here. There are relatively poor people here, there are struggling people here. There will always be relatively poor people, there will always be struggling people.
It is possible to eliminate genuine poverty - we have done already. It is not possibe to eliminate struggles or relative poorness.
So it is possible to eliminate poverty up to a level of x, but it is impossible above a given level of x?
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Private affluence, public squalor.
So how much of a tax increase are you willing to pay ?
Alternatively the government could cut spending on social security or public sector wages so it can increase spending on public services.
Part two of post The alternative was to travel to an identity verification centre. So I checked those out. The nearest was in Lanarkshire, other side of Glasgow, I am in remote Argyll. Nevertheless, I called them. You.needed to make an appointment, not according to your choice but theirs (like NHS OPD in the bad old days) needed to be there in time and the times they offered the service were always during mid day working hours. So I would have to look at booking a full day locum at vast cost for a treck to Glasgow and beyond, hope not to end up in a traffic jam to arrive in time for someone to look at my passport - and all because my local council could not be arsed to set up a ID check centre themselves. The clamouring that EU citizens are welcome in Scotland clearly did not extend so far as to compel my council make an effort to check my ID in a place I can actually attend without paying hundreds of pounds for a locum. So I gave up again.
So this NHS worker gave up because he couldn't be bothered to deal with the kind of hassle that workers across Scotland who consume NHS services have to cope with as a matter of course?
We appear to have designed an immigration system which incentivises compulsive form fillers. Is that a good thing ?
Compulsive? Would make more sense to characterise it as incentivising diligent form fillers, although that may not be altogether a good thing either.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
That the poor have little money to spend simply follows from the definition of poor. That people are poor is the problem. There is nothing about people that makes it inevitable that they are poor.
But nobody in this country is poor on global standards. You try going to slums in Africa or South America or Asia or the Middle East and see what poverty really consists of.
We live in a lucky country and we are lucky that there are no really poor people here. There are relatively poor people here, there are struggling people here. There will always be relatively poor people, there will always be struggling people.
It is possible to eliminate genuine poverty - we have done already. It is not possibe to eliminate struggles or relative poorness.
So it is possible to eliminate poverty up to a level of x, but it is impossible above a given level of x?
No, it is aways possible to eliminate poverty up to a given level of x. However when we do someone will look at a level of y and say that is poverty.
We will never be satisfied. We will never look at our society and think "we have done it! Everything is awesome, we have nothing more to do."
Quite right too. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try and help out y and once we've done that, help out z. But don't conflate the two.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
If he didn’t want to send his passport away he could pay for the expedited service. To be frank the post seems like a long whinge: the form is too long, I don’t like Croydon, I don’t want to do what everyone else does and post my passport, it took several goes to get the app to work.
And if I don’t get what I want I’m going to Canada! That’ll teach you!
I agree. I sympathised with him a bit over the 85 page form, but not over the impossible journey from Argyll to Glasgow - really? His status to remain in the UK wasn't worth taking a day off? This is the guy that flies abroad so much he can't remember his trips.
You expect a professional to give up a day to fill in paperwork designed to hound foreigners out of the country?
The situation engenders sympathy, but a day of bureacuratic niggling is not a massive imposition. If it would not work even doing that, that would be a more worrying situation, but bureaucratic hurdles are not that impressive as a complaint.
Cricviz have england with 30% chance...utter horseshit.
I wouldn't put their chances at more than about 10%-15%. I hope they win of course.
There was an article posted earlier about chasing 300+ and how few times it has been achieved. I cant remember the exact stat, but as you say 10% chance seems much more realistic.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Private affluence, public squalor.
Public squalor with record pubic spending?
Look at Greece if you want to see real austerity? That's what happens when you don't try to live within your means - reality hits and you have to actually cut spending, not just increase spending at a slower rate and call it a cut!
I would think these things are relative. Must only the worse or most extreme examples of something count as 'true' examples of that thing? That's the same logic that sees partisans excuses crappy behaviour in their side because someone else does worse.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Cricviz have england with 30% chance...utter horseshit.
I wouldn't put their chances at more than about 10%-15%. I hope they win of course.
There was an article posted earlier about chasing 300+ and how few times it has been achieved. I cant remember the exact stat, but as you say 10% chance seems much more realistic.
I am green on this one, having gone in at 10 when England in big trouble. I suspect a lot of people got carried away in the sun by mid afternoon today as I could lay at 2.9
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
As I say below the constant repetition of the term by the Conservative Party to describe their economic policies over the last 9 years is the proof. Words mean what they mean in common usage.
Yes, we cannot very well use it, in both positive and negative fashion, for the better part of a decade and then claim it was never even real.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
Cricviz have england with 30% chance...utter horseshit.
I wouldn't put their chances at more than about 10%-15%. I hope they win of course.
There was an article posted earlier about chasing 300+ and how few times it has been achieved. I cant remember the exact stat, but as you say 10% chance seems much more realistic.
It would be something like the 10th highest successful chase? On that basis, given how many matches there have been, even 10% might be too much, but technically speaking having achieved the latest score it is probably right.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
But has he? His support is 1 in 3. Pretty low historically by Tory standards. He has coalesced the right of centre pro-Brexit vote, that is all. It is the ideal (for him), distribution of opposition votes that sees him looking in majority territory. He is 7% behind what Corbyn got in 2017! For the record, I reckon a Tory win on a third of the vote, heading into a worldwide slowdown, would be long-term negative for the Party's prospects.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
That's all true. And although the Tories are ahead and might well do okay on those figures, it isn't impossible that if the opposition votes fell the right way they could still be short of a majority.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
The Tories aren't doing that well. 33% isn't good. Blair was on about 53% in about 1995 IIRC.
Surely a GP who has worked for the NHS for years, is, in effect, a quasi government employee? Shouldn't 23 years of tax records be proof of settled status? Or is that naive?
I had to fill in the form for my Mother-in-Law, who is a Portuguese citizen.
It was confusing. It was ridiculously long.
It was rejected the first time because she'd not applied for a "EU Residence Card".
It was rejected the second time because her pension is from South Africa, not Portugal. If she'd had the minimum state Portugese pension, whe would have been fine (even though that would certainly not be enough for her to live on in London).
But her (significantly larger) private sector South African pension did not demonstrate her self sufficiency, and the fact she'd paid five or six years of income tax in the UK didn't cut any ice.
We've hired an immigration lawyer - at significant expense - and he's confident that she'll be allowed to stay. But it's all a bit of a pain.
And I can see that the people we're most keen to keep - the young and the upwardly mobile - are the ones who when faced with massive forms, will choose to go somewhere else.
I find it astonishing that my E2 visa application for the US required significantly less paperwork than the Settled Status application in the UK.
No one does pettifogging bureaucracy like the Brits.
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
WTF? People with money are doing OK, so there's no austerity? Lol.
Where is this 'austerity' ?
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Private affluence, public squalor.
Public squalor with record pubic spending?
Look at Greece if you want to see real austerity? That's what happens when you don't try to live within your means - reality hits and you have to actually cut spending, not just increase spending at a slower rate and call it a cut!
I would think these things are relative. Must only the worse or most extreme examples of something count as 'true' examples of that thing? That's the same logic that sees partisans excuses crappy behaviour in their side because someone else does worse.
The difference between Greece and the UK isn't that Greece cut spending by more than the UK.
The difference is that Greece cut spending and the UK did not.
I personally think the candidate makes relatively little difference compared to the prevailing environment. Remember, the US elected Jimmy Carter over Ford.
I personally think the candidate makes relatively little difference compared to the prevailing environment. Remember, the US elected Jimmy Carter over Ford.
To be fair the US never elected Ford at all.
The circumstances of that election were fairly unique.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
It is a combination of the Brexit supporting media throwing the kitchen sink at boosting Boris and the dire polling TM had in the last weeks in office. The Tories have probably hit a ceiling in support IMO. 33% looks better than 9% but Boris does not cut the mustard in terms of popularity that can be banked. The tories in any GE on 33% are going to be hamstrung between seat defence and target seats.
I personally think the candidate makes relatively little difference compared to the prevailing environment. Remember, the US elected Jimmy Carter over Ford.
Do I take it you rate Ford far higher than Carter ?
The surprising thing about 1976 was that it was so close not that Ford lost.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
That's all true. And although the Tories are ahead and might well do okay on those figures, it isn't impossible that if the opposition votes fell the right way they could still be short of a majority.
With the Tories on c 33%, if the votes fell the right way, they COULD go down to a hefty defeat. Many, many elections have been lost on more than 33%.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I read it the opposite way. The combined Tory and Brexit Party vote now stands at 47%, the highest it has been with YouGov. The Tories will be delighted that they have reached a YouGov post Theresa May high of 33% without having had to squeeze the Brexit Party support to do so, because there is a further 14% potentially out there for them to add to that 33%. If they had got to 33% only on the back of squeezing the Brexit Party vote to single figures they would be in a weaker position.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
Volunteer for Citizens Advice and see whether you still think the same way after 6 months.
And you would have heard similar stories from them ten or twenty or fifty years ago.
Do you think that the poor and vulnerable only appeared after Cameron became PM ?
Now as I said there will be people suffering from government cuts but that's not austerity that is a government policy in the same way that triple lock pensions are.
Or do you think that triple lock pensions are also 'austerity' ?
Can anyone make any sense of those last two sentences?
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
That's all true. And although the Tories are ahead and might well do okay on those figures, it isn't impossible that if the opposition votes fell the right way they could still be short of a majority.
With the Tories on c 33%, if the votes fell the right way, they COULD go down to a hefty defeat. Many, many elections have been lost on more than 33%.
It's a bit of a lottery with 4 parties on double figures and two more pulling in significant votes. But Labour still has the simultaneous strength and weakness of being very strong in some parts of the country. So it is likely to pull in around 200 seats even on a bad night. But not being competitive at all in big chunks of the country makes its route to a majority very tough.
Surely a GP who has worked for the NHS for years, is, in effect, a quasi government employee? Shouldn't 23 years of tax records be proof of settled status? Or is that naive?
I had to fill in the form for my Mother-in-Law, who is a Portuguese citizen.
It was confusing. It was ridiculously long.
It was rejected the first time because she'd not applied for a "EU Residence Card".
It was rejected the second time because her pension is from South Africa, not Portugal. If she'd had the minimum state Portugese pension, whe would have been fine (even though that would certainly not be enough for her to live on in London).
But her (significantly larger) private sector South African pension did not demonstrate her self sufficiency, and the fact she'd paid five or six years of income tax in the UK didn't cut any ice.
We've hired an immigration lawyer - at significant expense - and he's confident that she'll be allowed to stay. But it's all a bit of a pain.
And I can see that the people we're most keen to keep - the young and the upwardly mobile - are the ones who when faced with massive forms, will choose to go somewhere else.
I find it astonishing that my E2 visa application for the US required significantly less paperwork than the Settled Status application in the UK.
No one does pettifogging bureaucracy like the Brits.
Try India
To be fair, the Indians learnt from the masters, but then took it to another level...
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
That's all true. And although the Tories are ahead and might well do okay on those figures, it isn't impossible that if the opposition votes fell the right way they could still be short of a majority.
With the Tories on c 33%, if the votes fell the right way, they COULD go down to a hefty defeat. Many, many elections have been lost on more than 33%.
You make the case to the Brexit Part most eloquently....
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Pulled back some BXP voters, basically. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the balance sheet, Labour have barely recovered any of their (remain) Euro-motivated voters who switched to LDs/Greens.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I do wonder about the british public. Like i got why blair was initially popular. He was clearly smart, sounded reasonable and had plans that didnt sound totally bonkers. What has boris done to achieve this shift in polling and / or what is the plan. I dont get it.
Honey. Moon. Period.
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
That's all true. And although the Tories are ahead and might well do okay on those figures, it isn't impossible that if the opposition votes fell the right way they could still be short of a majority.
With the Tories on c 33%, if the votes fell the right way, they COULD go down to a hefty defeat. Many, many elections have been lost on more than 33%.
It's a bit of a lottery with 4 parties on double figures and two more pulling in significant votes. But Labour still has the simultaneous strength and weakness of being very strong in some parts of the country. So it is likely to pull in around 200 seats even on a bad night. But not being competitive at all in big chunks of the country makes its route to a majority very tough.
Labour's route to a majority was lost with the loss of Scotland. It would take a 97 style win to succeed without it.
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
Volunteer for Citizens Advice and see whether you still think the same way after 6 months.
And you would have heard similar stories from them ten or twenty or fifty years ago.
Do you think that the poor and vulnerable only appeared after Cameron became PM ?
Now as I said there will be people suffering from government cuts but that's not austerity that is a government policy in the same way that triple lock pensions are.
Or do you think that triple lock pensions are also 'austerity' ?
Can anyone make any sense of those last two sentences?
What's so difficult about them ?
Government spending might have fallen in some areas but it has also increased in others.
If the strategy is 'austerity' then how are spending increases such as triple lock pensions part of it ?
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I read it the opposite way. The combined Tory and Brexit Party vote now stands at 47%, the highest it has been with YouGov. The Tories will be delighted that they have reached a YouGov post Theresa May high of 33% without having had to squeeze the Brexit Party support to do so, because there is a further 14% potentially out there for them to add to that 33%. If they had got to 33% only on the back of squeezing the Brexit Party vote to single figures they would be in a weaker position.
there must be a lot of Brexit Party voters who will never vote Tory though. After all, many ex Labour voters have switched to BP. So BP are probably going to get 10-12% or so whatever happens, like in 2015.
Justin will be telling us it is good one for labour.
If it turns out to be correct it is pretty bad for Labour. But I think the Tories would have been hoping to squeezed the Brexit Party more by now. Remember that there are still some Brexit Party supporters who could switch to Labour rather than risk letting the Tories in and Lib Dems could be switched to Labour tactically.
I read it the opposite way. The combined Tory and Brexit Party vote now stands at 47%, the highest it has been with YouGov. The Tories will be delighted that they have reached a YouGov post Theresa May high of 33% without having had to squeeze the Brexit Party support to do so, because there is a further 14% potentially out there for them to add to that 33%. If they had got to 33% only on the back of squeezing the Brexit Party vote to single figures they would be in a weaker position.
there must be a lot of Brexit Party voters who will never vote Tory though. After all, many ex Labour voters have switched to BP. So BP are probably going to get 10-12% or so whatever happens, like in 2015.
Indeed, some Leave voters who have supported Labour in the past are not going to vote Tory. Ever! The same old nonsense adding Tory to TBP is not going to work no matter how hard Brexiteers, newspapers and commentators advocate it. Tory plus UKIP was tried in 2017 and failed. The fundamentals have shifted away from the Tories. It is laughable the Tory strategy of trying to gain safe Labour seats and abandoning tory held seats to the LD...
All this talk of ocean cruises reminds me of the terrible austerity we're told the country is suffering.
Fixed it for you
I think you're using a different definition of austerity.
That reasonably well off people can afford cruises is neither proof nor refutation of austerity.
The economic data is proof that there isn't any 'austerity'.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
Volunteer for Citizens Advice and see whether you still think the same way after 6 months.
And you would have heard similar stories from them ten or twenty or fifty years ago.
Do you think that the poor and vulnerable only appeared after Cameron became PM ?
Now as I said there will be people suffering from government cuts but that's not austerity that is a government policy in the same way that triple lock pensions are.
Or do you think that triple lock pensions are also 'austerity' ?
Can anyone make any sense of those last two sentences?
What's so difficult about them ?
Government spending might have fallen in some areas but it has also increased in others.
If the strategy is 'austerity' then how are spending increases such as triple lock pensions part of it ?
Austerity is a misnomer. We have had annual spending increases and now have record spending. Some austerity.
All we've had is priorities. A choice to raise spending in some areas rather than others. Also known as politics.
Comments
It should be possible to do within 1-2 pages maximum. Are you an EU citizen? Have you been living in the UK? Here's your status.
All this claptrap about how often have you flown or whatever should be moot and utterly irrelevant.
Nor it seems do all those people discussing their ocean cruises.
Or the people who spent £45bn last year on foreign holidays:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
Or those who have contributed to retail sales being at record levels:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/retailindustry/timeseries/j467/drsi
Or those who have received some of the trillion quid which the government has borrowed and spent during the last decade:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/timeseries/hf6w/pusf
Or those who are making use of the many new hotels and restaurants than have been built in recent years.
So clearly not all this country is suffering from 'austerity'.
In fact nobody is suffering from 'austerity' because there hasn't been any 'austerity'.
What some people may have suffered from is cuts, which is a different thing.
This will be money they have made shorting the £ no doubt.
Conversely, if Lab engineers a further delay, then Lab will unite the Remain opposition, Con will split to BXP, and Lab will own the next ten years.
Unfortunately Corbyn is a dumb c**t who will not do the necessary so I think Boris will win, and it turns into 1979 again.
You surely can't be outraged when others use it.
Which is why claims of it tend to consist of anecdotes about food banks or bedroom taxes.
The anecdotes about cruises are merely the reverse of those.
That the poor have little money to spend is not proof of austerity.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1165368713702510595?s=21
Is it hiding behind the record spending on consumer goods, behind the record spending on foreign holidays, behind all the new hotels and restaurants being built, behind the trillion quid the government has borrowed and spent ?
Do you think that the poor and vulnerable only appeared after Cameron became PM ?
Now as I said there will be people suffering from government cuts but that's not austerity that is a government policy in the same way that triple lock pensions are.
Or do you think that triple lock pensions are also 'austerity' ?
Unless a US trade envoy said "here's our proposal" and a British envoy said "can you point to the dotted line please sir?"
In this country it is affected by inequality.
Look at Greece if you want to see real austerity? That's what happens when you don't try to live within your means - reality hits and you have to actually cut spending, not just increase spending at a slower rate and call it a cut!
We live in a lucky country and we are lucky that there are no really poor people here. There are relatively poor people here, there are struggling people here. There will always be relatively poor people, there will always be struggling people.
It is possible to eliminate genuine poverty - we have done already.
It is not possibe to eliminate struggles or relative poorness.
Is that a good thing ?
Had we not done that as a country, real austerity would have been inevitable. It might still be if some mad left government gets in and blows the finances again.
From 1997:
Rebel Labour MPs have reacted angrily to a leaked memo which shows the government is considering cuts to disability and sickness benefits.
The memo to the Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, by her chief policy adviser was given to Channel 4 News.
It says: "A high proportion of the necessary savings will have to come from benefits paid to sick and disabled people, including compensatory benefits for industrial injury."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/39285.stm
From 1999
Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power.
More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/347747.stm
From 2004:
More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1471533/Blair-faces-revolt-over-plans-for-23-a-week-cut-in-disability-benefit.html
Prince Andrew: I did not suspect Epstein's behaviour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49460263
Alternatively the government could cut spending on social security or public sector wages so it can increase spending on public services.
Make your choice.
We will never be satisfied. We will never look at our society and think "we have done it! Everything is awesome, we have nothing more to do."
Quite right too. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try and help out y and once we've done that, help out z. But don't conflate the two.
There must be some very optimistic punters on Betfair to put England at 3.25 to win at Headingley tomorrow.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/cricket/market/1.161492920
Kantar: Con +14
YouGov: Con +12
Ipsos MORI: Con +10
Opinium: Con +6
BMG: Con +6
Deltapoll: Con +5
ComRes: Con +4
Survation: Con +4
He's promising he'll get everything everyone wants, is spashing cash around, and for BXP voters he is making very positive noises about getting us out no matter what. It could all blow up in his face, but for now it makes sense people are hoping his promises bear fruit. If we are lucky some of them even will do so.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1165375750565978114
He is 7% behind what Corbyn got in 2017!
For the record, I reckon a Tory win on a third of the vote, heading into a worldwide slowdown, would be long-term negative for the Party's prospects.
Good luck Trump winning a 2nd term with a plan to cut senior's medicare.
Slaughtered at the polls.
https://twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1165318377289715712?s=21
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1165346309387313152
Still don't see how she beats Trump.
The difference is that Greece cut spending and the UK did not.
The circumstances of that election were fairly unique.
The surprising thing about 1976 was that it was so close not that Ford lost.
As in, when is it going to implode?
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/08/23/dep-leader-poll-result-suggests-clear-lead-among-labour-members-for/
A straw in the wind for the post-Corbyn party?
Lab at 1918 levels.
Lib at Paddy levels.
Do you think UK voters might be a but pissed off with their politicians?
You can see it pretty neatly on the wiki page moving average graph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Opinion_polling
Government spending might have fallen in some areas but it has also increased in others.
If the strategy is 'austerity' then how are spending increases such as triple lock pensions part of it ?
All we've had is priorities. A choice to raise spending in some areas rather than others. Also known as politics.