Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
Workington Man probably appreciated having some bait cast on the water for a change. Mansfield Man has certainly appreciated it.
What can Labour now offer these places? It's schtick for decades of "we'll look out for you" has proven to be very thin gruel. Voters in these Unloved Places are looking around for a better offer. And that better offer is going to have to be proposed by Labour too. Red in tooth and claw socialism has been offered - and rejected. What next?
Labour even tried the nuclear option (if you pardon the pun for the location) in Workington, they claimed they would build a £1billion steel mill as well as new nuclear build. If labour can’t even effectively bribe towns built on steel fabrication and nuclear power with promises of steel and more nuclear power what can it do?
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
So, you appear to be stating that if you leave the UK you leave the EU.
You had better play nice with Spain then....
Spain is not a problem. There is a constitutional way for Scotland to leave the UK. There is no constitutional way for Catalonia to leave Spain.
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
SNIP
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
Hmmm. Blaming others won’t get you nearer your goal. The Scots I know are not fools and can see through politicians promises. I think you have to deal with the fundamental issue, which is that many Scots like to be part of the UK.
TUD shows below the hollowness of your argument, it was the EU and promises of Federalism that won it, just lies. We will see soon when the vote happens.
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
I don't see us avoiding another Scottish referendum for the next decade, sadly. I am confident that it will have the same result as the last one and hopefully be less close. In the more immediate future I will be astonished if Nicola is still first Minister at the end of this coming year.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
I’d like Scotland to stay part of the UK because I fear for England & Wales without you but I agree that an independent Scotland would do just fine economically.
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
The Morlocks do all the work in TTM. It is a largely Marxist analysis with a typically English Victorian overlay of Lamarckism.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
I don't see us avoiding another Scottish referendum for the next decade, sadly. I am confident that it will have the same result as the last one and hopefully be less close. In the more immediate future I will be astonished if Nicola is still first Minister at the end of this coming year.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
I’d like Scotland to stay part of the UK because I fear for England & Wales without you but I agree that an independent Scotland would do just fine economically.
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
You are forgetting @Jonathan that ‘my’ side is the whole nation/people, the others are… not to be considered.
Unionists are scared to ask the people, that is the issue, they prefer to deny democracy, not for themselves but for others. If you are so confident why not have the vote and kill it, methinks I know why.
Same could be said of Brexiteers and a 2nd ref.
For what it’s worth I’m a soft unionist but I think we should have a 2nd Indy ref soon if the Scottish Parliament want one.
There does come a point however when we cannot keep forever having referendums surely?
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
Workington Man probably appreciated having some bait cast on the water for a change. Mansfield Man has certainly appreciated it.
What can Labour now offer these places? It's schtick for decades of "we'll look out for you" has proven to be very thin gruel. Voters in these Unloved Places are looking around for a better offer. And that better offer is going to have to be proposed by Labour too. Red in tooth and claw socialism has been offered - and rejected. What next?
Labour even tried the nuclear option (if you pardon the pun for the location) in Workington, they claimed they would build a £1billion steel mill as well as new nuclear build. If labour can’t even effectively bribe towns built on steel fabrication and nuclear power with promises of steel and more nuclear power what can it do?
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
I don't see us avoiding another Scottish referendum for the next decade, sadly. I am confident that it will have the same result as the last one and hopefully be less close. In the more immediate future I will be astonished if Nicola is still first Minister at the end of this coming year.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
I’d like Scotland to stay part of the UK because I fear for England & Wales without you but I agree that an independent Scotland would do just fine economically.
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
I agree that Labour/LibDems could have thwarted the Tories in GE 2019 if Labour had remained steady after the Euro elections. The shock of the Euros caused Labour to tack to Remain to protect themselves against the LibDems. So, there were two parties competing for the same educated, metropolitan vote.
I don't think the LibDems can ever win against Labour, if they fish in this pond. They killed themselves with this constituency over University tuition fees. The metropolitan, University vote that is **young** is overwhelmingly Labour. I expect Labour to continue to pander to this vote at the expense of the less educated voters in e.g., South Wales or the North East. So, I conclude that the LibDems are doomed at the moment. There is hardly any useful function for them. They are the political equivalent of an appendix. It is made glaring for me by people (like our genial host) who chatter about LibDem-mery, and rail about never voting for an anti-Semite, but in election after election end up voting "tactically" for Labour.
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
Of course, the Morlocks eat the Eloi in the Time Machine.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
Life is most grim in unskilled areas like hospitality and retail, which has seen terms and conditions eroded as pay had been forced up not by demands of the employer or employee but by regulation.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
Workington Man probably appreciated having some bait cast on the water for a change. Mansfield Man has certainly appreciated it.
What can Labour now offer these places? It's schtick for decades of "we'll look out for you" has proven to be very thin gruel. Voters in these Unloved Places are looking around for a better offer. And that better offer is going to have to be proposed by Labour too. Red in tooth and claw socialism has been offered - and rejected. What next?
Labour even tried the nuclear option (if you pardon the pun for the location) in Workington, they claimed they would build a £1billion steel mill as well as new nuclear build. If labour can’t even effectively bribe towns built on steel fabrication and nuclear power with promises of steel and more nuclear power what can it do?
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
The Morlocks do all the work in TTM. It is a largely Marxist analysis with a typically English Victorian overlay of Lamarckism.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
Thanks for this -- I have just ordered the book (which I did not know).
When a second referendum comes, there will be a pretty straightforward menu, and separation will be the less appetising and considerably more expensive option. Many Scots are angry, but they're nobody's fool. It will fail narrowly again. And again.
However, hanging together by a thread because the alternative is worse is not really a way forward for any country. It leaves deep resentments (as winning the last one did). We need to be brought together. That's a Britain wide project, not a Scottish project. For what it's worth, the Government seems to be stumbling in the right direction with aspects of its domestic agenda.
Honours should only be given for gallantry and voluntary work and no distinction should be made on the basis of your rank in society.
Agree entirely. No honours for the men who fought off the London Bridge terrorist but one for Nadia Hussein, for making cakes and having a lucrative Sunday Times article. For crying out loud!
Honouring the men who fought off the London Bridge attacker will be complicated. Assde from the guy who is a convicted murderer, there is the issue of of official policy (by official I mean the "System" policy rather than a political one). Examine what happened to about half the people who engaged with terrorists in previous attacks....
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
The Morlocks do all the work in TTM. It is a largely Marxist analysis with a typically English Victorian overlay of Lamarckism.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
Thanks for this -- I have just ordered the book (which I did not know).
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
Yeah; there's a good argument that the increasing inequality (and the way this has played out as a north-south divide) is the unsolved UK political problem of the last 30 years. Thatcher didn't do anything to cushion the effects of the collapse of the traditional industries, New Labour IIRC tried to funnel money in that direction but didn't have any good structural answers, and the Tories more recently don't (yet) seem to have any bright ideas. I would view Brexit as in part a "let's try this, maybe it's better than the status quo" response from the losers-of-globalisation; I think this will turn out to be a mistake, but I don't have any better structural responses to offer -- does anybody (party, other country, think tank)? (Universal basic income advocates are at least trying to address the issue, but their figures don't add up, sadly.)
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
I remember him cheering in the chamber as a result of the national living wage which was an unprecedented raising of the monument wage in excess of anything before with a long term aim of pegging it to 60% of earnings.
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
So, you appear to be stating that if you leave the UK you leave the EU.
You had better play nice with Spain then....
Spain is not a problem. There is a constitutional way for Scotland to leave the UK. There is no constitutional way for Catalonia to leave Spain.
Yes there is, by constitutional amendmemt just the Federal Spanish government is unlikely to agree that and simply arrested Catalan nationalists when they held an illegal referendum and declared UDI
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
The Morlocks do all the work in TTM. It is a largely Marxist analysis with a typically English Victorian overlay of Lamarckism.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
Thanks for this -- I have just ordered the book (which I did not know).
It's one of those books (like Gravity's Rainbow and A Canticle for Leibowitz) that one can enjoy secure in the knowledge that it's not going to get turned into a fucking brain-dead TV show by HBO/Netflix/Amazon.
A miserable decade, with next to no redeeming events. The U.K. peaked in 2012 with the Olympics. The failure to deal seriously with climate change will damn us. We chose nostalgia and nationalism instead.
We are doing no better and no worse than other Countries AFAICS.
Well that’s absolutely no excuse. We should be challenging not hiding behind such fig leafs.
Get over yourself - focus your energy on those doing less than nothing. All the rest is pathetic virtue signalling.
No, it is not. The only significant effect we can have on “those doing less than nothing” is to lead by example. Hanging around bleating but they’re worse than us is doing less than nothing.
:
"Behind every great fortune is a crime forgotten" is pretty applicable to Western consumerism and the sweatshops and child labour it seems to rely on
When it comes to the environment, CO2 emissions in the UK are less than they were in in 1890
This is far better than most of the advanced industrial countries around the world.
This is as a result of long term policies - Margaret Thatcher was the first leader of a major industrialised country to recognise global warming as happening and made it part of the policy structure. This policy was carried forward by subsequent governments.
The "dash for gas" was predicated on a number of issue - balance of payments, sulphur dioxide emission reduction, particulate emission reduction and CO2 reduction. The idea was that research into alternatives would reduce their costs, while the take up of natural gas would reduce emissions in the short term.
In the last couple of years, solar and wind have dropped to below coal and gas in *unsubsidised* cost.
We are down to 5 coal fired power stations in the UK - will be 4 by April next year. Planned to be 0 by 2023 - if not sooner.
At this point someone will raise the point of "made in China" - that we have exported our CO2 emissions. Except that the raw GDP figures for China show exports at 30% or their economy and dropping. These raw figures over-estimate exports - China is increasingly farming out sub components to cheaper locations. Some people think their net exports have gone close to zero.... China is mostly making stuff for... China.
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough ssible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone e now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually no powers to alter the economy, all tax powers ( apart from teh joke income tax ) are held by Westminster. They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
You are forgetting @Jonathan that ‘my’ side is the whole nation/people, the others are… not to be considered.
Unionists are scared to ask the people, that is the issue, they prefer to deny democracy, not for themselves but for others. If you are so confident why not have the vote and kill it, methinks I know why.
We had the vote in 2014, Scots voted No after separatists promised it was a once in a generation referendum.
The Tories won a majority on a manifesto commitment to ban indyref2 for their full 5 year term and have made clear they will stick to that promise in Government no matter how many toys Sturgeon throws out of her pram
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
Workington Man probably appreciated having some bait cast on the water for a change. Mansfield Man has certainly appreciated it.
What can Labour now offer these places? It's schtick for decades of "we'll look out for you" has proven to be very thin gruel. Voters in these Unloved Places are looking around for a better offer. And that better offer is going to have to be proposed by Labour too. Red in tooth and claw socialism has been offered - and rejected. What next?
Labour even tried the nuclear option (if you pardon the pun for the location) in Workington, they claimed they would build a £1billion steel mill as well as new nuclear build. If labour can’t even effectively bribe towns built on steel fabrication and nuclear power with promises of steel and more nuclear power what can it do?
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough ssible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone e now is a vote for considerable hardship.
They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
You are forgetting @Jonathan that ‘my’ side is the whole nation/people, the others are… not to be considered.
Unionists are scared to ask the people, that is the issue, they prefer to deny democracy, not for themselves but for others. If you are so confident why not have the vote and kill it, methinks I know why.
We had the vote in 2014, Scots voted No after separatists promised it was a once in a generation referendum.
The Tories won a majority on a manifesto commitment to ban indyref2 for their full 5 year term and have made clear they will stick to that promise in Government no matter how many toys Sturgeon throws out of her pram
They went backward, though, in both votes and seats in the part of the country most affected. IMHO it's asking for trouble to effectively give a V sign to the voters who didn't vote for you. Which ever way round you have the fingers.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
I agree that Labour/LibDems could have thwarted the Tories in GE 2019 if Labour had remained steady after the Euro elections. The shock of the Euros caused Labour to tack to Remain to protect themselves against the LibDems. So, there were two parties competing for the same educated, metropolitan vote.
:
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
Of course, the Morlocks eat the Eloi in the Time Machine.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
Life is most grim in unskilled areas like hospitality and retail, which has seen terms and conditions eroded as pay had been forced up not by demands of the employer or employee but by regulation.
A friend (left school at 16), who had gone through a series of trades, where each in turn had been hollowed out into a minimum wage (or below), got a proper white collar job, via a friend.
I tried to get him to write a blog about it - his reaction to so many individual things thing would have each made a post....
On his first day, he arrived at his desk, and the lady from the work wellness team helped him un-wrap his brand new Herman Miller chair and adjust it, along with his desk and computer monitor.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
You see everything through a lense of England vs. Scotland. Scots and Scotland have been treated pretty much the same as anywhere else that isn't London and the commuter belt. That needs to change, but it's not 'England' doing something to Scotland.
As for Scotland being shut out of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon leads a party whose stated aim is to take break the UK up, and keep Scotland in the EU. How is that going to help in the delicate negotiating process of getting a good deal for the UK from the EU? It would be like having your goalkeeper working for the other team.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
As a special request, can I please ask you to put yourself forward to write labour’s next election manifesto.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
I agree that Labour/LibDems could have thwarted the Tories in GE 2019 if Labour had remained steady after the Euro elections. The shock of the Euros caused Labour to tack to Remain to protect themselves against the LibDems. So, there were two parties competing for the same educated, metropolitan vote.
:
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
Of course, the Morlocks eat the Eloi in the Time Machine.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
Life is most grim in unskilled areas like hospitality and retail, which has seen terms and conditions eroded as pay had been forced up not by demands of the employer or employee but by regulation.
A friend (left school at 16), who had gone through a series of trades, where each in turn had been hollowed out into a minimum wage (or below), got a proper white collar job, via a friend.
I tried to get him to write a blog about it - his reaction to so many individual things thing would have each made a post....
On his first day, he arrived at his desk, and the lady from the work wellness team helped him un-wrap his brand new Herman Miller chair and adjust it, along with his desk and computer monitor.
I wonder what a member of the "work wellness team" is being paid? Minimum wage?
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
Yeah; there's a good argument that the increasing inequality (and the way this has played out as a north-south divide) is the unsolved UK political problem of the last 30 years. Thatcher didn't do anything to cushion the effects of the collapse of the traditional industries, New Labour IIRC tried to funnel money in that direction but didn't have any good structural answers, and the Tories more recently don't (yet) seem to have any bright ideas. I would view Brexit as in part a "let's try this, maybe it's better than the status quo" response from the losers-of-globalisation; I think this will turn out to be a mistake, but I don't have any better structural responses to offer -- does anybody (party, other country, think tank)? (Universal basic income advocates are at least trying to address the issue, but their figures don't add up, sadly.)
I agree with that, though I do blame the gainers-of-globalisation (actually very well represented on pb.com) more than the losers. The former did not realise that the benefits have to be shared out more equally. Hence, Brexit.
I think if I (rather than ineffectual Welsh Labour) were in charge of Wales, I would try and put universal, free, high speed broadband at the centre. So much of depressed Wales has poor transport links that I would be trying to develop industries like gaming/digital media/small online businesses that can benefit from cheap rents/living costs and don't need physical transport links. This probably needs coupling with tax breaks and incentives to encourage foreign digital investors (the actual Welsh Government has chosen to attract Aston-Martin!).
Wales is doing much more poorly than say the Republic of Ireland in this regard.
Hard to see Wales doing anything other than fall further behind under the present Welsh Government.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
I'm curious to hear what your view of the under-fished ponds is. (My personal social circle is nearly 100% uni-and-metro so I'm pretty blind to other political currents...)
Workington Man probably appreciated having some bait cast on the water for a change. Mansfield Man has certainly appreciated it.
What can Labour now offer these places? It's schtick for decades of "we'll look out for you" has proven to be very thin gruel. Voters in these Unloved Places are looking around for a better offer. And that better offer is going to have to be proposed by Labour too. Red in tooth and claw socialism has been offered - and rejected. What next?
Labour even tried the nuclear option (if you pardon the pun for the location) in Workington, they claimed they would build a £1billion steel mill as well as new nuclear build. If labour can’t even effectively bribe towns built on steel fabrication and nuclear power with promises of steel and more nuclear power what can it do?
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the wrong way around. First you build a viable economy then you go for independence. Our economy has become considerably less viable since 2014 and the trends are not good. Even as a Unionist I take no pleasure in that whatsoever and wish it were not so but independence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices,on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
So, you appear to be stating that if you leave the UK you leave the EU.
You had better play nice with Spain then....
Spain is not a problem. There is a constitutional way for Scotland to leave the UK. There is no constitutional way for Catalonia to leave Spain.
Yes there is, by constitutional amendmemt just the Federal Spanish government is unlikely to agree that and simply arrested Catalan nationalists when they held an illegal referendum and declared UDI
The Spanish government, like the UK government, doesn’t arrest anyone.
Re Honours. Is it now certain that Bercow has been snubbed?
Would be a mistake to do so , however ghastly the little man is.
I feel conflicted on this. On one hand precedent suggests that Bercow should be honoured. But what a glorious irony, given what he has done, if precedent comes to his rescue!
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
What utter drivel. North West Wales has not got a stagnant population.
It is de-populating. As are some areas of Scotland and the North of England. It is actually very common. The NE states of the US (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont) are depopulating.
There are fewer people in North West Wales now. Therefore, it has fewer school teachers, police, firemen.
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
Yeah; there's a good argument that the increasing inequality (and the way this has played out as a north-south divide) is the unsolved UK political problem of the last 30 years. Thatcher didn't do anything to cushion the effects of the collapse of the traditional industries, New Labour IIRC tried to funnel money in that direction but didn't have any good structural answers, and the Tories more recently don't (yet) seem to have any bright ideas. I would view Brexit as in part a "let's try this, maybe it's better than the status quo" response from the losers-of-globalisation; I think this will turn out to be a mistake, but I don't have any better structural responses to offer -- does anybody (party, other country, think tank)? (Universal basic income advocates are at least trying to address the issue, but their figures don't add up, sadly.)
“Increasing inequality” I don’t want to be that person... but... inequality is at its lowest point since the mid 80s.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Both Labour & the LibDems are fishing in the same pond for middle-class, educated voters in University & metropolitan seats.
There are ponds that are under-fished. Not ones particularly sympathetic to the LibDems, though.
Yep; so I find it hard to be optimistic about a near-term Lib Dem revival. (One could imagine an alternate history where Labour had kept firmly to a Leave policy and kept more of their northern seats while leaving the uni-and-metro areas more exposed to the Lib Dems, but that's not where we are.)
:
: : :
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
Of course, the Morlocks eat the Eloi in the Time Machine.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
Life is most grim in unskilled areas like hospitality and retail, which has seen terms and conditions eroded as pay had been forced up not by demands of the employer or employee but by regulation.
A friend (left school at 16), who had gone through a series of trades, where each in turn had been hollowed out into a minimum wage (or below), got a proper white collar job, via a friend.
I tried to get him to write a blog about it - his reaction to so many individual things thing would have each made a post....
On his first day, he arrived at his desk, and the lady from the work wellness team helped him un-wrap his brand new Herman Miller chair and adjust it, along with his desk and computer monitor.
I wonder what a member of the "work wellness team" is being paid? Minimum wage?
From talking to the people who do similar work in places I have worked, it is paid in the region of 30K+ a year. But it is in London.
The business reason for the role is that between the Herman Miller chairs, adjustable desks, monitors and expert setup, your company becomes fireproof against compensation claims for bad backs, RSI etc - "We provided the best equipment in the world, setup by experts"
The policy in the less enlightened part of the business world is to use scumbag lawyers to fight off such claims, along with binning anyone showing signs of issues. Oh, and having basically no money in the company, so nothing to win in a lawsuit.
Eloi and Morlocks sounds quite appropriate - from HG Well description, the Morlocks didn't get good H&S in their tunnels.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Hardly, I expect the phones of Labour MPs have been red hot over the break....
It seems curiously quiet to me.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
The NEC is due to meet on 6th January to set the timetable for the election. If Corbyn does not stand down he’ll be challenged.
Assuming that Corbyn does stand down, do you know if he stays as caretaker leader until the new leader is in place? Or will the LP be leadership in the interim?
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
As a special request, can I please ask you to put yourself forward to write labour’s next election manifesto.
Something that is not often realised - many of the mining and industrial towns expanded massively in the 1860-1900 period.
Aberfan for example was a tiny village in 1866. A town of 5000 in 1966.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
As a special request, can I please ask you to put yourself forward to write labour’s next election manifesto.
While I don't know so much about fire-stations, I do have some experience of health, where the problem is that, especially as hospitals become more mechanised, the economic argument against small units dispersed in smaller communities become stronger. The issue around health isn't so much the size of the unit, but that back-up, including social care, has been removed from smaller communities. Corbyn was laughed by the Tories over his four day week suggestion and, to be fair, Hunt ridiculed for his seven day medical staff working, but both make a great deal of sense. Four day week staff rotas, combined with a full seven days service is surely ought to be what we're aiming for. And that's not just the obvious nursing, senior medics etc; it applies to pharmacy, radiography and all the other services. Personal experience; could be very demanding being the only pharmacist on-call at a busy weekend.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Hardly, I expect the phones of Labour MPs have been red hot over the break....
It seems curiously quiet to me.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
The NEC is due to meet on 6th January to set the timetable for the election. If Corbyn does not stand down he’ll be challenged.
Assuming that Corbyn does stand down, do you know if he stays as caretaker leader until the new leader is in place? Or will the LP be leadership in the interim?
The constituency that is largely unrepresented is of course the losers from globalisation. Our economic model creates enormous wealth, but it is concentrated in a viciously unequal way, skewed towards a highly educated and mobile and metropolitan overclass. The latter show no glimmer of understanding, as they sit under their fig trees eating cheese.
Yeah; there's a good argument that the increasing inequality (and the way this has played out as a north-south divide) is the unsolved UK political problem of the last 30 years. Thatcher didn't do anything to cushion the effects of the collapse of the traditional industries, New Labour IIRC tried to funnel money in that direction but didn't have any good structural answers, and the Tories more recently don't (yet) seem to have any bright ideas. I would view Brexit as in part a "let's try this, maybe it's better than the status quo" response from the losers-of-globalisation; I think this will turn out to be a mistake, but I don't have any better structural responses to offer -- does anybody (party, other country, think tank)? (Universal basic income advocates are at least trying to address the issue, but their figures don't add up, sadly.)
“Increasing inequality” I don’t want to be that person... but... inequality is at its lowest point since the mid 80s.
For someone who doesn't want to be that person, I must applaud your selflessness in always being that person.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I’m hoping Labour members possess a modicum of sanity and understand that electing RLB will be a disaster for their party. I’m probably being wildly optimistic though.
Jess Phillips looks destined to be the Liz Kendall of this election, telling the uncomfortavle truths that no one wants to hear. I don’t think she’ll get it (out of all of them she probably should).
A shame too that Rayner looks to have hitched her cart to the Long Bailey wagon though. Of all the potential candidates with a chance of winning she would have been the one to watch.
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the dence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices,on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
So, you appear to be stating that if you leave the UK you leave the EU.
You had better play nice with Spain then....
Spain is not a problem. There is a constitutional way for Scotland to leave the UK. There is no constitutional way for Catalonia to leave Spain.
Yes there is, by constitutional amendmemt just the Federal Spanish government is unlikely to agree that and simply arrested Catalan nationalists when they held an illegal referendum and declared UDI
The Spanish government, like the UK government, doesn’t arrest anyone.
The Spanish police and civil guard arrested Catalan nationalists on behalf of the Spanish government if they had not already fled into exile
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Hardly, I expect the phones of Labour MPs have been red hot over the break....
It seems curiously quiet to me.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
The NEC is due to meet on 6th January to set the timetable for the election. If Corbyn does not stand down he’ll be challenged.
Assuming that Corbyn does stand down, do you know if he stays as caretaker leader until the new leader is in place? Or will the LP be leadership in the interim?
This is important from a betting perspective.
He’ll stay in place.
That`s what I thought.
In which case the 1.31 on Corbyn`s exit date Jan - Mar 2020 is a massive lay. It is impossible for the leadership election to be concluded within that timeslot.
I have not been able to find any predictions back as far as 2010.
[... Other interesting predictions, some of which I share ...]
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't
I have always said that the SNP have gone e now is a vote for considerable hardship.
They have proven they have no intention of improving Scotland's lot and only way we ever get better is to raise our own taxes and spend it on what we want , not what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices, it is by no means not viable. I have never subscribed to Project Fear. My objection is that it would be a tragically unnecessary and wasteful process based on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
You are forgetting @Jonathan that ‘my’ side is the whole nation/people, the others are… not to be considered.
Unionists are scared to ask the people, that is the issue, they prefer to deny democracy, not for themselves but for others. If you are so confident why not have the vote and kill it, methinks I know why.
We had the vote in 2014, Scots voted No after separatists promised it was a once in a generation referendum.
The Tories won a majority on a manifesto commitment to ban indyref2 for their full 5 year term and have made clear they will stick to that promise in Government no matter how many toys Sturgeon throws out of her pram
They went backward, though, in both votes and seats in the part of the country most affected. IMHO it's asking for trouble to effectively give a V sign to the voters who didn't vote for you. Which ever way round you have the fingers.
54% of Scots voted for Unionist parties and the Tories won a majority across the UK with a manifesto commmitment to no indyref2.
Boris has a mandate to tell Nicola Sturgeon to sod off and he will
If there's another referendum, I am confident independence will win. There isn't a consensus for the Union anymore and the British, not Scottish, crowd only make up a 25% hardcore, not enough to win a50% vote.
As a somewhat convicted unionist, I wonder if our energies are better spent trying to make a success of independence rather than arguing about process. Brexit is an example to avoid I think. Not only is it a bad idea from my point of view, but Leavers/Tories are going about it in the most cackhanded, divisive and destructive way possible. Can't we do better than that?
I have always said that the SNP have gone about this the dence now is a vote for considerable hardship.
David, how do you build anything when the vast majority of your budget is determined by and controlled by Westminster. The SNP have virtually what London wants.
...
Why would it not do as well as similarly sized, located and resourced countries like Ireland, Norway and Denmark?
I agree - Though there would be sacrifices,on the weaponisation of people's most negative instincts.
You can only treat people like crap for so long , even the weakest will get a backbone at some point. Completely shutting Scotland out of Brexit etc and taking back the powers was the final insult, we are not dogs to be ordered about.
Scotland voted YES.
Based on it being only way to stay in the EU and on a shedload of promises, all BROKEN, usual lies and cheating the mugs get every time.
So, you appear to be stating that if you leave the UK you leave the EU.
You had better play nice with Spain then....
Spain is not a problem. There is a constitutional way for Scotland to leave the UK. There is no constitutional way for Catalonia to leave Spain.
Yes there is, by constitutional amendmemt just the Federal Spanish government is unlikely to agree that and simply arrested Catalan nationalists when they held an illegal referendum and declared UDI
The Spanish government, like the UK government, doesn’t arrest anyone.
The Spanish police arrest on behalf of the Spanish government
In the same way the UK police arrest on behalf of the British government.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
That Marxist interpretation just doesn’t square with reality though. If anything we have seen the growth of the ‘comfortable classes’, outside of maybe London. School teachers, nurses, fireman etc have a pretty fine standard of living.
But, for example, in my town North Wales, they are shutting schools and small local hospitals. They have shut the magistrates court. The nearest fire station is 21 miles way, the nearest police station is 43 miles away (though over an hour by road).
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
As a special request, can I please ask you to put yourself forward to write labour’s next election manifesto.
Something that is not often realised - many of the mining and industrial towns expanded massively in the 1860-1900 period.
Aberfan for example was a tiny village in 1866. A town of 5000 in 1966.
My paternal ancestors came to The Valleys from all over SW Wales. All in one colliery town in 1911 and all colliers of some sort; scattered throughout Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, and all farmworkers 50 years earlier.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Hardly, I expect the phones of Labour MPs have been red hot over the break....
It seems curiously quiet to me.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
The NEC is due to meet on 6th January to set the timetable for the election. If Corbyn does not stand down he’ll be challenged.
Assuming that Corbyn does stand down, do you know if he stays as caretaker leader until the new leader is in place? Or will the LP be leadership in the interim?
This is important from a betting perspective.
He’ll stay in place.
That`s what I thought.
In which case the 1.31 on Corbyn`s exit date Jan - Mar 2020 is a massive lay. It is impossible for the leadership election to be concluded within that timeslot.
It could be done by mid-March, should be by the end of March..
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I’m hoping Labour members possess a modicum of sanity and understand that electing RLB will be a disaster for their party. I’m probably being wildly optimistic though.
Jess Phillips looks destined to be the Liz Kendall of this election, telling the uncomfortavle truths that no one wants to hear. I don’t think she’ll get it (out of all of them she probably should).
A shame too that Rayner looks to have hitched her cart to the Long Bailey wagon though. Of all the potential candidates with a chance of winning she would have been the one to watch.
I would not discount Rayner running for leader. Long Bailey is not exactly generating huge enthusiasm.
We are heading towards the kind of societies depicted in HG Wells, with a barbarous underclass and a gilded, ineffectual elite, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
The Morlocks do all the work in TTM. It is a largely Marxist analysis with a typically English Victorian overlay of Lamarckism.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
Thanks for this -- I have just ordered the book (which I did not know).
It's one of those books (like Gravity's Rainbow and A Canticle for Leibowitz) that one can enjoy secure in the knowledge that it's not going to get turned into a fucking brain-dead TV show by HBO/Netflix/Amazon.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
The grotesquely poor UK education system has a big role to play in the regional alienation story. Everyone is educated to their parents' level of ability, and to fight for the status quo and their position in it, be they bog-standard comp or top university. How do you deliver transformational change to a broad area like the North, in a country where the most important and precious parts of self-identity are based on 300-1000 year old institutions like the monarchy, the armed services, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge?
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Hardly, I expect the phones of Labour MPs have been red hot over the break....
It seems curiously quiet to me.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
The NEC is due to meet on 6th January to set the timetable for the election. If Corbyn does not stand down he’ll be challenged.
Assuming that Corbyn does stand down, do you know if he stays as caretaker leader until the new leader is in place? Or will the LP be leadership in the interim?
This is important from a betting perspective.
He’ll stay in place.
That`s what I thought.
In which case the 1.31 on Corbyn`s exit date Jan - Mar 2020 is a massive lay. It is impossible for the leadership election to be concluded within that timeslot.
It could be done by mid-March, should be by the end of March..
Not if the previous election can be taken as a guide. Took four months.
Jess Phillips looks destined to be the Liz Kendall of this election, telling the uncomfortavle truths that no one wants to hear.
Liz Kendall's campaign was odd. She seemed to spend a long time saying Labour needed a new Blair-like, charismatic, centrist leader, while forgetting to add that she herself was just the woman for the job.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I’m hoping Labour members possess a modicum of sanity and understand that electing RLB will be a disaster for their party. I’m probably being wildly optimistic though.
Jess Phillips looks destined to be the Liz Kendall of this election, telling the uncomfortavle truths that no one wants to hear. I don’t think she’ll get it (out of all of them she probably should).
A shame too that Rayner looks to have hitched her cart to the Long Bailey wagon though. Of all the potential candidates with a chance of winning she would have been the one to watch.
Looking on from the outside, Long-Bailey is the Continuity Disaster candidate.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
England now know their Test Match task. 'Only' 365 to win and two full days (and a bit) to do it in!
Those 95 for the last three wickets have killed our chances. A slow 280 could have been do-able, but no chance from here.
Doubt we’ll break 200.
I think that’s optimistic, despite the bright knock from Burns before tea. The target is so far away, I’m not sure they’ll be able to slow it down enough, especially after the first couple of wickets have fallen. If the top pair can put on a ton then game on though.
Betfair says 6.6 to get the runs, I think it should be at least 16.6. There’s an 18% return in a day or two from backing the Saffers now. I’m on that side.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Market says 60% at the mo, quite a bit of margin, you should prob back them both
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Market says 60% at the mo, quite a bit of margin, you should prob back them both
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Market says 60% at the mo, quite a bit of margin, you should prob back them both
Already have - long time ago. Particularly RLB. I have £50 on her at 28/1 with BF.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
I think he has a very good chance v RLB. Very little chance v Rayner.
Starmer has a hugely greater intellect in my opinion and will handle interviews far better than RLB (as we have seen in the past). If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
Starmer Portillo to Long Bailey's IDS and Rayner's Michael Howard?
Starmer has a hugely greater intellect in my opinion and will handle interviews far better than RLB (as we have seen in the past). If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
Agreed - though you`re making the mistake of assuming that the primary motivation is electoral success over ideological purity.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
I am surprised a man would even stand in the Labour leader contest.
Starmer has a hugely greater intellect in my opinion and will handle interviews far better than RLB (as we have seen in the past). If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
Agreed - though you`re making the mistake of assuming that the primary motivation is electoral success over ideological purity.
It’s worth remembering that Owen Smith challenged Corbyn directly and got over 35% of the vote. For reasons that eluded many of us Corbyn had a significant personal following and also enjoyed that level of loyalty all Labour leaders get from the membership. Neither of those factors will be in play this time. And Starmer is a much better candidate than Smith was. What he won’t have, though, is the organisational support Long Bailey will have: essentially, the access to the Unite and Momentum mailing lists.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
I am surprised a man would even stand in the Labour leader contest.
Starmer has a hugely greater intellect in my opinion and will handle interviews far better than RLB (as we have seen in the past). If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
An uninterested observer can see that. The question is, can the Labour Party membership?
Starmer has a hugely greater intellect in my opinion and will handle interviews far better than RLB (as we have seen in the past). If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
Agreed - though you`re making the mistake of assuming that the primary motivation is electoral success over ideological purity.
It’s worth remembering that Owen Smith challenged Corbyn directly and got over 35% of the vote. For reasons that eluded many of us Corbyn had a significant personal following and also enjoyed that level of loyalty all Labour leaders get from the membership. Neither of those factors will be in play this time. And Starmer is a much better candidate than Smith was. What he won’t have, though, is the organisational support Long Bailey will have: essentially, the access to the Unite and Momentum mailing lists.
A couple of further points:
1) Starmer may not be able to get on the ballet due the changes in the procedure 2) Since Owen Smith there has been a lot of labour membership resignations. I am working on the assumption that these resignations are largely moderates, so therefore the remaining membership is more left wing than was previously the case.
I`m happy to be corrected on the above two points.
Labour leadership contest seems to have taken Xmas and NY off.
Not Nandy. She's giving it some.
She knows she has ground to make up. She ticks a few boxes: female, northern, but under the rules she will find it hard to get onto the ballot. She needs a union to come out for her. Unlikely.
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
Not strong favourite. Or shouldn’t be. The far left is clearly split on her candidacy, hence Clive Lewis and Ian Lavery talking about entering.
Funny you should mention Ian Lavery - I had a few speculative quid on him at 130/1 yesterday with Ladbrokes.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
I am not so sure. She’ll probably have Momentum and Unite behind her, which will bring huge advantages, but my guess is that Starmer will run her close.
Hope you're completely wrong, I have laid them both
If Rayner runs she’ll win. If not, it will be close between RLB and Starmer. I can’t see anyone else having a sniff, especially given the nomination process.
What % chance would you say it is that either Starmer or RLB wins?
If Long Bailey is running it means Rayner won’t be. I’d give her a 55% chance in a straight fight v Starmer. I’d give Starmer a 15% chance at best v Rayner.
Yes I don’t rate Starmers chances of winning this contest at all. A man is really going to struggle this time round.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
I am surprised a man would even stand in the Labour leader contest.
Why? Because a man has no chance?
Just because they see themselves as the party of equality etc, and they've never had a female leader. I would have thought a man who was thinking of running would make a high profile decision to stand aside to let a woman have a better chance
As SO has said, RLB has a big advantage in that she's the anointed heir of Corbyn. With Momentum and UNITE backing her, she'll very probably win the most votes in the first round. But she's a poor candidate, who even amongst the true believers doesn't generate enthusiasm. She'll likely do badly in transfers (can't see members who'll vote for someone like Nandy, Phillips, or Cooper putting her down as her second pref.), so there's a good chance Starmer would beat her in the run off. If she gets less than 40% of the votes in the first round, she'll be in trouble.
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https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/18052032.labours-pledge-steel-plant-workington/
We will see soon when the vote happens.
Anathem is a better literary analogy for modern Britain.
For what it’s worth I’m a soft unionist but I think we should have a 2nd Indy ref soon if the Scottish Parliament want one.
There does come a point however when we cannot keep forever having referendums surely?
Life is most grim in unskilled areas like hospitality and retail, which has seen terms and conditions eroded as pay had been forced up not by demands of the employer or employee but by regulation.
However, hanging together by a thread because the alternative is worse is not really a way forward for any country. It leaves deep resentments (as winning the last one did). We need to be brought together. That's a Britain wide project, not a Scottish project. For what it's worth, the Government seems to be stumbling in the right direction with aspects of its domestic agenda.
Is there a date that Corbyn will step down? Is there a timetable for election of a new leader? Does anyone know?
Is there the faintest possibilty that Corbyn will stick around for longer than expected?
https://twitter.com/lisanandy/status/1210691186412924928?s=20
https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1210691973163765761?s=20
https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1210716823953408000?s=20
There are hollowed-out areas of the country where there are few jobs like teachers, nurses, firemen actually left. People with those jobs may have a "pretty fine standard of living" if they still existed.
The town survives, barely. There has been no growth in "the comfortable classes".
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/britains-co2-emissions-have-fallen-to-levels-last-seen-in-1890
This is far better than most of the advanced industrial countries around the world.
This is as a result of long term policies - Margaret Thatcher was the first leader of a major industrialised country to recognise global warming as happening and made it part of the policy structure. This policy was carried forward by subsequent governments.
The "dash for gas" was predicated on a number of issue - balance of payments, sulphur dioxide emission reduction, particulate emission reduction and CO2 reduction. The idea was that research into alternatives would reduce their costs, while the take up of natural gas would reduce emissions in the short term.
In the last couple of years, solar and wind have dropped to below coal and gas in *unsubsidised* cost.
We are down to 5 coal fired power stations in the UK - will be 4 by April next year. Planned to be 0 by 2023 - if not sooner.
At this point someone will raise the point of "made in China" - that we have exported our CO2 emissions. Except that the raw GDP figures for China show exports at 30% or their economy and dropping. These raw figures over-estimate exports - China is increasingly farming out sub components to cheaper locations. Some people think their net exports have gone close to zero.... China is mostly making stuff for... China.
"There is a lot of mental gymnastics required to support Brexit and deny Scottish independence (and vice versa)".
Well, Brexit was a decision made by the UK electorate. The proposed Scottish ref assumes that only a portion of the electorate will have a say.
I`ll happily support a Scot ref every ten years if you like as a matter of statute, as long as the whole of the UK is entitled to vote on it.
The Tories won a majority on a manifesto commitment to ban indyref2 for their full 5 year term and have made clear they will stick to that promise in Government no matter how many toys Sturgeon throws out of her pram
A lay at current prices.
RLB strong favourite.
I tried to get him to write a blog about it - his reaction to so many individual things thing would have each made a post....
On his first day, he arrived at his desk, and the lady from the work wellness team helped him un-wrap his brand new Herman Miller chair and adjust it, along with his desk and computer monitor.
As for Scotland being shut out of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon leads a party whose stated aim is to take break the UK up, and keep Scotland in the EU. How is that going to help in the delicate negotiating process of getting a good deal for the UK from the EU? It would be like having your goalkeeper working for the other team.
What utter drivel. I’m willing to guess that your area of north wales has more teachers and nurses than ever before and has more police and fireman than it did twenty years ago. The only reason they would shut a school would be a stagnant population or to reopen a new school.
As a special request, can I please ask you to put yourself forward to write labour’s next election manifesto.
I think if I (rather than ineffectual Welsh Labour) were in charge of Wales, I would try and put universal, free, high speed broadband at the centre. So much of depressed Wales has poor transport links that I would be trying to develop industries like gaming/digital media/small online businesses that can benefit from cheap rents/living costs and don't need physical transport links. This probably needs coupling with tax breaks and incentives to encourage foreign digital investors (the actual Welsh Government has chosen to attract Aston-Martin!).
Wales is doing much more poorly than say the Republic of Ireland in this regard.
Hard to see Wales doing anything other than fall further behind under the present Welsh Government.
This election wasn’t won on swing voters. It was won on once labour voters voting conservative. Last time that happened was 1997.
It is de-populating. As are some areas of Scotland and the North of England. It is actually very common. The NE states of the US (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont) are depopulating.
There are fewer people in North West Wales now. Therefore, it has fewer school teachers, police, firemen.
The business reason for the role is that between the Herman Miller chairs, adjustable desks, monitors and expert setup, your company becomes fireproof against compensation claims for bad backs, RSI etc - "We provided the best equipment in the world, setup by experts"
The policy in the less enlightened part of the business world is to use scumbag lawyers to fight off such claims, along with binning anyone showing signs of issues. Oh, and having basically no money in the company, so nothing to win in a lawsuit.
Eloi and Morlocks sounds quite appropriate - from HG Well description, the Morlocks didn't get good H&S in their tunnels.
I do think though that it will be difficult for any candidate to beat RLB, who is the Corbyn anointed one.
This is important from a betting perspective.
Aberfan for example was a tiny village in 1866. A town of 5000 in 1966.
Corbyn was laughed by the Tories over his four day week suggestion and, to be fair, Hunt ridiculed for his seven day medical staff working, but both make a great deal of sense. Four day week staff rotas, combined with a full seven days service is surely ought to be what we're aiming for. And that's not just the obvious nursing, senior medics etc; it applies to pharmacy, radiography and all the other services. Personal experience; could be very demanding being the only pharmacist on-call at a busy weekend.
Jess Phillips looks destined to be the Liz Kendall of this election, telling the uncomfortavle truths that no one wants to hear. I don’t think she’ll get it (out of all of them she probably should).
A shame too that Rayner looks to have hitched her cart to the Long Bailey wagon though. Of all the potential candidates with a chance of winning she would have been the one to watch.
In which case the 1.31 on Corbyn`s exit date Jan - Mar 2020 is a massive lay. It is impossible for the leadership election to be concluded within that timeslot.
Boris has a mandate to tell Nicola Sturgeon to sod off and he will
Betfair says 6.6 to get the runs, I think it should be at least 16.6.
There’s an 18% return in a day or two from backing the Saffers now. I’m on that side.
He’s possibly value for leader after next if RLB does an IDS.
If Labour is to have a good chance of being returned to power in 2024 (or possibly earlier), they need to choose Starmer, if not RLB will ensure another defeat ... the British electorate will not accept another left-wing Corbynite, simples really.
1) Starmer may not be able to get on the ballet due the changes in the procedure
2) Since Owen Smith there has been a lot of labour membership resignations. I am working on the assumption that these resignations are largely moderates, so therefore the remaining membership is more left wing than was previously the case.
I`m happy to be corrected on the above two points.
But she's a poor candidate, who even amongst the true believers doesn't generate enthusiasm. She'll likely do badly in transfers (can't see members who'll vote for someone like Nandy, Phillips, or Cooper putting her down as her second pref.), so there's a good chance Starmer would beat her in the run off. If she gets less than 40% of the votes in the first round, she'll be in trouble.