If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Can I ask for perspectives on my situation with work? I've been made redundant from my Commercial Manager role - in essence the business is downsizing and they can't afford me. We haven't been able to reach an agreement about their use of the Arcadia stratagem to underpay my notice by using the furlough scheme. A proportion of my role has been passed to overworked / under-qualified colleagues to bollocks up. I and they and most of us are working 3 day weeks (and furloughed the rest) which in my case meant I just had a 6 day weekend and thus trying to progress anything is (as my similarly shit-canned Operations Manager colleague put it) like wading through Glue.
The business wants me relentlessly seeking commercial opportunities - apparently its Critical. Yet apparently the way to do so is emasculate me, fire me, under pay me and ensure that progress is painfully and abjectly slow. My question then is this - why am I still here? The business wanting to keep me on the books through to the end of the Furlough scheme I can understand. But leaving me in a role they have already discarded? I'm going to hand projects and major customer relationships over to my number two who is perfectly capable - beyond that I am baffled what the game is.
I think the boss wants my experience and ideas and expertise. Having already fired me. He proposed that having fired me I then had 2 months to see what new business we could win and if enough then un-fire me. When he gets back off holiday (yes, I have had a "consultation" process leading to redundancy which he trigged the afternoon he went on holiday) I need to discuss with him their dodgy practices with regards to pay and effective breach of contract. I am Not Happy. Yet he envisages that I will graft away fully committed.
This job has filled in general management experience I was short. And some great examples of what not to do. So I appreciate that. But I am baffled as to what they think I am going to be doing.
First step: Identify in a few words
1) What is the problem you are trying to solve
2) Within the constraints of reality, what would count as a solution
3) What is your desired outcome.
At which point you probably know whether you need: An employment lawyer, a spanner and a tube of superglue to chuck in the works, or to take the best deal you can achieve yourself.
I am more bemused than anything. What they are doing will cost me £2-3k. Which stings. But I don't think I am prepared to stress myself over it and throw money at pursuing it - the Unions are in effect representing me by going after Arcadia. If using CJRS monies to underpay contractual notice is illegal we will soon know. Apparently just because Alok Sharma says its wrong doesn't make it so. I have a screen grab of a Business department email to an employment lawyer who says "we would not expect an employer to take advantage of CJRS to make someone redundant on less favourable terms than they would otherwise have received".
I am sure their intention was that my company and Arcadia and others cannot do what they are doing. But the emergency legislation to close the loophole did half a job...
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
Why are the government imploring us on their knees to go back to our lives schlepping in central London then?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
Edit: your new comment is of course a second-order issue, and a valid one. But it stems from the BlairiteCameronite mess and the refusal of the English legislators to go for an English pmt. That's the root of the problem (or rather roots).
If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
Why are the government imploring us on their knees to go back to our lives schlepping in central London then?
If we're insignificant, they can do without.
The Government aren't. Some whining prats like Littlejohn in the media are, but the Government via its Cabinet like Hancock are not.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Another boost for the youngsters of the well off - the size and quality of their housing will make it easier for them to get jobs and succeed in employment, creating yet another circle to widen the gap between haves and have nots and defeat meritocracy.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
On the back of Pelosi urging "no debates" perhaps? Mr Market is seeing the Dems panicking - becausue they now know they have picked a dud....
If the virus has been good for anything it's ending the lengthy and exhausting commute for people to sit in some soulless office for stuff they could do just as easily at home.
It's one of the best things to happen for the environment too.
Yes the change is going to be hard on some people and businesses, but that's just life unfortunately.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Another boost for the youngsters of the well off - the size and quality of their housing will make it easier for them to get jobs and succeed in employment, creating yet another circle to widen the gap between haves and have nots and defeat meritocracy.
Arguably - yes
Where I work, the company has a no-going-to-the-office-without-written-permission policy. You submit a request a week in advance.... And they strongly imply that it better be a good reason...
About 10% went back because they are unable to WFH - simply no equipment, space etc.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
On the back of Pelosi urging "no debates" perhaps? Mr Market is seeing the Dems panicking - becausue they now know they have picked a dud....
I think Biden was still the Democrats best chance of winning this year, however if Trump gets re elected it will be because of a bounce he got off this convention and as most Presidents do
If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
Why are the government imploring us on their knees to go back to our lives schlepping in central London then?
If we're insignificant, they can do without.
The Government aren't. Some whining prats like Littlejohn in the media are, but the Government via its Cabinet like Hancock are not.
I'm satil puzzled - even the Graun is in on it, its current coronafeed is saying "a government campaign to encourage workers to return to the office expected to be launched next week."
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
If tghe Tories like them, then it works.
And if the Tories don't? Or want to play silly buggers?
How long before Trump is favourite in the betting?
Some of us have been saying this for a while now. Below the surface, and not reported on CNN, there’s a brewing backlash.
It's hardly surprising.
Trump is not everyone's cup of tea to say the least, but the opposition have been in toddler tantrum mode ever since he got elected and have been encouraging agitators to riot in US cities for the past two months for a reason I can't quite fathom.
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or, with the ability to cash out positions in betting - someone is doing a ramp?
The Ministry of Propaganda is in full swing today.
No risk to kids (let's just forget about parents and grandparents).
Get back to the office or face the sack - it's for your own good you know. And don't even think about taking a packed lunch!
In the latter they seem to have totally forgotten that in many offices only around 30% of the desks can be used due to social distancing requirements. Where there is already a degree of hot desking this means only enough space for 20% of the workforce anyway.
If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
Why are the government imploring us on their knees to go back to our lives schlepping in central London then?
If we're insignificant, they can do without.
The Government aren't. Some whining prats like Littlejohn in the media are, but the Government via its Cabinet like Hancock are not.
I'm satil puzzled - even the Graun is in on it, its current coronafeed is saying "a government campaign to encourage workers to return to the office expected to be launched next week."
There's a world of difference between saying "its safe to go back to work if you want to do so" and "you must go back to work or you will lose your job".
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Another boost for the youngsters of the well off - the size and quality of their housing will make it easier for them to get jobs and succeed in employment, creating yet another circle to widen the gap between haves and have nots and defeat meritocracy.
Office working and commuting distorts the market and the environment. People buy/rent rabbit hutch flats near public transport. It can be as small (and expensive) as possible because you don't work there and don't even eat there much. So yes, a problem once people have to WFH. But the ending of mandatory commuting frees people from having to live in a rabbit hutch. They can live somewhere they actually want to. With space. As the rona is beaten local work hubs can provide an office space for people who can't / won't work at home. With all the supporting food / retail shacks needed.
All businesses want to reduce overheads. Office leases are massive overheads - being able to both cut this and have employees bear their own costs - and thank you for it - is too good to pass up no matter what cabinet luddites say.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The best model is to let people decide for themselves and the Government to say "this is none of our business, you do what you want to do".
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It depends what their tactics are.
The SNP have succeeded as a "standing up for Scotland" party. If the Tories can set themselves up as a "standing up for England" party then why would it not work?
Oppositions oppose, its what they do. If the Government relies upon the Opposition to get bills through then they are very hamstrung right from the start.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It would mean we have an English Parliament in all but name within a Federal UK Parliament at Westminster
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
If tghe Tories like them, then it works.
And if the Tories don't? Or want to play silly buggers?
I couldn't say. It's up to them and ultimatelyt their voters and their paymasters.
As I said in an addendum (which I addeds too latre, sorry) that's the consequences of the Blair-Cameron devolution settlement and the persistent equation of Westminster = English Pmt.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Another boost for the youngsters of the well off - the size and quality of their housing will make it easier for them to get jobs and succeed in employment, creating yet another circle to widen the gap between haves and have nots and defeat meritocracy.
Office working and commuting distorts the market and the environment. People buy/rent rabbit hutch flats near public transport. It can be as small (and expensive) as possible because you don't work there and don't even eat there much. So yes, a problem once people have to WFH. But the ending of mandatory commuting frees people from having to live in a rabbit hutch. They can live somewhere they actually want to. With space. As the rona is beaten local work hubs can provide an office space for people who can't / won't work at home. With all the supporting food / retail shacks needed.
All businesses want to reduce overheads. Office leases are massive overheads - being able to both cut this and have employees bear their own costs - and thank you for it - is too good to pass up no matter what cabinet luddites say.
Each business is different, its not a binary wfh is better or the office is better. Clearly more businesses will go office-less and those that do keep offices will have more wfh. Those trends would have happened anyway but have been accelerated significantly. To what extent none of us know despite the confidence which lots of posters have on this.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
No its not.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It would mean we have an English Parliament in all but name within a Federal UK Parliament at Westminster
But under the above scenario this "English Parliament in all but name" gets nothing done at all.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
If tghe Tories like them, then it works.
And if the Tories don't? Or want to play silly buggers?
I couldn't say. It's up to them and ultimatelyt their voters and their paymasters.
As I said in an addendum (which I addeds too latre, sorry) that's the consequences of the Blair-Cameron devolution settlement and the persistent equation of Westminster = English Pmt.
Precisely, which is the problem. Asymmetric devolution was always insane, the West Lothian Question always needed an answer.
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or, with the ability to cash out positions in betting - someone is doing a ramp?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Or maybe this is an overreaction to the RNC Convention that has just happened?
Or maybe this is profit-taking and they still think Biden will win?
Or maybe this is someone trying to make the RNC Convention look like its moved the markets? A million is chicken feed when it comes to marketing spend.
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
Yes, quite a head of steam building up for Trump in the betting.
That money will look smart if what it anticipates - the polls narrowing sharply over the next couple of weeks - actually happens.
To which one can only at this point utter the evergreen banality - we will see.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The best model is to let people decide for themselves and the Government to say "this is none of our business, you do what you want to do".
Well yes, I agree. And I wouldn't want the government to get involved. I'm merely saying that this debate is again tending to the binary – it need not.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
What do you mean "if"? WTO will be a catastrofuck. And thats according to the head of the WTO An FTA will be dictated by the EU where to allow the UK to save face we get to chose the colour of the binder its printed inside.
Either way, this is not going to be a success. The Tories will not be able to blame the perfidious Europeans for it and the people who voted for things getting better aren't going to reward your party for things getting worse.
Johnson can still rescue this. Capitulate totally. As he did when he put the customs border down the Irish Sea. He can triumphantly remove the European threat to Derail our Trade by simply Cementing into Law our right to go negotiate trade deals which we will start doing in 2732. We decide that the EU dictating the laws and standards we already have and helped write is better than the Americans dictating worse standards to their benefit and our detriment.
He won't. Because he is a liar a cheat and a fool.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
If tghe Tories like them, then it works.
And if the Tories don't? Or want to play silly buggers?
I couldn't say. It's up to them and ultimatelyt their voters and their paymasters.
As I said in an addendum (which I addeds too latre, sorry) that's the consequences of the Blair-Cameron devolution settlement and the persistent equation of Westminster = English Pmt.
Precisely, which is the problem. Asymmetric devolution was always insane, the West Lothian Question always needed an answer.
Having said that, the Scottish Pmt has functioned for most of its life at Holyrood with the largest party relying on enough of the opposition to vote for it - either in formal coalition or on case by case (e.g. SNP giving the Tories more police). In some cases the largest party was voted down (e.g. imposition of the Edinburgh Trams by all except the SNP). The Tories were quite happy with that - and it was originally instituted by a Labout-LD gerrymandering of the voting system.
Why should Westminster be immune from such considerations when it comes to English policies?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Trump still 5 to get most votes, seems out of line with 2.1 to win. (Instinctively out of line rather than checked through a model).
You can also back him at bigger odds to get between 46-55 of the vote than to win. No idea how he gets 55%+ of the vote without blatant rigging but plenty of scenarios where he gets 46-51% of the vote and loses.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
What do you mean "if"? WTO will be a catastrofuck. And thats according to the head of the WTO An FTA will be dictated by the EU where to allow the UK to save face we get to chose the colour of the binder its printed inside.
Either way, this is not going to be a success. The Tories will not be able to blame the perfidious Europeans for it and the people who voted for things getting better aren't going to reward your party for things getting worse.
Johnson can still rescue this. Capitulate totally. As he did when he put the customs border down the Irish Sea. He can triumphantly remove the European threat to Derail our Trade by simply Cementing into Law our right to go negotiate trade deals which we will start doing in 2732. We decide that the EU dictating the laws and standards we already have and helped write is better than the Americans dictating worse standards to their benefit and our detriment.
He won't. Because he is a liar a cheat and a fool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah you've been saying it won't be a success since before the Referendum.
We've been saying it will be.
You've lost the votes. Its time to find out who is right.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It depends what their tactics are.
The SNP have succeeded as a "standing up for Scotland" party. If the Tories can set themselves up as a "standing up for England" party then why would it not work?
Oppositions oppose, its what they do. If the Government relies upon the Opposition to get bills through then they are very hamstrung right from the start.
But under this hypothetical situation, the government would get budgets passed, would be able to ratify international treaties etc. They would only be hamstrung on English-only laws, everything else carries on as normal.
The effect is that the Conservatives would be seen as blocking English-only laws, for which the government will be able to claim the "Conservatives are bad for England".
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
Just heard the betfair guy on the radio saying there was a massive surge in action overnight powering Trump to a 49% chance. A million quid in the last 24 hours.
A bunch of those dunces who think that moving political betting actually effects the outcome, maybe?
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
Indeed.
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
Or maybe they fear he might win and this is insurance money? Who gains and who loses if he wins?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It depends what their tactics are.
The SNP have succeeded as a "standing up for Scotland" party. If the Tories can set themselves up as a "standing up for England" party then why would it not work?
Oppositions oppose, its what they do. If the Government relies upon the Opposition to get bills through then they are very hamstrung right from the start.
But under this hypothetical situation, the government would get budgets passed, would be able to ratify international treaties etc. They would only be hamstrung on English-only laws, everything else carries on as normal.
The effect is that the Conservatives would be seen as blocking English-only laws, for which the government will be able to claim the "Conservatives are bad for England".
Quite. Labour ended up blocking entire acts and even budgets whjich included special provisions which they had demanded in the Scottish Pmt. It did not look good.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
I suppose it has to go in for completeness but the 1st para can be safely skipped here for those with time constraints.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
And how would such a Government ever pass any English only laws?
Very easily. They just have to be ones approved by a majority of MPs for Emglish constituencies.
Which the Tories would have a majority of on those numbers, do you see the issue yet?
It would like Holyrood being abolished, Westminster passing Scottish laws but only if a majority of Scottish MPs back them - with the Westminster Government being Tory and Scottish MPs being SNP. Would the SNP play along with the Tory Government?
Its the same as that but reversed.
You said "English-only" laws. That's not Englsh-only.
It is English-only that I'm talking about.
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Will it really help the Conservtive party if no English-only laws passed, but fail at any attempt to bring the Lab+SNP+LD government down because that is a UK matter?
It depends what their tactics are.
The SNP have succeeded as a "standing up for Scotland" party. If the Tories can set themselves up as a "standing up for England" party then why would it not work?
Oppositions oppose, its what they do. If the Government relies upon the Opposition to get bills through then they are very hamstrung right from the start.
But under this hypothetical situation, the government would get budgets passed, would be able to ratify international treaties etc. They would only be hamstrung on English-only laws, everything else carries on as normal.
The effect is that the Conservatives would be seen as blocking English-only laws, for which the government will be able to claim the "Conservatives are bad for England".
We'll see, or the Government will look incompetent and "in office but not in power".
Plus of course in this scenario the Tories will be able to pick and choose which fights to have.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
The SNP would jump at EEA. With Scotland and rUK in the Single Market, an independent Scotland joining the EU would be seen as an "upgrade".
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
What do you mean "if"? WTO will be a catastrofuck. And thats according to the head of the WTO An FTA will be dictated by the EU where to allow the UK to save face we get to chose the colour of the binder its printed inside.
Either way, this is not going to be a success. The Tories will not be able to blame the perfidious Europeans for it and the people who voted for things getting better aren't going to reward your party for things getting worse.
Johnson can still rescue this. Capitulate totally. As he did when he put the customs border down the Irish Sea. He can triumphantly remove the European threat to Derail our Trade by simply Cementing into Law our right to go negotiate trade deals which we will start doing in 2732. We decide that the EU dictating the laws and standards we already have and helped write is better than the Americans dictating worse standards to their benefit and our detriment.
He won't. Because he is a liar a cheat and a fool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah you've been saying it won't be a success since before the Referendum.
We've been saying it will be.
You've lost the votes. Its time to find out who is right.
Indeed! I'm quite comfortable quoting the head of the WTO saying WTO won't work. I'm quite comfortable quoting the logistics industry. The ports. The software engineers laughing at the idea that starting now we will have a new IT system in place and working by new year.
Perhaps they will all be proven wrong. Fuck experts. What do they know.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
The real question is how the secret service managed to get the virus released in China at just the right time to overshadow the end of the transition period and hide the damage it will be doing?
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
What do you mean "if"? WTO will be a catastrofuck. And thats according to the head of the WTO An FTA will be dictated by the EU where to allow the UK to save face we get to chose the colour of the binder its printed inside.
Either way, this is not going to be a success. The Tories will not be able to blame the perfidious Europeans for it and the people who voted for things getting better aren't going to reward your party for things getting worse.
Johnson can still rescue this. Capitulate totally. As he did when he put the customs border down the Irish Sea. He can triumphantly remove the European threat to Derail our Trade by simply Cementing into Law our right to go negotiate trade deals which we will start doing in 2732. We decide that the EU dictating the laws and standards we already have and helped write is better than the Americans dictating worse standards to their benefit and our detriment.
He won't. Because he is a liar a cheat and a fool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah you've been saying it won't be a success since before the Referendum.
We've been saying it will be.
You've lost the votes. Its time to find out who is right.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
I think what the government could do is force train companies to offer 2-4 days per week season tickets and charge the proportional rate. One of the huge issues people have with one day at home is that they're still paying for a monthly ticket but they only use it for 4 days and lots of people say the same thing about 2 or 3 days per week. The cost of commuting doesn't really go down with 3 or 4 days in office because you still need a season ticket or you end up in the daily return trap. In London it's not so bad because I just use contactless PAYG, but for those coming in from Hertfordshire or Surrey there is no saving for doing 1 or 2 days from home.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
The SNP would jump at EEA. With Scotland and rUK in the Single Market, an independent Scotland joining the EU would be seen as an "upgrade".
If the UK was in the EEA then the evidence is swing voters in Scotland would shift from YES under WTO to NO under EEA.
Even the SNP and Sturgeon said they would accept EEA after the Brexit vote so if the whole UK was in EEA they would have nothing to complain about
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
The SNP would jump at EEA. With Scotland and rUK in the Single Market, an independent Scotland joining the EU would be seen as an "upgrade".
If the UK was in the EEA then the evidence is swing voters in Scotland would shift from YES under WTO to NO under EEA
Has anyone who is banging on about how Brexit will be a failure got any new lines or arguments that weren't used in the 2016 referendum?
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
The argument is entirely different. The referendum campaign was about the pros and cons of EU membership. We've now moved onto implementation of a new trading relationship having settled that issue and left the EU. Nobody - on any side - argued for no deal in the referendum. So no, we aren't banging on with the same old arguments. We left. This is about the future.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
It saves commuting costs for half the week however
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
In old money Biden is 10/11 with Trump 11/10, I'm genuinely amazed. I really thought a year ago the Democrats would have walked in with any candidate.
That might still be the case but despite every media outlet painting Trump in such a bad light (over here) the Americans clearly see it differently. I don't follow the US enough to make a judgement, my point is the view where it counts is nowhere near as negative as the view from here.
It isn't a massive secret. A lot of American are incredibly racist in a way you simply don't see here.
Yeah, yeah clutch your pearls at my terribleness but the research is abundantly clear.
A huge section of poor rural white Americans will repeatedly choose options that are economically bad for them as long as it ensures equally bad if not worse outcomes for Black people.
White supremicism is a mainstream political viewpoint in America.
Betting on American politics without understanding how deeply ingrained their racism is is a sure fire way to the poor house.
I've only been once, to NY so I can't comment, but you make my point about the mainstream media here as opposed to tens of millions of Americans.
With absolutely no financial gain on my part, the BBC meltdown should Trump get back in will be sumptuous. And further confirmation of how detached they are.
I'm sorry, and don't take this personally, but the people claiming they are going to enjoy "the BBC meltdown should Trump get back in" come across as arseholes.
Somewhat out of date arseholes also, owning the libs is so 2016. Nowadays it's all '4 more years of Trump will be the left's fault cos they chose Biden as a candidate'. Same folk, mind.
Has anyone who is banging on about how Brexit will be a failure got any new lines or arguments that weren't used in the 2016 referendum?
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
The argument is entirely different. The referendum campaign was about the pros and cons of EU membership. We've now moved onto implementation of a new trading relationship having settled that issue and left the EU. Nobody - on any side - argued for no deal in the referendum. So no, we aren't banging on with the same old arguments. We left. This is about the future.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
Yes but (and I appreciate you've switched sides) the EU side want us to sign up for a trade deal that is Brexit In Name Only. The Leave side want us to Take Back Control.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
No its not.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
This is rubbish. You write personal opinion (OK) but then write off any other opinion as objectively false (not OK).
Parties do not junk their policies to when doing coalition deals (with the exception of the particularly inept LDs in 2010, which is no model-example of how to form a coalition). Parties negotiating a coalition use the policies they put in their manifestos to get the best deal possibe and align the government policy as close as they can to their politics. This is not "junking" their policies.
I understand your opinion that FPTP leads to non-coalition governments is a good thing. But you have not contradicted the point that FPTP "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country". You can't contradict it because people do this.
This is a democratic problem. It is a democratic problem, which you consider not to be high up on the list. For me it is a very important problem with FPTP.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
Is the right answer.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
Indeed I did. Leaving an EU political project we increasingly wanted no part of was inevitable. Better to step off under our own terms than theirs. And I still think that. However, stepping off the EEA and CU is absurd. As for the "losing side" the leavers pledged the easiest deal ever. Oven ready. Improved terms. Cheaper. Stronger. Its a load of shit. The "whining" that Philip refers to is the words of wazzock Brexiteer Tories played back to them.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
The economy was in its deepest recession in 1991, even in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 1992 the UK economy was growing compared to 1991.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith from then on, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
No its not.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
This is rubbish. You write personal opinion (OK) but then write off any other opinion as objectively false (not OK).
Parties do not junk their policies to when doing coalition deals (with the exception of the particularly inept LDs in 2010, which is no model-example of how to form a coalition). Parties negotiating a coalition use the policies they put in their manifestos to get the best deal possibe and align the government policy as close as they can to their politics. This is not "junking" their policies.
I understand your opinion that FPTP leads to non-coalition governments is a good thing. But you have not contradicted the point that FPTP "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country". You can't contradict it because people do this.
This is a democratic problem. It is a democratic problem, which you consider not to be high up on the list. For me it is a very important problem with FPTP.
You're right I've not contradicted it, I said it was a benefit. Why would I contradict something I said was a benefit?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
Is the right answer.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
The problem was that the LD ministers actively promoted the negative aspects themselves by gladly promoting blatantly Conservative policies.
Has anyone who is banging on about how Brexit will be a failure got any new lines or arguments that weren't used in the 2016 referendum?
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
The argument is entirely different. The referendum campaign was about the pros and cons of EU membership. We've now moved onto implementation of a new trading relationship having settled that issue and left the EU. Nobody - on any side - argued for no deal in the referendum. So no, we aren't banging on with the same old arguments. We left. This is about the future.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
Yes but (and I appreciate you've switched sides) the EU side want us to sign up for a trade deal that is Brexit In Name Only. The Leave side want us to Take Back Control.
I haven't switched sides. I voted to leave the EU not the EEA and I would be very happy with that outcome. BINO is bullshit. You are either in something or you are not. Brexit was the exit of the EU. Achieved. The EEA is not the EU. The CU is not the EU. You aren't a fool Philip, so stop parroting the idiot words of these idiots who can't tell the difference.
Norway is not in the EU. Has never been in the EU. Cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Turkey is in a CU. Has never been in the EU and indeed the suggestion it may join was one of the Faragista messages as to why we should leave. Turkey cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Its a fucking stupid moronic argument.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
The SNP would jump at EEA. With Scotland and rUK in the Single Market, an independent Scotland joining the EU would be seen as an "upgrade".
If the UK was in the EEA then the evidence is swing voters in Scotland would shift from YES under WTO to NO under EEA
Unless the SNP_ had given them what they want?
Do think.
What difference would that make, it would still be the UK Starmer government agreeing EEA, had the SNP rejected that EEA then they would have committed political suicide in Scotland
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Given that Davey has been Acting Joint Leader for months I do not expect his formal election to make an iota of difference in electoral terms.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
No its not.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
This is rubbish. You write personal opinion (OK) but then write off any other opinion as objectively false (not OK).
Parties do not junk their policies to when doing coalition deals (with the exception of the particularly inept LDs in 2010, which is no model-example of how to form a coalition). Parties negotiating a coalition use the policies they put in their manifestos to get the best deal possibe and align the government policy as close as they can to their politics. This is not "junking" their policies.
I understand your opinion that FPTP leads to non-coalition governments is a good thing. But you have not contradicted the point that FPTP "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country". You can't contradict it because people do this.
This is a democratic problem. It is a democratic problem, which you consider not to be high up on the list. For me it is a very important problem with FPTP.
You're right I've not contradicted it, I said it was a benefit. Why would I contradict something I said was a benefit?
Having to guess how my neighbours will vote before I decide how I should vote is a good thing?
People will start to go back to their offices and places of work once there's a vaccine or the threat from the virus is diminished. Otherwise, unless they have to, they won't: it costs more money for both employees and employers, adds a bit of risk, and there's very little to be gained by it.
When they do start to go back, they will do so on a new basis. My bet (for my line of work) is collaborative workshops on a Wednesday, including training/mentoring sessions, with team meetings/talks/briefings on a Thursday, followed by a social. Tuesdays will be optional. Few will go in on a Monday or Friday again.
Obviously that will vary week by week, but 2-3 days a week will be the new norm; not the weekly grind.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
No, look at the graph.
The UK election was in April 1992 and on that link the Tories led every poll until the end of July 1992 and the Tories also still led half the polls from August to mid September 1992 after Smith was elected Labour leader on 18th July.
Black Wednesday was on 16th September 1992 after which Labour led every poll bar one tie until the end of 1992 and Labour then led every poll bar one from 1993 until 1997 after that
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
The economy was in its deepest recession in 1991, even in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 1992 the UK economy was growing compared to 1991.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
No the economy was not growing in 1992. From your own link:
Quarterly figures: Q1 0%, Q2 -0.1%
Annualised figures Q1 -0.2%, Q1 -0.1%
Growing would require positive figures not negative ones 🙄
The Tories always go into negative territory in the polls when they're in government - Cameron did, May did, Thatcher did every Parliament and yes Major did too. They won in 1992 and lost in 1997 despite the economy not because of it. If we were to go on economic figures alone then the Tories should have done better in 1997 than they did in 1992.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
I think what the government could do is force train companies to offer 2-4 days per week season tickets and charge the proportional rate. One of the huge issues people have with one day at home is that they're still paying for a monthly ticket but they only use it for 4 days and lots of people say the same thing about 2 or 3 days per week. The cost of commuting doesn't really go down with 3 or 4 days in office because you still need a season ticket or you end up in the daily return trap. In London it's not so bad because I just use contactless PAYG, but for those coming in from Hertfordshire or Surrey there is no saving for doing 1 or 2 days from home.
I think service patterns could change too.
People will be travelling throughout the day more, not just between 6.30-9am and 5pm-7pm, so there will be less density of traffic.
That should mean a need for a bit less rolling stock, stabling and capacity pinches (saving a tad of money) but, overall, TOCs and NR will still be down. We're probably talking takings down about 30-40%, operating costs about 10-15%, and much new capital work deferred.
That definitely ends with a new governance model for rail in the UK, if not necessarily nationalisation.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
In terms of number of MPs the LDs are still as strong as were the Liberals for most of the period 1950 - 1974.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance. i It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
I'm no LibDem, but I agree with all of that. And I do think that it was the broken pledge on tuition fees that really screwed the LibDem image more than anything else.
It wasn't just that, it was taking a side in the first place in 2010 combined with refusing to take one in 2015. Even without tuition fees the Lib Dems would struggle. The idea it was just tuition fees isn't true and doesn't explain why the Tories won nearly half the Lib Dems seats.
Pre-2010 the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Tory candidate" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, so you don't get the Labour candidate". Effectively 2015 though the Lib Dems told left/centre-left voters "vote for us, you could get a Tory government" and told right/centre-right voters "vote for us, you could get a Labour government".
Their ambiguity pre-2010 was a strength. 2015 plus it has been a weakness.
That's all due to the distorting nature of FPTP, which forces people to try and work out who to vote for in order to defeat the party they're most afraid of, instead of voting positively for what they want.
Considering your vote before you cast it isn't a distortion, its a benefit.
The system forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote and instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country they are more likely to consider which they most fear.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Its not rude, I used the words you wrote.
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
It is a demcratic problem when the voting system "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country"
No its not.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
This is rubbish. You write personal opinion (OK) but then write off any other opinion as objectively false (not OK).
Parties do not junk their policies to when doing coalition deals (with the exception of the particularly inept LDs in 2010, which is no model-example of how to form a coalition). Parties negotiating a coalition use the policies they put in their manifestos to get the best deal possibe and align the government policy as close as they can to their politics. This is not "junking" their policies.
I understand your opinion that FPTP leads to non-coalition governments is a good thing. But you have not contradicted the point that FPTP "forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country". You can't contradict it because people do this.
This is a democratic problem. It is a democratic problem, which you consider not to be high up on the list. For me it is a very important problem with FPTP.
You're right I've not contradicted it, I said it was a benefit. Why would I contradict something I said was a benefit?
Having to guess how my neighbours will vote before I decide how I should vote is a good thing?
Considering all information available to you is a good thing yes.
If you want to vote for Party B then vote for Party B. If you're torn between Parties A and B but hate Party C and consider that it would be advantageous to vote for A then that is a good thing - you considered all information available to you and you made an informed choice. How are you improved by not considering anything, voting for B only to see B go into coalition with C the moment the election is over?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
It saves commuting costs for half the week however
If it is just 2 days (say) then things do become more flexible.
I know people who opted for living a long way out and rent a room off a friend to use when the they are in town...
You can survive a long commute if you are just doing a couple of days, as well
Has anyone who is banging on about how Brexit will be a failure got any new lines or arguments that weren't used in the 2016 referendum?
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
The argument is entirely different. The referendum campaign was about the pros and cons of EU membership. We've now moved onto implementation of a new trading relationship having settled that issue and left the EU. Nobody - on any side - argued for no deal in the referendum. So no, we aren't banging on with the same old arguments. We left. This is about the future.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
Yes but (and I appreciate you've switched sides) the EU side want us to sign up for a trade deal that is Brexit In Name Only. The Leave side want us to Take Back Control.
I haven't switched sides. I voted to leave the EU not the EEA and I would be very happy with that outcome. BINO is bullshit. You are either in something or you are not. Brexit was the exit of the EU. Achieved. The EEA is not the EU. The CU is not the EU. You aren't a fool Philip, so stop parroting the idiot words of these idiots who can't tell the difference.
Norway is not in the EU. Has never been in the EU. Cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Turkey is in a CU. Has never been in the EU and indeed the suggestion it may join was one of the Faragista messages as to why we should leave. Turkey cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Its a fucking stupid moronic argument.
I voted to Take Back Control knowing that meant leaving the EEA and leaving the Single Market. I was explicitly and repeatedly told that my vote meant leaving the Single Market and I expect us to do so and to take back control.
If I'd wanted to stay in the Single Market, then having been told that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market, I would have voted Remain.
I carefully considered all this in 2016. Nothing has changed for me.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
No, look at the graph.
The UK election was in April 1992 and on that link the Tories led every poll until the end of July 1992 and the Tories also still led half the polls from August to mid September 1992 after Smith was elected Labour leader on 18th July.
Black Wednesday was on 16th September 1992 after which Labour led every poll bar one tie until the end of 1992 and Labour then led every poll bar one from 1993 until 1997 after that
Look at the lines on the graph. Crossover happened in Autumn 1992, sure, but convergence was happening already. Black Wednesday didn't accelerate the Conservative's fall, or Labour's rise. It surprised me as well.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Given that Davey has been Acting Joint Leader for months I do not expect his formal election to make an iota of difference in electoral terms.
I do expect that "why hasn't Davey done x" accusations thrown around by Moran supporters will now be answered. An acting leader who is a candidate in a live election campaign has to moderate what they say. A leader elected comfortably can speak out.
Comments
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
It's really rude of you to have misrepresented my original point.
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
I am sure their intention was that my company and Arcadia and others cannot do what they are doing. But the emergency legislation to close the loophole did half a job...
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
If we're insignificant, they can do without.
Didn't we have some people in the UK trying to use betting on parliamentary bye-elections like that?
What you're saying is an advantage not a problem. In PR you get no say once the votes are cast, people disregard the platforms they voted for and politicians do grubby backroom deals to get a majority and don't put that platform before the public. It is a terrible system.
In FPTP you consider everything up front. That is good.
Edit: your new comment is of course a second-order issue, and a valid one. But it stems from the BlairiteCameronite mess and the refusal of the English legislators to go for an English pmt. That's the root of the problem (or rather roots).
If there's English-only laws being passed under a Lab+SNP+LD rainbow Government, then the SNP won't vote on English-only laws - meaning the Tories will be able to vote the Governments laws down.
How is that going to work?
Or maybe they think Trump will win?
It's one of the best things to happen for the environment too.
Yes the change is going to be hard on some people and businesses, but that's just life unfortunately.
Where I work, the company has a no-going-to-the-office-without-written-permission policy. You submit a request a week in advance.... And they strongly imply that it better be a good reason...
About 10% went back because they are unable to WFH - simply no equipment, space etc.
Trump is not everyone's cup of tea to say the least, but the opposition have been in toddler tantrum mode ever since he got elected and have been encouraging agitators to riot in US cities for the past two months for a reason I can't quite fathom.
No risk to kids (let's just forget about parents and grandparents).
Get back to the office or face the sack - it's for your own good you know. And don't even think about taking a packed lunch!
In the latter they seem to have totally forgotten that in many offices only around 30% of the desks can be used due to social distancing requirements. Where there is already a degree of hot desking this means only enough space for 20% of the workforce anyway.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
All businesses want to reduce overheads. Office leases are massive overheads - being able to both cut this and have employees bear their own costs - and thank you for it - is too good to pass up no matter what cabinet luddites say.
The SNP have succeeded as a "standing up for Scotland" party. If the Tories can set themselves up as a "standing up for England" party then why would it not work?
Oppositions oppose, its what they do. If the Government relies upon the Opposition to get bills through then they are very hamstrung right from the start.
Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
As I said in an addendum (which I addeds too latre, sorry) that's the consequences of the Blair-Cameron devolution settlement and the persistent equation of Westminster = English Pmt.
PR people don't vote for the best policies since the policies they vote for are junked the second coalition deals start. If in FPTP they're making a considered decision with full information that's better.
Or maybe this is profit-taking and they still think Biden will win?
Or maybe this is someone trying to make the RNC Convention look like its moved the markets? A million is chicken feed when it comes to marketing spend.
That money will look smart if what it anticipates - the polls narrowing sharply over the next couple of weeks - actually happens.
To which one can only at this point utter the evergreen banality - we will see.
WTO will be a catastrofuck. And thats according to the head of the WTO
An FTA will be dictated by the EU where to allow the UK to save face we get to chose the colour of the binder its printed inside.
Either way, this is not going to be a success. The Tories will not be able to blame the perfidious Europeans for it and the people who voted for things getting better aren't going to reward your party for things getting worse.
Johnson can still rescue this. Capitulate totally. As he did when he put the customs border down the Irish Sea. He can triumphantly remove the European threat to Derail our Trade by simply Cementing into Law our right to go negotiate trade deals which we will start doing in 2732. We decide that the EU dictating the laws and standards we already have and helped write is better than the Americans dictating worse standards to their benefit and our detriment.
He won't. Because he is a liar a cheat and a fool.
Why should Westminster be immune from such considerations when it comes to English policies?
You can also back him at bigger odds to get between 46-55 of the vote than to win. No idea how he gets 55%+ of the vote without blatant rigging but plenty of scenarios where he gets 46-51% of the vote and loses.
We've been saying it will be.
You've lost the votes. Its time to find out who is right.
The effect is that the Conservatives would be seen as blocking English-only laws, for which the government will be able to claim the "Conservatives are bad for England".
Plus of course in this scenario the Tories will be able to pick and choose which fights to have.
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
I'm interested in the spreads. I have Trump at 205/215 for the EC and he'll be opening at over 250 at this rate.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
Perhaps they will all be proven wrong. Fuck experts. What do they know.
Even the SNP and Sturgeon said they would accept EEA after the Brexit vote so if the whole UK was in EEA they would have nothing to complain about
It's going to be a failure. The new lines and arguments include Boris Johnson and Covid.
The more intelligent brexiteers are getting quieter and quieter about it all.
Do think.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
Parties do not junk their policies to when doing coalition deals (with the exception of the particularly inept LDs in 2010, which is no model-example of how to form a coalition). Parties negotiating a coalition use the policies they put in their manifestos to get the best deal possibe and align the government policy as close as they can to their politics. This is not "junking" their policies.
I understand your opinion that FPTP leads to non-coalition governments is a good thing. But you have not contradicted the point that FPTP
"forces people to vote on the basis of guessing how other people will vote" ... "instead of considering which party or candidate had the best policies for improving the country". You can't contradict it because people do this.
This is a democratic problem.
It is a democratic problem, which you consider not to be high up on the list. For me it is a very important problem with FPTP.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith from then on, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
They remain true now.
Narrowly winning a vote did not warp the fabric of reality in favour of Brexit.
It's still a shit idea, being pursued by fuckwits.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/27/democrats-are-freaking-out-and-they-should-be/
Norway is not in the EU. Has never been in the EU. Cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Turkey is in a CU. Has never been in the EU and indeed the suggestion it may join was one of the Faragista messages as to why we should leave. Turkey cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Its a fucking stupid moronic argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1997_United_Kingdom_general_election
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
Just stuck £300 on Biden with Hills at 10-11. If you're not on premium charge I'd advise laying Trump at 2.14 on Betfair.
People will start to go back to their offices and places of work once there's a vaccine or the threat from the virus is diminished. Otherwise, unless they have to, they won't: it costs more money for both employees and employers, adds a bit of risk, and there's very little to be gained by it.
When they do start to go back, they will do so on a new basis. My bet (for my line of work) is collaborative workshops on a Wednesday, including training/mentoring sessions, with team meetings/talks/briefings on a Thursday, followed by a social. Tuesdays will be optional. Few will go in on a Monday or Friday again.
Obviously that will vary week by week, but 2-3 days a week will be the new norm; not the weekly grind.
The UK election was in April 1992 and on that link the Tories led every poll until the end of July 1992 and the Tories also still led half the polls from August to mid September 1992 after Smith was elected Labour leader on 18th July.
Black Wednesday was on 16th September 1992 after which Labour led every poll bar one tie until the end of 1992 and Labour then led every poll bar one from 1993 until 1997 after that
Quarterly figures:
Q1 0%, Q2 -0.1%
Annualised figures
Q1 -0.2%, Q1 -0.1%
Growing would require positive figures not negative ones 🙄
The Tories always go into negative territory in the polls when they're in government - Cameron did, May did, Thatcher did every Parliament and yes Major did too. They won in 1992 and lost in 1997 despite the economy not because of it. If we were to go on economic figures alone then the Tories should have done better in 1997 than they did in 1992.
People will be travelling throughout the day more, not just between 6.30-9am and 5pm-7pm, so there will be less density of traffic.
That should mean a need for a bit less rolling stock, stabling and capacity pinches (saving a tad of money) but, overall, TOCs and NR will still be down. We're probably talking takings down about 30-40%, operating costs about 10-15%, and much new capital work deferred.
That definitely ends with a new governance model for rail in the UK, if not necessarily nationalisation.
If you want to vote for Party B then vote for Party B. If you're torn between Parties A and B but hate Party C and consider that it would be advantageous to vote for A then that is a good thing - you considered all information available to you and you made an informed choice. How are you improved by not considering anything, voting for B only to see B go into coalition with C the moment the election is over?
I know people who opted for living a long way out and rent a room off a friend to use when the they are in town...
You can survive a long commute if you are just doing a couple of days, as well
If I'd wanted to stay in the Single Market, then having been told that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market, I would have voted Remain.
I carefully considered all this in 2016. Nothing has changed for me.