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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Foxes and Hedgehogs – a tale of tactics without strategy
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Foxes and Hedgehogs – a tale of tactics without strategy
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” (Sun Tzu). Something those Remainer MPs behind the Benn Act would do well to reflect on. However successful it was in stopping a Halloween No Deal exit and, arguably, forcing Boris to negotiate a Withdrawal Agreement he could sell to his party, its effect has been to put the Tories in a strong position as they embark on their General Election campaign. How so?
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No Deal would have meant no Withdrawal Agreement agreed and passed and no FTA talks with the EU.
Nonetheless, I think that inteliigent tactical voting to prevent an overall Conservative majority is the only way to avoid the decision being taken purely on Boris's whim and the ERG's will.
We need to be preparing for the Championship now or we will go down again next season too
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/
Summary: Biden is still the one to beat, Warren and Sanders the only serious rivals. Buttigieg? 1,3,5,5,5,4%, 6-9% nationally. He';s in good shape to be everyone favourite VP contender - unthreatening, intelligent, balances fears attendant on an elderly President. Anyone else? No.
But what about the argument, whatever we want it ain’t that easy. China building Silk Road redux to swamp us and undermine us, we don’t want that anymore than being a poor post industrial nation soon we haven’t spent time and investment managing, or don’t want to be clobbered by a demographic time bomb we haven’t used the long lead time mitigating. What can we do post brexit other than sell out to US because they are cultural kith and kin.
Oh, wait, no there isn't.
This is pretty terrible advice, CycleFree. Really not up to your usual standard.
An interesting piece - I'm not quite sure why the negative jibes against Jo Swinson. The LD policy is Revoke if a majority is won or support a second vote if not.
I do think the opposition need to be clever here - as the article suggests, the WA is only the start of the journey out of the EU yet it has been billed as being the end of the journey.
Boris can wield No Deal as a weapon and clearly some of his candidates are happy to countenance that but we still don't know whether the next Parliament would, if confronted with No Deal on 31/1/20, vote for it.
Are we then to assume the WA has just been obfuscation and leaving without a WA on 31/1/20 remains the option? I doubt that but I do think leaving without an agreed FTA on 31/12/20 remains very much on the table.
So what could or would the Opposition do IF they were able to outvote the Conservatives in the next Parliament? I think the WA should be passed so we go into transition and then ensure the trade and political arrangements with the EU are as close to BINO as possible before we finally leave. That may take some time but no one would be in any rush would they?
We are continually told the 2016 Referendum result must be "respected" - fine but leaving and maintaining a close political and economic relationship with the EU achieves that as much as crashing out with no agreement at all.
I posted my hunch on the last thread but didn’t get a response, i’’l post it again, I am right Cummings has a super system with strong security and restricted access arn’t I?
My hunch The report they wouldn’t publish, did recommendation in it suggest database’s and systems parties put together to profile and target voters is a key risk, and publishing would have drawn attention to it threatening election plan?
There have been references to the super system Cummings has built to win this election, but each time its caveated barely half a dozen people can get into it, it is extremely secure etc
And the most likely way we'll get ultra hard Brexit is if continued paralysis results in us hard-Brexit-by-default.
Therefore, if you are opposes to hardBrexit, vote Conservative!
There are no one nation tories left, those that there are reflect the membership which is bluekip at best
For a primary voter in Pennsylvania (28th April) this is all finger-in-the-air "who have I heard of and think is alright?" at this stage. All national media buzz, with the candidates not yet involved in local media markets and significant organisational resource. This isn't going to come into sharp focus in those areas when the field has been winnowed and Iowa/New Hampshire makes some people look like "winners" and others like "losers".
If Buttigieg comes out of those contests as one of three of four still in the game and looking like the fresh faced man with momentum, these polls mean nothing.
I'm not as sure about whether the Remainers are in as much danger as they could be because of the focus on the referendum alone. The remainers have themselves, through certainty and doggedness, ensured that we have not Brexited to date and seen the Leavers split. The Tories are aided a little, but BXP ensure the leaver vote is not unified and can still see Remainers win overall. Its understandable they won't focus on the post brexit battle.
I'm also not sure about this meme about the ERG happily being on board because they know they can no deal later, as wouldn't the same logic have led them to back the May deal?
Enough to know i wouldn’t knowingly have anything to do with any of them
Bollox
This means a couple of things: the Leave v Remain fight will continue until one side or the other unarguably wins - and that may be some time off. If we leave on 31 Jan the Rejoin and Remain fight starts on 1 Feb. If we don't, the Remain fight will continue, whatever the election result.
Secondly, if we do leave, every single future issue will be contested in a situation in which manifestos have in most cases not been clear. The Tories would, if they win, claim a mandate for the transitional deal and, should they want to, the PD. But I think it is far too early to say what a Tory government with a working majority will actually want. It may bear no relation to the PD. Once he had won an election Boris's concern will be to win the next one, with whatever it takes to do so. Even if that is finding a way to Remain.
An issue which will come to the fore is the likely breakdown of relations between England and Scotland. The idea of a hard border, as hard as that between Finland and Russia, (which there would be in the end) at Gretna and Berwick will concentrate the mind wonderfully because it would be both essential and unthinkable.
If the final result is a Conservative win, but with no majority or a small enough majority to effectively shackle BoJo (5? 15?), would that reflect where the country is? It feels like an awfully small landing spot for a collective unconscious.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oKkOq3OQFkSd1v4Gd3AoDN-RkfCHa99d58L0cBCWRfs/edit#gid=0
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1192822695412584452
Any significant swing (3% Con -> LD) since then, and a lot of true blue seats will be in serious trouble.
I have Witney(!), Wokingham, Henley(!!), Wantage, Esher and Walton, and Wycombe all being LD-leaning marginals in that case. The Tories could be left with just three seats in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
Nothing would quite underscore the level of change in UK politics than the Conservatives losing leafy Oxon & Berks while challenging in Warrington, Leigh Barrow, Workington, Oldham, Keighley, Bradford S etc.
I don't know what the answer to this is, apart from a lot more room for nuance and a bit more appetite for agreement where we can.
We had the referendum.
52% Leave 48% remain.
Its a democracy - Corbynistas and LDs need to recognise the result and move on (or stand down as LD are doing in most of the country!
Pub landlord orders staff they can ONLY serve people this Remembrance Sunday if they're wearing a poppy
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7664893/Pub-landlord-bans-non-poppy-wearers-pub.html
Part of Government and good governance is to persuade enough people it deserves to be re-elected as a result of its record in office and the effect it has had on individuals and communities.
I would also contend in a democratic society any Government has to be subject to proper scrutiny and questioning within the bounds of that democracy both within Parliament and beyond since it is managing public money and setting law and public policy.
It also ignores the huge amount of work done by Islamic based societies in advancing both science and art at a time when the Catholic world was moribund and regressive.
I'm sure that's entirely coincidental, and no-one has any screenshots.
But faced with being shut out of our main market, with our best companies decamping to Europe or having their business taken from them by European rivals, how else will we compete and attract capital? A regulatory race to the bottom will be presented as TINA - there is no alternative - by all the spivs who sold us Brexit. And the worst thing is, they will be half right. Because if we won't swallow our pride and beg to be let back into the EU, there will be no alternative but to seek our fortune at the nastier end of the global economy. Workington Man won't like it one bit, but the fact that he will have voted for it - once in 2016 and then most likely again this year - will be one of the sad ironies of the next few years.
So what if a staunch Tory thinks people who share their broad approach should run things, and so what if they are a bit affronted if inconvenient voters don't fit in with that? It's a touch of Mainwaring-esque pomposity for the most part that one can laugh off pretty easily, and far from absent in other parties too.
Jews. Tories. Anybody else we're missing?
Beyond the obvious, Government has a responsibility, I believe, to provide the opportunity for those who wish to better themselves by providing the regulatory, legislative and economic conditions under which people can live and work within the law arguably and that means for all of us not just who voted for said Government.
Deleted the tweet about voting for Watson for deputy, bit of an embarrassment for any budding Momentum member that one.
The less we agree, the more barriers there will be (including with NI) and with a recession due we will damn well know about it. 2021 is auspicious for EFTA promoters looking to Get Trade Done.
Finally, you've fallen into the trap of conflating anti-no-dealers with Remainers. If the debate you want is about the sort of trade relationship, and for many it is, there will be ample opportunity.
Putting up 326 candidates means you have a theoretical chance of forming a majority Government - putting up 200 for example would not.
The effect is exactly the same if we had left the EU on 31 October 2019 without a Withdrawal Agreement - overnight we’d have become a third country vis-a-vis the EU.
All we have got as a result of Boris’s marvellous deal is a cliff edge at the end of 2020 and an earlier cliff edge in June to decide whether or mot we want to extend the transition.
With LAB its always pay more get less! And LD are LAB's little helpers (assuming they are standing of course)
It's hardly painting yourself, as presumably one of "the Right", as a freewheeling, see the good in everyone, and take all as they come sort of fellow.
My own view is that most people in the offline world are fairly pleasant whether they happen to agree with me on Brexit, tax levels, or pretty much anything else. Some aren't, but then a small number of people who agree with me on all major political matters are also absolute sh1ts!
I don't see the point of people, particularly celebs on TV, wearing poppies three weeks before the event!
The Deal is the Withdrawal Agreement which enables FTA talks which will ultimately produce a FTA, even Canada got one with the EU after 7 years and we already have closer links with the EU than them.
No Deal means no Withdrawal Agreement and no FTA talks with the EU until a Deal is agreed and pased
Of course there would need to be some changes to the message.
Actual insanity is tricky, at best, to defend. As a new candidate that's easy to sweep aside, but you'd want to clear out the old ideas.
I guess you'd want to think for yourself.
Welcome to the Conservative party.
I don't think either a majority Conservative or a majority Labour Government would be good for the country and I think a majority Liberal Democrat Government would. That's my view which I'm allowed to have and I'm happy to come on here and argue the point.
That doesn't mean I hate Conservative or Labour activists - I think they are wrong and will happily argue the case with them but on a personal level I've met Conservative and Labour members I like and Liberal Democrats I don't like.
As to whether it should be fair game to criticise someone for how they look or what they said on Facebook ten years ago, I do wonder if that is going too far.