The local elections next year at county and district level should be an opportunity for gains for the LDs in England, particularly continuing in opposition to new housing and going on Nimbyism and also seeking to make inroads into Tory Remain areas. Labour will be seeking to expand its lead in London at the Mayoral and Assembly elections and the SNP seeking to hold its Holyrood majority with the Greens and thus push for indyref2 while Welsh Labour will hope to hold on in Cardiff.
There will also be Police and Crime commissioner elections.
It should also be noted that in 2017 the Tories got 38% and Labour just 27% at the county elections compared to 42% and 40% at the general election while the LDs got 18% compared to just 7% at the general election. The LDs therefore did much better at county than national level and will seek to expand on that county council success next year, the Tories will seek to hold their seats and Labour to make gains too
PCC elections next year?
I predict a big swing to the cock & balls party.
I've spoilt my ballot in every PCC election so far and I'll do the same in May.
The PCC elections are the only elections I have not voted in. I did not even want to spoil my ballot paper as it gets included in the total and I was keen that the turnout be pitiful.
Why on earth would you not want to participate in local democracy?
That is a classic cut your nose to spite your face act.
Lunacy.
I do not believe PCC should be an elected post (many have the same view). My vote will make little difference to the actual outcome however the absence of my vote (which is clear by the lack of turnout when PCC elections are not held at the same time as other elections) show how little interest people have in this role. It is the only election I am aware of where people take an active interest in not voting (as opposed to apathy)
They provide accountability to the public and that is a good thing. Plenty of people don't vote ("don't vote it only encourages them", etc) on lots of things but there is no valid reason why any decision not to vote is a good one.
I disagree (and I can't think of anything I have disagreed with you on in the past - a first?).
There are scenarios where I may or may not approve of the role we are electing (eg elected mayors or cabinet - I prefer cabinet) but I will always vote, but for me this is so completely wrong and going down the line of elected judges, sheriffs and dog catchers who should be independent appointees.
I guess if a loony was likely to get elected I might vote to ensure s/he didn't or if there was an organised 'spoil ballot' campaign.
I don't want to add credence to the election and it is a toss up between not voting and spoilt ballot. I pick not voting because of the low turnout impact.
I could only find this:
"To be able to stand as a candidate at a Police and Crime Commissioner election in England (excluding London and Manchester) and Wales, you must be: - at least 18 years old on the day of your nomination - a British citizen, an eligible Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of a member state of the European Union, and - registered as a local government elector in a local council area that is within the police area in which you wish to stand, both at the time of your nomination and on polling day."
So anyone can stand, just about. That it is not popular is not the fault of the idea.
I'm not quite sure of the point you are making Topping. I like many do not think a Police Commissioner should be an elected office. It should be appointed. It should be independent of politics and should be an administrative role, efficiently enforcing the laws passed by elected politicians.
I do not want to go down the road of us electing people who enforce the rules like policemen and judges.
My point is that we are supposed to have policing by consent and I think it has become relatively acknowledged that sometimes, often perhaps, the police have branched out into areas where perhaps people don't want them to branch out into or have established practices that are illogical and counterproductive.
Having local accountability is imo (as you have noted!) a better idea because it's us that are being policed.
Even that bloke (no, not the then Home Secretary!) who wrote that coruscating book into the police said that one way to avoid the administrative and absurd practices was to have elected and therefore accountable people at the head of the police.
"I would start by getting rid of 25% of civilians and desk jockeys and using the money saved to bring in more frontline officers. I'd have them under the command of directly-elected Chief Constablies, responsible to their local electorate..."
OK they are good points and with which I generally agree. I also in addition get frustrated at the lack of resources aimed at fraud as the criminals have moved on from holding up wages vans and banks (because well they either don't exist any more or don't hold much actual money), but fraud is booming and causes real pain, even if it doesn't involve a shotgun or cosh (I have been watching too much Sweeney).
But is is arguable whether you appoint or elect someone competent/incompetent and I am very wary of electing people who enforce the law for obvious reasons.
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I also think he will do better with Hispanics overall this time as well. Julian Castro warned about this and there are signs of a slight shift to Trump in some of the polling.
He got 6% of the African America vote in 2016. I am going to interpret several as 4 points? So around Bush-vs-Gore levels.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes on the rich and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
538 does take polls from many sources but uses machine learning to work out how strongly or weakly they should be weighted.
I'm certain that their method of weighting different sources of informtion is more accurate than your personal opinion.
Regardless of my personal opinion - and of what you are certain about - the point still stands there is a difference between the two.
Has Nate Silver ever disclosed his methodology for weighting the polls and how he comes up with his percentage outcome? A lot of people seem to treat him as God when it comes to polling but I'm slightly sceptical. His explanations seem self-serving. He trumpets he was closer to most of the forecasts in 2016 when he gave Trump a 30% chance but he forgot a few days before he was only forecasting a c. 15% chance and that he was predicting something like a 15% chance Trump would win Wisconsin. His explanation is that late voters jumped for Trump but I have never really seen any evidence of that and it would seem to go against the grain of undecideds voting the "safest" candidate
In the run up to the 2008 election he gave a good description of his methodology without giving away so much that his competitors could just copy his model. He was using a Bayesian network using many polls and past results as the inputs, training the posterior parameter distributions, to be able to simulate the results in each state. The Bayesian structure meant that updating the model as new polls become available is easy. An important part of the prediction is that there are correlations between the states, which are also modelled. Another advantage with using Bayesian methods is that simulating the results comes almost for free, which is not the case with neural networks. In 2008 it was clear to me (a professional in modelling and prediction) that he had a good approach and was way way ahead of any other pundit.
Since then the world of machine learning has accelerated away, and there are many others doing what Nate Silver does, but he has built a good team and is still "the guy to beat". All of his US election predictions are plausble and he always gets good to very good results. If you can point me to a team that is doing even better, then great, tell me about them.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England
Max is right and you are wrong.
It doesn't matter why the SNP are pushing independence. Once it happens reality will intrude. Until then people can say what they like and Blair's asymmetric mess of devolution encourages that.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
The local elections next year at county and district level should be an opportunity for gains for the LDs in England, particularly continuing in opposition to new housing and going on Nimbyism and also seeking to make inroads into Tory Remain areas. Labour will be seeking to expand its lead in London at the Mayoral and Assembly elections and the SNP seeking to hold its Holyrood majority with the Greens and thus push for indyref2 while Welsh Labour will hope to hold on in Cardiff.
There will also be Police and Crime commissioner elections.
It should also be noted that in 2017 the Tories got 38% and Labour just 27% at the county elections compared to 42% and 40% at the general election while the LDs got 18% compared to just 7% at the general election. The LDs therefore did much better at county than national level and will seek to expand on that county council success next year, the Tories will seek to hold their seats and Labour to make gains too
PCC elections next year?
I predict a big swing to the cock & balls party.
I've spoilt my ballot in every PCC election so far and I'll do the same in May.
The PCC elections are the only elections I have not voted in. I did not even want to spoil my ballot paper as it gets included in the total and I was keen that the turnout be pitiful.
Why on earth would you not want to participate in local democracy?
That is a classic cut your nose to spite your face act.
Lunacy.
I do not believe PCC should be an elected post (many have the same view). My vote will make little difference to the actual outcome however the absence of my vote (which is clear by the lack of turnout when PCC elections are not held at the same time as other elections) show how little interest people have in this role. It is the only election I am aware of where people take an active interest in not voting (as opposed to apathy)
They provide accountability to the public and that is a good thing. Plenty of people don't vote ("don't vote it only encourages them", etc) on lots of things but there is no valid reason why any decision not to vote is a good one.
I disagree (and I can't think of anything I have disagreed with you on in the past - a first?).
There are scenarios where I may or may not approve of the role we are electing (eg elected mayors or cabinet - I prefer cabinet) but I will always vote, but for me this is so completely wrong and going down the line of elected judges, sheriffs and dog catchers who should be independent appointees.
I guess if a loony was likely to get elected I might vote to ensure s/he didn't or if there was an organised 'spoil ballot' campaign.
I don't want to add credence to the election and it is a toss up between not voting and spoilt ballot. I pick not voting because of the low turnout impact.
I could only find this:
"To be able to stand as a candidate at a Police and Crime Commissioner election in England (excluding London and Manchester) and Wales, you must be: - at least 18 years old on the day of your nomination - a British citizen, an eligible Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of a member state of the European Union, and - registered as a local government elector in a local council area that is within the police area in which you wish to stand, both at the time of your nomination and on polling day."
So anyone can stand, just about. That it is not popular is not the fault of the idea.
I'm not quite sure of the point you are making Topping. I like many do not think a Police Commissioner should be an elected office. It should be appointed. It should be independent of politics and should be an administrative role, efficiently enforcing the laws passed by elected politicians.
I do not want to go down the road of us electing people who enforce the rules like policemen and judges.
My point is that we are supposed to have policing by consent and I think it has become relatively acknowledged that sometimes, often perhaps, the police have branched out into areas where perhaps people don't want them to branch out into or have established practices that are illogical and counterproductive.
Having local accountability is imo (as you have noted!) a better idea because it's us that are being policed.
Even that bloke (no, not the then Home Secretary!) who wrote that coruscating book into the police said that one way to avoid the administrative and absurd practices was to have elected and therefore accountable people at the head of the police.
"I would start by getting rid of 25% of civilians and desk jockeys and using the money saved to bring in more frontline officers. I'd have them under the command of directly-elected Chief Constablies, responsible to their local electorate..."
OK they are good points and with which I generally agree. I also in addition get frustrated at the lack of resources aimed at fraud as the criminals have moved on from holding up wages vans and banks (because well they either don't exist any more or don't hold much actual money), but fraud is booming and causes real pain, even if it doesn't involve a shotgun or cosh (I have been watching too much Sweeney).
But is is arguable whether you appoint or elect someone competent/incompetent and I am very wary of electing people who enforce the law for obvious reasons.
Of course! But just as the recent election results: ******, *****, and of course ***** show, we are in the hands of the public, god luv 'em. And on balance I prefer to trust the public.
And I think your point about the changing nature of crime is well made and also can accord with having an elected police commissioner. If, say, the local police force is tardy in adjusting its focus to more relevant of prevalent crimes or criminal MOs, then without external pressure, there may be no incentive to do so. The public can provide this pressure via electing PCCs who agree with their priorities for the police.
Also apropos of nothijng much (except Mr Johnson's affiliation to SNP policies), can someone please point me to a source for the statement here recently by a PBer that there are 100, 000 commuters over the Anglo-Scottish border?
I'm either misremembering or missing something as this does not square with my knowledge of the Gretna or Berwick areas, still less between Sark and Coldstream.
A quick Google found me a statistical bulletin from 2017. 100,000 looks to be a bit generous (and wouldn't all be commuters). I'm sure with a bit more of a look you can find more recent data.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
Just 18 months beyond the December 2019 election is a bit early for 'UK Midterms' - still 3 years before likely date for next election. May 2022 fits that better.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
RCP also has Biden's lead in battleground states coming down again. Trafalgar has Trump up by 1 in Wisconsin in the latest poll.
As for the penny dropping, look at the reaction to scenes like the demonstrators screaming in the face of someone who won't do what they want. People are realising that doesn't play well with voters.
As Trump winning against Clinton last time despite Clinton having a lead in the polls seems to be a big part of the argument for Trump winning again, let's have a look at the polling. Personally I think the 538 average is better, but we can also use the RCP average if you think it's better.
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I have already posted a reason why I disagree with your statement. Do you have evidence or a plausible justification for ths, or is it just your obvious Pro-Trumpism saying this?
The two populist antisemitic outsiders are two peas of the same pod. Thank goodness our Trump lost both his elections and hopefully their Corbyn will lose his second by a landslide.
And Boris was described as Britain's Trump by The Donald himself.
Not sure why we're ascribing such weight to the words of the great man. Usually I thought most here believed pretty much the opposite of everything he said.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
Apropos of feck all, I re-signed up to Amazon Prime again to watch The Bureau (it's pretty good, much superior to what I guess is the nearest equivalent, Spooks), and after 4 episodes they're telling me I need to pay £2.49 to watch any subsequent ones. Is this they way they do things on Prime now? From memory I previously had free access to everything except new release films. Connards!
It is good and quite enlightening in some ways. I watched the first two series for free in their entirety on Prime, though. I wonder when it changed?
What was annoying then was that the subsequent series (which are allegedly not as good anyway) did switch to some paid channel or other.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
I'm not sure why you have such an issue with the 'dependency' of which you speak. There are times when Scotland is a net beneficiary of being in the UK, and times when it's a net contributor. This is absolutely fine because we're a small kingdom together. It's not a begging bowl, it's a degree of cooperation and mutual interdependence.
Regardless of my personal opinion - and of what you are certain about - the point still stands there is a difference between the two.
Has Nate Silver ever disclosed his methodology for weighting the polls and how he comes up with his percentage outcome? A lot of people seem to treat him as God when it comes to polling but I'm slightly sceptical. His explanations seem self-serving. He trumpets he was closer to most of the forecasts in 2016 when he gave Trump a 30% chance but he forgot a few days before he was only forecasting a c. 15% chance and that he was predicting something like a 15% chance Trump would win Wisconsin. His explanation is that late voters jumped for Trump but I have never really seen any evidence of that and it would seem to go against the grain of undecideds voting the "safest" candidate
These are two different questions: How the polling average works and how the prediction model works.
I'm not sure that he publishes the code for either, but the polling average is explained in quite a lot of detail here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/polls-policy-and-faqs/ The site also publishes data for what accuracy ratings each pollster gets, and the "house effect" of each.
The prediction model is also explained, but as far as I can tell only in quite general terms.
The Economist's model publishes the full source code for their (much more Biden-friendly) projections, if you understand R you can mess around with them yourself...
I do not see the analogy between our elections and the US midterms. Whatever happens, there are unlikely to be any national consequences in the way there can be in America.
In Scotland at least there will be national consequences of a sort. If the SNP plus their little green helpers get more than 50% of the vote on a manifesto committed to a second referendum I think that will be a game changer. Conversely, if they don't get a majority of the vote then Indyref2 can probably be resisted for several more years.
For Labour the Scottish elections are also important. They need to find a way to get back in the game up here if they are to be genuine contenders to be the next government. At the moment its not clear how they can do that but SKS really should be giving Scotland a lot of his attention.
If turnout in Scotland is circa 70% I would agree as to the significance of the Holyrood election. A circa 50% turnout, however, would suggest general apathy and the mandate argument much diminished. The lower turnout for Holyrood v Westminster rather suggests that voters see the former as a lesser authority.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
I'm not sure why you have such an issue with the 'dependency' of which you speak. There are times when Scotland is a net beneficiary of being in the UK, and times when it's a net contributor. This is absolutely fine because we're a small kingdom together. It's not a begging bowl, it's a degree of cooperation and mutual interdependence.
There is never going to be a situation where Scotland is a net contributor to the UK nation state, the SNP will continue to spend more than Scotland generates and continue to ask England to pay the bill and bitch about it. Independence is the only way to break this cycle, that or call time on devolution and have Westminster take the budget over again and align it with England.
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
RCP also has Biden's lead in battleground states coming down again. Trafalgar has Trump up by 1 in Wisconsin in the latest poll.
As for the penny dropping, look at the reaction to scenes like the demonstrators screaming in the face of someone who won't do what they want. People are realising that doesn't play well with voters.
As Trump winning against Clinton last time despite Clinton having a lead in the polls seems to be a big part of the argument for Trump winning again, let's have a look at the polling. Personally I think the 538 average is better, but we can also use the RCP average if you think it's better.
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
National averages are irrelevant it is the state polls and EC which matters as 2016 shows where Hillary won the popular vote but Trump won the EC.
I do not see the analogy between our elections and the US midterms. Whatever happens, there are unlikely to be any national consequences in the way there can be in America.
In Scotland at least there will be national consequences of a sort. If the SNP plus their little green helpers get more than 50% of the vote on a manifesto committed to a second referendum I think that will be a game changer. Conversely, if they don't get a majority of the vote then Indyref2 can probably be resisted for several more years.
For Labour the Scottish elections are also important. They need to find a way to get back in the game up here if they are to be genuine contenders to be the next government. At the moment its not clear how they can do that but SKS really should be giving Scotland a lot of his attention.
Trouble with SKS working Scotland hard is that he will still get handed his ass on a plate by Sturgeon. He may as well carry on with his steady as she goes, wise after the event tack that seems (seems) to have done him OK so far in England.
Not if he can win back voters who defected to SNP in 2015 and can restore Labour's vote share there to circa 30%. At that point many SNP seats become vulnerable - as happened in 2017.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
I'm not sure why you have such an issue with the 'dependency' of which you speak. There are times when Scotland is a net beneficiary of being in the UK, and times when it's a net contributor. This is absolutely fine because we're a small kingdom together. It's not a begging bowl, it's a degree of cooperation and mutual interdependence.
There is never going to be a situation where Scotland is a net contributor to the UK nation state, the SNP will continue to spend more than Scotland generates and continue to ask England to pay the bill and bitch about it. Independence is the only way to break this cycle, that or call time on devolution and have Westminster take the budget over again and align it with England.
Scottish gdp per capita is higher than any UK region bar London and the SE and it also has most of UK oil revenues, sometimes it is a net contributor to the UK
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
I absolutely understand what happened, you don't understand market enforced reality. The government are going to have to live under that and Boris will have to deal with it or resign, my money is on the latter.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Wherever your opinion lies on masks (and I was a grudging acceptor of them in shops), I think most can acknowledge that secondary schools are going to be a more challenging use case than shops were.
The teenager's one mask will be mostly used throughout the day and will be going on and then off again several times between lessons and, quite possibly, on the morning and evening bus as well.
Between times, it will be going, maybe in a plastic bag, maybe not, in a pocket with various other accoutrements that will then be contaminated as they come into use. Some masks will get lost around and about. Basically, if we're not careful then at-rest masks, in this particular case, could become as much a mechanism of spread as of prevention.
Ultimately, this is why tissues usurped handkerchiefs some decades ago, but with even disposable masks coming in at 60p a pop (Boots 50 pack price quoted), how will the same logic be applied here?
I use ribbon ones tied around my neck and just pull them up or down as required.
Now it isn’t going to be perfect but I suspect that approach is good enough and better than the putting it back in your pocket approach
Yes, I'm sure there are solutions to this that individuals can come up with. The important thing here is, in aggregate, what is actually going to happen in the school environment for a 5 minutes on / 1 hour off pattern. As ever, this one needs the government to go a step further with their advice on best practice to address such things. Past record suggests that is not entirely likely.
I thought that the idea of masks is to stop the wearer generating aerosols. If masks do that, then it doesn't matter at all how they are handled between uses. 99% of any contamination on them will be self-generated.
So, we're back to hand washing and evidence that surface contact transmission is not a big vector in practical terms for this virus.
Thanks for the answers and reminders for this one, I'm somewhat reassured, but also glad that they are not mandating mask wearing 7 hours a day!
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
I agree with your premise (that we can't let yields get out of control) but not your conclusion.
There are great signs that the economy is growing with a V shaped recovery and that the hit to this year may not be as much as the BoE had predicted. If next year sees good growth as I suspect then we can quickly put this recession behind us without being almost bankrupt.
It is worth remembering that we went into this recession in much better shape fiscally than 2007/08. Last year's deficit was a meagre 1.2% of GDP - higher than I'd have preferred but far lower than last time. So it won't take as much hopefully to get back to a position of debt to GDP falling.
Plus inflation is still on the floor so QE may have some road left. Meaningful debt that we actually pay interest on is not £2 trillion. There is no interest at all paid on QE "debt".
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Because he's full of nonsense.
Borrowing is appropriate now but post crisis it will need to be resolved and Sunak has shown zero signs that it wouldn't be. Just because HYUFD forcefully says whatever he's thinking at the moment doesn't make it so.
There won't be a need for much austerity though and people thinking there will are refighting the last war. Last time there was a problem because Brown was overspending even before the recession. That's not the case this time.
Regardless of my personal opinion - and of what you are certain about - the point still stands there is a difference between the two.
Has Nate Silver ever disclosed his methodology for weighting the polls and how he comes up with his percentage outcome? A lot of people seem to treat him as God when it comes to polling but I'm slightly sceptical. His explanations seem self-serving. He trumpets he was closer to most of the forecasts in 2016 when he gave Trump a 30% chance but he forgot a few days before he was only forecasting a c. 15% chance and that he was predicting something like a 15% chance Trump would win Wisconsin. His explanation is that late voters jumped for Trump but I have never really seen any evidence of that and it would seem to go against the grain of undecideds voting the "safest" candidate
These are two different questions: How the polling average works and how the prediction model works.
I'm not sure that he publishes the code for either, but the polling average is explained in quite a lot of detail here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/polls-policy-and-faqs/ The site also publishes data for what accuracy ratings each pollster gets, and the "house effect" of each.
The prediction model is also explained, but as far as I can tell only in quite general terms.
The Economist's model publishes the full source code for their (much more Biden-friendly) projections, if you understand R you can mess around with them yourself...
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
I absolutely understand what happened, you don't understand market enforced reality. The government are going to have to live under that and Boris will have to deal with it or resign, my money is on the latter.
I think he will deal with it. It won't be a deal breaker it will be the same as all governments deal with. By next year debt to GDP could be falling again already, that took nearly a decade after Browns overspending to achieve.
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I also think he will do better with Hispanics overall this time as well. Julian Castro warned about this and there are signs of a slight shift to Trump in some of the polling.
He got 6% of the African America vote in 2016. I am going to interpret several as 4 points? So around Bush-vs-Gore levels.
A believable range for a GOP candidate.
Of course if Trump improves his percentage among black voters from 6% to 10% and the black turnout increases back to the 2012 level, then he will still be down.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
I'm not sure why you have such an issue with the 'dependency' of which you speak. There are times when Scotland is a net beneficiary of being in the UK, and times when it's a net contributor. This is absolutely fine because we're a small kingdom together. It's not a begging bowl, it's a degree of cooperation and mutual interdependence.
There is never going to be a situation where Scotland is a net contributor to the UK nation state, the SNP will continue to spend more than Scotland generates and continue to ask England to pay the bill and bitch about it. Independence is the only way to break this cycle, that or call time on devolution and have Westminster take the budget over again and align it with England.
Agreed 100%
That is my thinking completely So do you want to see Scotland go independent too? Or would you rather see Scotland remain in this state indefinitely?
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Not if it still leads to economic growth out of a recession while sustaining public services and as the economy grows then you can start to reduce spending, Boris is a Keynesian not a monetarist.
Plus the Tories interest depends on keeping the Red Wall now and C2 fiscally populist socially conservative voters who they lead with by more than fiscally conservative, socially liberal ABs, without the former they will not get re elected
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
I agree with your premise (that we can't let yields get out of control) but not your conclusion.
There are great signs that the economy is growing with a V shaped recovery and that the hit to this year may not be as much as the BoE had predicted. If next year sees good growth as I suspect then we can quickly put this recession behind us without being almost bankrupt.
It is worth remembering that we went into this recession in much better shape fiscally than 2007/08. Last year's deficit was a meagre 1.2% of GDP - higher than I'd have preferred but far lower than last time. So it won't take as much hopefully to get back to a position of debt to GDP falling.
Plus inflation is still on the floor so QE may have some road left. Meaningful debt that we actually pay interest on is not £2 trillion. There is no interest at all paid on QE "debt".
The problem isn't the current interest rate on the debt, it's that we need the markets to buy £150bn worth of paper every year with no real chance of QE to plug the gap. That means we need to ensure fiscal discipline to ensure there is no severe rise in yields. There is no other way around it. We must ensure that we keep the confidence of the markets which means a balanced budget.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
I absolutely understand what happened, you don't understand market enforced reality. The government are going to have to live under that and Boris will have to deal with it or resign, my money is on the latter.
Japan and Italy have had debt as a percentage of gdp over 100% for years despite supposed 'market enforced reality'
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I have already posted a reason why I disagree with your statement. Do you have evidence or a plausible justification for ths, or is it just your obvious Pro-Trumpism saying this?
Some evidence that younger black voters are more pro-Trump than their elders and / or they are not sold on Biden:
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
I absolutely understand what happened, you don't understand market enforced reality. The government are going to have to live under that and Boris will have to deal with it or resign, my money is on the latter.
Japan and Italy have had debt as a percentage of gdp over 100% for years despite supposed 'market enforced reality'
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
RCP also has Biden's lead in battleground states coming down again. Trafalgar has Trump up by 1 in Wisconsin in the latest poll.
As for the penny dropping, look at the reaction to scenes like the demonstrators screaming in the face of someone who won't do what they want. People are realising that doesn't play well with voters.
As Trump winning against Clinton last time despite Clinton having a lead in the polls seems to be a big part of the argument for Trump winning again, let's have a look at the polling. Personally I think the 538 average is better, but we can also use the RCP average if you think it's better.
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
National averages are irrelevant it is the state polls and EC which matters as 2016 shows where Hillary won the popular vote but Trump won the EC.
In the EC it remains close
The state averages show the same thing, if you compare Trump-Clinton polling and Trump-Biden polling. Biden is doing way better than Clinton in the state polling at this point. I chose the national average to avoid boring people (including myself) by typing the same thing for all the swing states.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Are you ready for the barrage of abuse?
When they abuse you, you know they haven't got any actual evidence or arguments, so I'm not fussed about it. If anything it proves my point that the independence movement is built on nothing more than hatred of the English.
If you were a Scot who hated dependency as much as you do, which way would you vote?
Oh if I was Scottish I'd be voting for independence, it's the same basis of why I voted to leave the EU. The current arrangement for Scotland doesn't make any sense from either perspective. Scotland needs to come with its begging bowl to England for money, which is a humiliation IMO and the Westminster government fosters the hatred by trumping about how big the subsidy is every year.
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
I'm not sure why you have such an issue with the 'dependency' of which you speak. There are times when Scotland is a net beneficiary of being in the UK, and times when it's a net contributor. This is absolutely fine because we're a small kingdom together. It's not a begging bowl, it's a degree of cooperation and mutual interdependence.
There is never going to be a situation where Scotland is a net contributor to the UK nation state, the SNP will continue to spend more than Scotland generates and continue to ask England to pay the bill and bitch about it. Independence is the only way to break this cycle, that or call time on devolution and have Westminster take the budget over again and align it with England.
That's a political issue, not a financial one. The principle of the more prosperous parts of a country subsidising (to an extent) the less prosperous is well-established and is the case in most countries.
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
RCP also has Biden's lead in battleground states coming down again. Trafalgar has Trump up by 1 in Wisconsin in the latest poll.
As for the penny dropping, look at the reaction to scenes like the demonstrators screaming in the face of someone who won't do what they want. People are realising that doesn't play well with voters.
As Trump winning against Clinton last time despite Clinton having a lead in the polls seems to be a big part of the argument for Trump winning again, let's have a look at the polling. Personally I think the 538 average is better, but we can also use the RCP average if you think it's better.
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
National averages are irrelevant it is the state polls and EC which matters as 2016 shows where Hillary won the popular vote but Trump won the EC.
In the EC it remains close
The state averages show the same thing, if you compare Trump-Clinton polling and Trump-Biden polling. Biden is doing way better than Clinton in the state polling at this point. I chose the national average to avoid boring people (including myself) by typing the same thing for all the swing states.
State polling is generally dire, which is why none got Wisconsin right, only one got MI / PA right etc etc. I don't think Biden is doing better than Clinton in the swing states - RCP has Trump doing 1.2pp better than in 2016 (but it changes according to the date).
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS and education and police spending etc and he has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
I absolutely understand what happened, you don't understand market enforced reality. The government are going to have to live under that and Boris will have to deal with it or resign, my money is on the latter.
Japan and Italy have had debt as a percentage of gdp over 100% for years despite supposed 'market enforced reality'
Yes, and look at their economies. Disaster zones.
Plus he needs to learn the difference between debt and deficit. Like the UK Japan has been having to reduce its deficit every year since the GFC along a similar path to the UK. Because TINA applies.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
I agree with your premise (that we can't let yields get out of control) but not your conclusion.
There are great signs that the economy is growing with a V shaped recovery and that the hit to this year may not be as much as the BoE had predicted. If next year sees good growth as I suspect then we can quickly put this recession behind us without being almost bankrupt.
It is worth remembering that we went into this recession in much better shape fiscally than 2007/08. Last year's deficit was a meagre 1.2% of GDP - higher than I'd have preferred but far lower than last time. So it won't take as much hopefully to get back to a position of debt to GDP falling.
Plus inflation is still on the floor so QE may have some road left. Meaningful debt that we actually pay interest on is not £2 trillion. There is no interest at all paid on QE "debt".
The problem isn't the current interest rate on the debt, it's that we need the markets to buy £150bn worth of paper every year with no real chance of QE to plug the gap. That means we need to ensure fiscal discipline to ensure there is no severe rise in yields. There is no other way around it. We must ensure that we keep the confidence of the markets which means a balanced budget.
Of course we must but I'm pretty confident the Government would do that anyway. If debt to GDP is falling in the next year or two then fiscal discipline will have been restored already.
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Not if it still leads to economic growth out of a recession while sustaining public services and as the economy grows then you can start to reduce spending, Boris is a Keynesian not a monetarist.
Plus the Tories interest depends on keeping the Red Wall now and C2 fiscally populist socially conservative voters who they lead with by more than fiscally conservative, socially liberal ABs, without the former they will not get re elected
If Boris were a Keynesian, that would be one thing. Borrow in the bad times, save in the good times. Governments across the world have always been better at the first than the second.
But earlier, you have described Johnson as a Berlusconi-style populist; I happen to agree with you. And for populists, there is never a right time to move into frugal mode. Which is one reason why the Italian economy is in such a mess.
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I have already posted a reason why I disagree with your statement. Do you have evidence or a plausible justification for ths, or is it just your obvious Pro-Trumpism saying this?
Some evidence that younger black voters are more pro-Trump than their elders and / or they are not sold on Biden:
Have officially been made redundant. My employer believes that Arcadia is best practice - they want to furlough me and only pay furlough for parts of my notice period. As I have been there less than 2 years and have 3 months notice apparently they think the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is there to under-pay people contractual notice. At best it is a legal gray area despite the spirit of the rules not allowing the practice.
OK so I have another job in the offing. Thats hardly the point...
... Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
An interesting point. It means that you are arguing that Conservatives should vote Labour or LibDem.
I expect in 2024 a number of fiscal conservatives will vote Labour now Starmer has replaced Corbyn or LD.
Indeed my own father is a fiscal conservative who was scathing about Corbyn but surprisingly positive about Starmer and pretty dismissive of Boris now in terms of domestic policy.
Compared to 2015 a lot of Cameron voters are now voting Starmer Labour or LD while most UKIP voters and a lot of Labour leavers are now voting for the Boris Tories
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Because he's full of nonsense.
Borrowing is appropriate now but post crisis it will need to be resolved and Sunak has shown zero signs that it wouldn't be. Just because HYUFD forcefully says whatever he's thinking at the moment doesn't make it so.
There won't be a need for much austerity though and people thinking there will are refighting the last war. Last time there was a problem because Brown was overspending even before the recession. That's not the case this time.
It should be a lot easier this time, if we get the short, sharp recession, but it’s possible that GDP won’t return to the level it was before thanks to semi-permanent changes in work patterns, certain industries becoming unsustainable and even a reduction in population due to emigration.
The government need to, as they did a decade ago, tread the fine line between keeping spending under control and services running. Investment in infrastructure projects can be accelerated though, we need to get fibre broadband to the home and work on traffic bottlenecks on road and rail.
Non-fiscal stimulus is also critical, such the the recently announced planning reform, which costs the Treasury nothing but generates economic activity by getting government out of the way of business.
Dominic Green in today's Daily Telegraph: "America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And the way they’re going, they will lose."
Dominic Green compares the Democrat campaign with Remain in the EU referendum:
America’s next election, like its last one, is for the Democrats to lose. And they way they’re going, they will lose.
Like Remain before the EU referendum, the Democrats are campaigning with every conceivable institutional advantage.
Like Remain before the referendum, the Democratic elite shows a barely concealed contempt for the undecided, let alone the opposition.
Yep. Can't help having a really bad feeling about all this. Biden just ahead in swing states, piling up votes in safe counties, the bien pensant sure that 2nd term Trump would be such a disaster nobody will vote for him etc etc. Here we go again.
Hope I am wrong.
I know I have been open on here saying Trump will win so it won't come as a surprise to say I think you are right.
We had a fair few on here claiming that the riots and disorder would not help Trump because it wasn't showing up in the polls. It looks like the penny is starting to drop.
What's the polling evidence for this? Biden's lead is now out to 9.3% on 538, which is almost exactly where it was at the start of July. I don't really see any evidence of 'the penny starting to drop'.
The RCP average is 7.6. 538 seems to be influenced by a slew of Morning Consult daily polls.
RCP also has Biden's lead in battleground states coming down again. Trafalgar has Trump up by 1 in Wisconsin in the latest poll.
As for the penny dropping, look at the reaction to scenes like the demonstrators screaming in the face of someone who won't do what they want. People are realising that doesn't play well with voters.
As Trump winning against Clinton last time despite Clinton having a lead in the polls seems to be a big part of the argument for Trump winning again, let's have a look at the polling. Personally I think the 538 average is better, but we can also use the RCP average if you think it's better.
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
National averages are irrelevant it is the state polls and EC which matters as 2016 shows where Hillary won the popular vote but Trump won the EC.
In the EC it remains close
The state averages show the same thing, if you compare Trump-Clinton polling and Trump-Biden polling. Biden is doing way better than Clinton in the state polling at this point. I chose the national average to avoid boring people (including myself) by typing the same thing for all the swing states.
Have officially been made redundant. My employer believes that Arcadia is best practice - they want to furlough me and only pay furlough for parts of my notice period. As I have been there less than 2 years and have 3 months notice apparently they think the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is there to under-pay people contractual notice. At best it is a legal gray area despite the spirit of the rules not allowing the practice.
OK so I have another job in the offing. Thats hardly the point...
They want to hand you notice of redundancy *then* put you on furlough in lieu of notice? That’s almost certainly not allowed.
... Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
An interesting point. It means that you are arguing that Conservatives should vote Labour or LibDem.
I expect in 2024 a number of fiscal conservatives will vote Labour now Starmer has replaced Corbyn or LD.
Indeed my own father is a fiscal conservative who was scathing about Corbyn but surprisingly positive about Starmer and pretty dismissive of Boris now in terms of domestic policy.
Compared to 2015 a lot of Cameron voters are now voting Starmer Labour or LD while most UKIP voters and a lot of Labour leavers are now voting for the Boris Tories
If true, then the Tories' fortunes now hang upon the erstwhile Red Wall voters. If their attitude is 'Voted Tory because of Brexit and that tw*t Corbyn but never again' then the Tories are up a gum tree.
... Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
An interesting point. It means that you are arguing that Conservatives should vote Labour or LibDem.
If HYUFD led the Tories I would vote Lib Dem! I might even be tempted to join them . . .
Fine, you are a fiscally conservative but otherwise Orange Book Lib Dem anyway
Precisely the sort of voter the Tories need to attract to win.
Not that Blue Corbynites like yourself understand that.
You voted Tory in 2010 and 2017 when the Tories did not win a majority, the Tories won their biggest majority since 1987 in 2019 because of new voters from Labour who are fiscally populist and socially conservative
The Scotland deficit figures are quite shocking, I don't see any way to make these a reality other than independence. While Scotland has England paying for everything and using its credit rating to borrow money Scotland will never be forced into fiscal responsibility and it's politics will never move on from this awful feedback loop of blaming England for everything that's bad and the SNP taking credit for living beyond Scotland's means with no real penalty.
Not happening, the SNP are pushing independence and their voters mainly voting for higher taxes and higher spending than in England.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
England's deficit is not anything like Scotland's and Boris won't get the chance to spend more than we can afford. We have outstanding debt of £2tn, the markets will enforce fiscal discipline on the UK.
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Boris can say what he likes, the nation's can't afford for debt yields to go above 2% or the debt servicing costs become unaffordable. The economic and fiscal reality is about to hit the UK (and other European countries) extremely hard over the next decade. We're all finally going to have to pay our way because QE has run out of road.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
There is, Boris will just keep borrowing. Bar a few minor changes like moving defence spending more to cyberwarfare and perhaps a new digital tax , which now Sunak looks likely to drop anyway, Boris will not cut NHS spending and has even opposed ending the triple lock.
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
No question that borrow and spend is Johnson's plan, or even that it's a sensible plan in a crisis.
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Because he's full of nonsense.
Borrowing is appropriate now but post crisis it will need to be resolved and Sunak has shown zero signs that it wouldn't be. Just because HYUFD forcefully says whatever he's thinking at the moment doesn't make it so.
There won't be a need for much austerity though and people thinking there will are refighting the last war. Last time there was a problem because Brown was overspending even before the recession. That's not the case this time.
It should be a lot easier this time, if we get the short, sharp recession, but it’s possible that GDP won’t return to the level it was before thanks to semi-permanent changes in work patterns, certain industries becoming unsustainable and even a reduction in population due to emigration.
The government need to, as they did a decade ago, tread the fine line between keeping spending under control and services running. Investment in infrastructure projects can be accelerated though, we need to get fibre broadband to the home and work on traffic bottlenecks on road and rail.
Non-fiscal stimulus is also critical, such the the recently announced planning reform, which costs the Treasury nothing but generates economic activity by getting government out of the way of business.
Indeed.
With a culling of dead wood, a boost in efficiency and deregulation of barriers to growth it's quite possible that within a couple of years GDP will be ahead of where it was pre COVID.
Also apropos of nothijng much (except Mr Johnson's affiliation to SNP policies), can someone please point me to a source for the statement here recently by a PBer that there are 100, 000 commuters over the Anglo-Scottish border?
I'm either misremembering or missing something as this does not square with my knowledge of the Gretna or Berwick areas, still less between Sark and Coldstream.
A quick Google found me a statistical bulletin from 2017. 100,000 looks to be a bit generous (and wouldn't all be commuters). I'm sure with a bit more of a look you can find more recent data.
Many thanks for that. I was hoping the issue had been discussed and dissected on PB already, but seemingly not. The counting points are not on the border, but looking at the four main border crossing routes and ignoring the A75 for want of data I can't get it much above 50K total journeys, which includes also one-off trips, local traffic, and commercial traffic/lorries.
GERS takes the current structure of UK Government reserved taxation and spending as given. If the very purpose of independence is to take different choices (good or bad) about the type of economy and society that we live in, then a set of accounts based upon the current constitutional settlement and policy priorities will look different to the long-term finances of an independent Scotland. Put simply, it’s not possible to run structural deficits of this scale over the long-run (even if you believe that a country’s central bank can simply print money to pay for it…btw, they can’t)
But GERS does provide an accurate picture of where Scotland is in 2020. So, in doing so, today’s numbers set the starting point for a discussion about the choices and challenges that need to be addressed by those advocating independence or new fiscal arrangements. It’s not enough to say ‘everything will be fine’ or ‘look at this country, they can run a sensible fiscal balance so why can’t Scotland?’. Concrete proposals and ideas are needed.
... Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
An interesting point. It means that you are arguing that Conservatives should vote Labour or LibDem.
I expect in 2024 a number of fiscal conservatives will vote Labour now Starmer has replaced Corbyn or LD.
Indeed my own father is a fiscal conservative who was scathing about Corbyn but surprisingly positive about Starmer and pretty dismissive of Boris now in terms of domestic policy.
Compared to 2015 a lot of Cameron voters are now voting Starmer Labour or LD while most UKIP voters and a lot of Labour leavers are now voting for the Boris Tories
If true, then the Tories' fortunes now hang upon the erstwhile Red Wall voters. If their attitude is 'Voted Tory because of Brexit and that tw*t Corbyn but never again' then the Tories are up a gum tree.
A proposition for which there is no evidence. The North was already demographically trending Tory pre 2019.
Continue to ensure more Northerners get on the housing ladder that is the most important issue. Housing, housing, housing is the key to success. Home ownership rates are really improving in the North and it is London where it's going backwards ... and where are the Tories going backwards? Why surprise, surprise it's London.
HYUFD knows nothing about the North, I'm from here. The idea that the North is swinging due to social conservativism is nonsense. It's swinging due to the economy transforming up here in the past decade with record levels of house building thanks to Help To Buy and there being plenty of space up here to do it.
The hullabaloo about Rule Britannia at LNOTP is a fine British institution, almost as old as the Proms itself.
In two months time we'll be talking about poppies and some will act as if it's a surprise to be talking about them.
I predict new heights of retrograde hysteria this year. Compulsory weeping on the doorstep at 11am every day in November and you have to dress your kids as rates from HMS Repulse or be fined.
Have officially been made redundant. My employer believes that Arcadia is best practice - they want to furlough me and only pay furlough for parts of my notice period. As I have been there less than 2 years and have 3 months notice apparently they think the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is there to under-pay people contractual notice. At best it is a legal gray area despite the spirit of the rules not allowing the practice.
OK so I have another job in the offing. Thats hardly the point...
They want to hand you notice of redundancy *then* put you on furlough in lieu of notice? That’s almost certainly not allowed.
I've been on flexible furlough through July and August having been fully furloughed in June. The plan is to continue this through 2 of my 3 months notice and then PILON the rest. My point is that the company pockets the Job Retention cash and then pays me thousands less than my contract stipulates. The government intended to close this loophole and are openly telling off employers who are doing so. But as my contractual notice is more than a week longer than statutory notice the letter of the law appears not to apply despite the spirit being clear...
Have officially been made redundant. My employer believes that Arcadia is best practice - they want to furlough me and only pay furlough for parts of my notice period. As I have been there less than 2 years and have 3 months notice apparently they think the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is there to under-pay people contractual notice. At best it is a legal gray area despite the spirit of the rules not allowing the practice.
OK so I have another job in the offing. Thats hardly the point...
They want to hand you notice of redundancy *then* put you on furlough in lieu of notice? That’s almost certainly not allowed.
I've been on flexible furlough through July and August having been fully furloughed in June. The plan is to continue this through 2 of my 3 months notice and then PILON the rest. My point is that the company pockets the Job Retention cash and then pays me thousands less than my contract stipulates. The government intended to close this loophole and are openly telling off employers who are doing so. But as my contractual notice is more than a week longer than statutory notice the letter of the law appears not to apply despite the spirit being clear...
If you've been flexibly furloughed through this it seems reasonable to me that furlough continues during the notice period.
If they were opting to put you on furlough now but weren't previously then I think that would be a different matter.
At least you have a new role already. That's the main thing.
@MaxPB: has the demand side sustaining government debt undergone any kind of structural change in the last couple of decades? IANAE, but I imagine increasing life expectancy and pension needs across the world drives the demand side and has altered the balance.
It used to be said that 90% debt:GDP would hamstring an economy. Is that still true, or is cheap refinance, especially when our debt position relative to competitors who have also taken a COVID hit may not be massively changed.
I support a substantial one off hit to the economy to deal with a natural disaster, the principal of throwing our elderly to the wolves to keep the economy running, not to mention the long term sickness burden that would have borne and that it may not even have worked to keep the things afloat, was too thin end of a very big wedge for me. Not even if you go down a bad route and account that those elderly gave us Brexit.
I too think sensible fiscals should be part of the offer from the left/centre, but I'm not exactly sure what that means in today's global economy.
I wonder what the medical/mask experts on here think of this chaps view. His name is Professor of Medicine Jean-François Toussaint and he has quite a CV.
I see the "Trump is going ot do really well with minorities" rampers are out again.
Can you give some actual concrete numbers? What percentage of the African American vote do you think Trump will get?
I can't give you an exact number but I will say he will do - at least - several points better with African-Americans in 2016.
I have already posted a reason why I disagree with your statement. Do you have evidence or a plausible justification for ths, or is it just your obvious Pro-Trumpism saying this?
Some evidence that younger black voters are more pro-Trump than their elders and / or they are not sold on Biden:
No need to get snippy with your comment about obvious pro-Trumpism. This is a betting site.....
In all fairness, I asked you this directly and you said you were a Trump supporter, so it might be decent of you to let him know that.
Why is it "decent" ? @Alistair asked a question, I answered. Just making a reference to who I support or not is inconsequential. What it basically says is "I discount your answer because I don't agree with your view"
... Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
An interesting point. It means that you are arguing that Conservatives should vote Labour or LibDem.
I expect in 2024 a number of fiscal conservatives will vote Labour now Starmer has replaced Corbyn or LD.
Indeed my own father is a fiscal conservative who was scathing about Corbyn but surprisingly positive about Starmer and pretty dismissive of Boris now in terms of domestic policy.
Compared to 2015 a lot of Cameron voters are now voting Starmer Labour or LD while most UKIP voters and a lot of Labour leavers are now voting for the Boris Tories
If true, then the Tories' fortunes now hang upon the erstwhile Red Wall voters. If their attitude is 'Voted Tory because of Brexit and that tw*t Corbyn but never again' then the Tories are up a gum tree.
A proposition for which there is no evidence. The North was already demographically trending Tory pre 2019.
Continue to ensure more Northerners get on the housing ladder that is the most important issue. Housing, housing, housing is the key to success. Home ownership rates are really improving in the North and it is London where it's going backwards ... and where are the Tories going backwards? Why surprise, surprise it's London.
HYUFD knows nothing about the North, I'm from here. The idea that the North is swinging due to social conservativism is nonsense. It's swinging due to the economy transforming up here in the past decade with record levels of house building thanks to Help To Buy and there being plenty of space up here to do it.
They are socially conservative on immigration in the North certainly, though I agree on housing
The hullabaloo about Rule Britannia at LNOTP is a fine British institution, almost as old as the Proms itself.
In two months time we'll be talking about poppies and some will act as if it's a surprise to be talking about them.
I predict new heights of retrograde hysteria this year. Compulsory weeping on the doorstep at 11am every day in November and you have to dress your kids as rates from HMS Repulse or be fined.
GERS takes the current structure of UK Government reserved taxation and spending as given. If the very purpose of independence is to take different choices (good or bad) about the type of economy and society that we live in, then a set of accounts based upon the current constitutional settlement and policy priorities will look different to the long-term finances of an independent Scotland. Put simply, it’s not possible to run structural deficits of this scale over the long-run (even if you believe that a country’s central bank can simply print money to pay for it…btw, they can’t)
But GERS does provide an accurate picture of where Scotland is in 2020. So, in doing so, today’s numbers set the starting point for a discussion about the choices and challenges that need to be addressed by those advocating independence or new fiscal arrangements. It’s not enough to say ‘everything will be fine’ or ‘look at this country, they can run a sensible fiscal balance so why can’t Scotland?’. Concrete proposals and ideas are needed.
Concrete ideas are not needed to win the argument and any vote. They should be but are not.
The cases for and against are emotional (for the vast majority) and then people find, ignore or manipulate other factors to justify the emotional choice already made.
Comments
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/26/scotlands-union-dividend-rises-almost-2000-per-person-hammer/
But is is arguable whether you appoint or elect someone competent/incompetent and I am very wary of electing people who enforce the law for obvious reasons.
A believable range for a GOP candidate.
England's deficit has also gone up too anyway, both Sturgeon and Boris are big spenders and on the deficit closer to each other than to Cameron and Clegg
Since then the world of machine learning has accelerated away, and there are many others doing what Nate Silver does, but he has built a good team and is still "the guy to beat". All of his US election predictions are plausble and he always gets good to very good results. If you can point me to a team that is doing even better, then great, tell me about them.
It doesn't matter why the SNP are pushing independence. Once it happens reality will intrude. Until then people can say what they like and Blair's asymmetric mess of devolution encourages that.
And I think your point about the changing nature of crime is well made and also can accord with having an elected police commissioner. If, say, the local police force is tardy in adjusting its focus to more relevant of prevalent crimes or criminal MOs, then without external pressure, there may be no incentive to do so. The public can provide this pressure via electing PCCs who agree with their priorities for the police.
Oh and you can never watch too much Sweeney.
https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/scottish-transport-statistics-no-36-2017-edition/chapter-5-road-traffic/#Table5.7
I've said it many, many times - Scotland can and would be a perfectly viabe Independent country. There would be a shock to the system for 5-7 years and there would be eye watering austerity and tax rises for that period but I'd say it's a price worth paying to be independent.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/21/national-debt-exceeds-2-trillion-first-time/
Yet Boris has confirmed austerity is over and will carry on spending regardless to keep the Red Wall, the markets can say what they like we have a populist government now.
Indeed the LDs assuming Ed Davey becomes leader will be closer to being deficit hawks than this Boris Tory government is
Here they have the national averages for both 2016 and 2020, running from september the previous year to August 26th:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/trump-vs-biden-national-polls-2020-vs-2016/
Trump's best polling against Clinton at this point was a 1.2% lead (for Trump!) at the end of July 2016.
Trump's best polling so far against Biden was a 4% Biden lead back in January.
However you look at it, and whichever averages you use, Biden is polling way better than Clinton so far. Trump's best chance is NOT 2016 repeating itself (which might mean eg Biden getting 1.9% lower national lead in the actual vote compared to the RCP polling average at this stage ie a 5.7% national lead and as good as certain electoral college majority). His best chance is the news, especially the economic news, getting a lot better before November AND that changing enough people's minds. Which it might not, given that even when the economy was doing well Trump's approval ratings were rarely much better than they are now, and most people seem to have made up their minds already. That probably makes him a 2-1 shot at best at the moment. Certainly not favourite.
You can go on about what Boris wants until you're blue in the face, it won't change what the economic and fiscal reality is. The nation is almost bankrupt, there's no money left to spend.
What was annoying then was that the subsequent series (which are allegedly not as good anyway) did switch to some paid channel or other.
I'm not sure that he publishes the code for either, but the polling average is explained in quite a lot of detail here:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/polls-policy-and-faqs/
The site also publishes data for what accuracy ratings each pollster gets, and the "house effect" of each.
The prediction model is also explained, but as far as I can tell only in quite general terms.
The Economist's model publishes the full source code for their (much more Biden-friendly) projections, if you understand R you can mess around with them yourself...
You still do not understand what happened at GE19. We elected a populist PM who cares primarily about his popularity and is culturally and economically populist, Boris is the British Berlusconi not a deficit hawk and you are deluded if you think he will do much about it.
Indeed a Starmer and Davey government after 2024 is more likely to cut spending than this Boris government is
In the EC it remains close
But isn't borrowing to spend to keep client voters happy the sort of thing that always ends in tears? And I know as well as you that "Boris" has no intention at all of being around when the bills come in, clearing up the mess is for some other sucker, but if you have the Conservative party's long-term interests at heart, why so glib?
Thanks for the answers and reminders for this one, I'm somewhat reassured, but also glad that they are not mandating mask wearing 7 hours a day!
There are great signs that the economy is growing with a V shaped recovery and that the hit to this year may not be as much as the BoE had predicted. If next year sees good growth as I suspect then we can quickly put this recession behind us without being almost bankrupt.
It is worth remembering that we went into this recession in much better shape fiscally than 2007/08. Last year's deficit was a meagre 1.2% of GDP - higher than I'd have preferred but far lower than last time. So it won't take as much hopefully to get back to a position of debt to GDP falling.
Plus inflation is still on the floor so QE may have some road left. Meaningful debt that we actually pay interest on is not £2 trillion. There is no interest at all paid on QE "debt".
Borrowing is appropriate now but post crisis it will need to be resolved and Sunak has shown zero signs that it wouldn't be. Just because HYUFD forcefully says whatever he's thinking at the moment doesn't make it so.
There won't be a need for much austerity though and people thinking there will are refighting the last war. Last time there was a problem because Brown was overspending even before the recession. That's not the case this time.
That is my thinking completely So do you want to see Scotland go independent too? Or would you rather see Scotland remain in this state indefinitely?
Plus the Tories interest depends on keeping the Red Wall now and C2 fiscally populist socially conservative voters who they lead with by more than fiscally conservative, socially liberal ABs, without the former they will not get re elected
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/ucla-study-finds-younger-black-voters-have-been-trending-toward-trump
https://apnews.com/6cbd8c13529fee67c42e417175c425e5
https://theconversation.com/young-black-americans-not-sold-on-biden-the-democrats-or-voting-143884
No need to get snippy with your comment about obvious pro-Trumpism. This is a betting site.....
Agreed 100% again.
But earlier, you have described Johnson as a Berlusconi-style populist; I happen to agree with you. And for populists, there is never a right time to move into frugal mode. Which is one reason why the Italian economy is in such a mess.
Not that Blue Corbynites like yourself understand that.
OK so I have another job in the offing. Thats hardly the point...
Indeed my own father is a fiscal conservative who was scathing about Corbyn but surprisingly positive about Starmer and pretty dismissive of Boris now in terms of domestic policy.
Compared to 2015 a lot of Cameron voters are now voting Starmer Labour or LD while most UKIP voters and a lot of Labour leavers are now voting for the Boris Tories
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1298572588378185728?s=20
The government need to, as they did a decade ago, tread the fine line between keeping spending under control and services running. Investment in infrastructure projects can be accelerated though, we need to get fibre broadband to the home and work on traffic bottlenecks on road and rail.
Non-fiscal stimulus is also critical, such the the recently announced planning reform, which costs the Treasury nothing but generates economic activity by getting government out of the way of business.
https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1297978637556252672?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1298469280472879104?s=20
With a culling of dead wood, a boost in efficiency and deregulation of barriers to growth it's quite possible that within a couple of years GDP will be ahead of where it was pre COVID.
But GERS does provide an accurate picture of where Scotland is in 2020. So, in doing so, today’s numbers set the starting point for a discussion about the choices and challenges that need to be addressed by those advocating independence or new fiscal arrangements. It’s not enough to say ‘everything will be fine’ or ‘look at this country, they can run a sensible fiscal balance so why can’t Scotland?’. Concrete proposals and ideas are needed.
https://fraserofallander.org/scottish-economy/gers/and-were-off-government-expenditure-and-revenue-scotland-2019-20/
NEW THREAD
Continue to ensure more Northerners get on the housing ladder that is the most important issue. Housing, housing, housing is the key to success. Home ownership rates are really improving in the North and it is London where it's going backwards ... and where are the Tories going backwards? Why surprise, surprise it's London.
HYUFD knows nothing about the North, I'm from here. The idea that the North is swinging due to social conservativism is nonsense. It's swinging due to the economy transforming up here in the past decade with record levels of house building thanks to Help To Buy and there being plenty of space up here to do it.
If they were opting to put you on furlough now but weren't previously then I think that would be a different matter.
At least you have a new role already. That's the main thing.
It used to be said that 90% debt:GDP would hamstring an economy. Is that still true, or is cheap refinance, especially when our debt position relative to competitors who have also taken a COVID hit may not be massively changed.
I support a substantial one off hit to the economy to deal with a natural disaster, the principal of throwing our elderly to the wolves to keep the economy running, not to mention the long term sickness burden that would have borne and that it may not even have worked to keep the things afloat, was too thin end of a very big wedge for me. Not even if you go down a bad route and account that those elderly gave us Brexit.
I too think sensible fiscals should be part of the offer from the left/centre, but I'm not exactly sure what that means in today's global economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ulA8u05Z-Q
Don't mess with a scientist!
The cases for and against are emotional (for the vast majority) and then people find, ignore or manipulate other factors to justify the emotional choice already made.