Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
LOL, more bollox , 65B sent to London , 32B sent back , London squander an absolute fortune and pretend it was spent on Scotland and try to say they owe us 15B. Unionists will need to do a little bit better than that when it comes to the referendum.. They are either robbing lairs or could not run a bath, unlike the Scottish Government which manages to run with ZERO deficit year after year, is it any wonder 70% believe they would do a better job than London crooks.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
And yet if they don't already have any major health issues the risk is minimal to themselves.
Is "being prepared to die for Pret" somehow the new mark of moral righteousness? Don't follow Dan, sorry...
He's wrong. I'm sure most people realise that millions of jobs will be lost. It's obviously bad for those in the firing line, but it doesn't mean it's avoidable, or that we should return to living as before. Things that the goverment usually advocates, like less commuting, working from home, and flexible working have made a couple of decades progress in a matter of months. There are economic consequences of that, but in the long run these changes will likely prove to be a good thing; so we should figure out how to make the new normal work best, not go backwards.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
And death is absolutely, uncontroversially, the only possible adverse effect of contracting covid 19, is it?
This was the one that Boris f**ked up right at the beginning, with that rambling incoherent television address so memorably lampooned by Matt Lucas, which included announcing the supposedly clear new five-stage national alert system, and then saying we were currently at level three-and-a-half.
It never got off the runway.
The new system is: watch what Scotland is doing; wait a week during which ministers can build the suspense by denying or trashing the Scottish approach; do the same.
Yes, Johnson copies Sturgeons homework then hands it in late.
The SNP would not be anywhere near as popular without the Tories as a foil. It has been the cover for a lot of other failures.
It is Johnson's malevolent incompetence, as outlined in the header, that will end the United Kingdom.
The end of Transition is set to be a trainwreck too. What else can we expect?
Yesterday’s Briefing Room on R4 is well worth a listen. It included the suggestion that a thin last minute deal might be accompanied by an “implementation period” - during which everything would stay the same as currently. As a way to extend without actually extending.
He’ll be out of the door as quickly as Theresa May was, if he tries that one.
But who would they replace him with?
Rishi (= Disraeli)?????? Traditionally the Tories love a winner. And that goes above anything else.
Looks like Rishi plans to copy Corbyns 2019 manifesto on tax. The cycle of copying Labours manifesto is accelerating.
If they ramp up IHT or lower the thresholds then I'll be surprised - in a good way. But I doubt that they will. Going after estates enrages both stickbangers and their heirs in a way almost nothing else will, and is political nuclear death (as Theresa May discovered with the dementia tax.)
The Government won't want to go after income tax, NI and VAT - too controversial, too obvious - with the caveat that they might scrap the preferential NI rate currently enjoyed by the self-employed, which is something that Sunak has hinted at in the past. They daren't touch the stickbangers, of course, so we are stuck with the wretched triple lock for the foreseeable. Hiking corporation tax at the same time as trying to get us through Brexit might be considered brave, in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Thus, the most obvious targets are tax reliefs enjoyed by the working age population. The prime candidate is a big Brown-style raid on pensions, this time normalising reliefs at the basic rate for all contributions. The FT was suggesting earlier in the year that CGT might be rounded up to a flat rate of 28% for all assets, and my husband was also speculating just yesterday that the annual contribution limit for ISAs might be cut in half.
Of course, the most radical measure would be to go all out with a wealth tax and pocket a one-off levy on all assets - savings, pensions, shares, property, the lot - which could potentially recoup the cost of all the extra borrowing taken out during the Plague. But I think it really would take a Corbyn Government to dare to try something like that!
The Sunday Times is reporting this differently - with all pensions relief given at 30% thus higher than the basic rate but lower than the higher rate thus avoiding the obvious headlines of either.
I think something like that is likely.
Some interesting ideas.
But they need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the £25bn+ spent on the main residence relief CGT loophole.
That is worth more than all the rest put together.
Careful Matt, I brought this up a few weeks ago and got absolutely minced.
CGT on primary residence would end Sunak's chances of being elected Tory leader within about five seconds.
Also replying to @contrarian who basically posted the same.
You are probably right.
Can anyone remember the impact of removing Mortgage Tax Relief which I would have thought even more dramatic.
Lawson salami sliced it and at a time of rapidly rising house prices (which the government was seeking to cool) it had minimal impact.
He preannounced it which accelerated the boom and then caused a subsequent bust.
That makes no sense. Its not as if MIRAS was locked in for those who bought before a particular date. It was removed for everyone from a date. Pre-announcing it meant people could work out what their mortgage would be when it was gone and whether they could afford the house. This caused a modest dampening to the market not a boom or a subsequent bust.
CGT isn't a huge money earner and I don't think raising it would make a huge difference to government revenues. As I understand it, CGT does feel a bit like a tax on inflation.
I'm more concerned by peculiar exemptions around investment income. To be fair Hammond did a fair job starting to clear up Osborne's gimmicks and Sunak looks to be of the same mindset.
You put your right leg in, your right leg out, in, out, in, out, you shake it all about...
A Government drive to encourage millions of people working at home to go back to the office has been put on ice over concerns of a spike in coronavirus cases, the Telegraph can disclose.
Amid signs of confusion at the heart of Cabinet, ministers are understood to have rowed back on plans to launch a major campaign to urge office workers to return to their desks and start commuting again.
They fear any mass return could send infections soaring, and threaten the planned return of thousands of children to school over the next few weeks.
Trying to get people back to offices in a hurry was always going to be a silly idea, especially before the schools went back - and when MPs and thousands of civil servants are still working from home. The bigger issue is safety on overcrowded public transport, which no-one is trying to address first.
We are about to witness some fun* when it comes to schools transport. To maintain spacing the capacity of a bus is far less than the number of seats. Which means instead of 1 bus in a morning 2 or 3 will be needed. These buses don't sit idly by in a yard awaiting call up for Covid school shuttling duties...
We didn't have a school bus in my day, we used a regular service....and we ran about a lot on the top deck. Conductors..... it was that long ago ......... used to shout at us sometimes but it didn't make a long term difference.
We walked to school, as did everybody regardless of distance apart for children living on farms.
I walked to Junior school; it was only about a mile, but when I went to the Grammar School it was about 12 miles away, so the Council gave us a bus (and indeed a train) pass. However, after I got to about 13 I used to cycle when the weather was OK. That was until I was 16 or so and got involved with the charms of one of the Vth Form girls who travelled the same route.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
My guess is that Starmer joined Labour because he is left-leaning, too.
On topic a scale of 1-5 for something as complex as this was never going to be much use. What the government has done instead is seek a more granular analysis focusing on "hot spots" and the tracking and tracing of people affected by particular outbreaks such as the chicken factory up the road from me at Coupar Angus (which has given us our first ICU patient in over a month).
By any sensible measure we are now edging down towards 2 with approximately 1000 new cases a day in a country of 65m despite a much more proactive testing regime than we had in the early months where it was reasonable to assume that the true number of cases was a significant multiple of the number found. This, however, would send the wrong message, which is just another illustration of the inadequacy of the scale.
Alastair is right to query the competence of those who ever thought this was a good idea. Similarly, the algorithm for education was just so stupid that the only remarkable thing is not the odd resignation but that so many remain in post.
Our Ministers have not shone in either example but those who retain a delusion that we have a world beating or even competent civil service really need to give themselves a shake. People moan about the number of senior civil servants who are being squeezed out and blame Dom because most things do seem to come back to him eventually but I would rather focus on whether we can change the ethos of the Civil Service to something actual that produces actual results, the quantitative measurement of those results and consequences for failure. Those used to being promoted despite repeated incompetence and finish with a gong and spectacular pension may not like this very much. Welcome to the real world.
The real world where Gavin Williamson is still in post, where Grayling gets repeated promotions and a humongous pension, where Ms Harding gets a Baronetcy, a seat in the legislature for life, 65K pa for 2 days work a week and another prestigious job without having to go through any application process. That real world, you mean?
Why on earth would anyone go for a senior job in the civil service knowing that Ministers will not take responsibility, that they will be ruled by fear and discarded if it is politically useful to the Minister regardless of the actual facts about who took what decisions, on what advice and whether such decisions were executed well.
By all means let’s improve civil service effectiveness. But the way Ministers are behaving: lying, blaming others, more interested in coming up with pithy phrases is not how to improve effectiveness or culture. They’re not genuinely interested in getting an effective civil service. Just one that does what it’s told without question and can be blamed when things go wrong.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
The art of being a good politician as far as dealing with your officials is concerned is mostly about asking the right questions. Williamson asked for an algorithm that only had one job, and in that it succeeded.
Exactly. I completely agree. The man is an idiot and should not be in charge of anything. Had he been capable of thought he would have seen the consequences. As would his officials. They didn't, not even after the Scottish debacle.
On topic a scale of 1-5 for something as complex as this was never going to be much use. What the government has done instead is seek a more granular analysis focusing on "hot spots" and the tracking and tracing of people affected by particular outbreaks such as the chicken factory up the road from me at Coupar Angus (which has given us our first ICU patient in over a month).
By any sensible measure we are now edging down towards 2 with approximately 1000 new cases a day in a country of 65m despite a much more proactive testing regime than we had in the early months where it was reasonable to assume that the true number of cases was a significant multiple of the number found. This, however, would send the wrong message, which is just another illustration of the inadequacy of the scale.
Alastair is right to query the competence of those who ever thought this was a good idea. Similarly, the algorithm for education was just so stupid that the only remarkable thing is not the odd resignation but that so many remain in post.
Our Ministers have not shone in either example but those who retain a delusion that we have a world beating or even competent civil service really need to give themselves a shake. People moan about the number of senior civil servants who are being squeezed out and blame Dom because most things do seem to come back to him eventually but I would rather focus on whether we can change the ethos of the Civil Service to something actual that produces actual results, the quantitative measurement of those results and consequences for failure. Those used to being promoted despite repeated incompetence and finish with a gong and spectacular pension may not like this very much. Welcome to the real world.
The real world where Gavin Williamson is still in post, where Grayling gets repeated promotions and a humongous pension, where Ms Harding gets a Baronetcy, a seat in the legislature for life, 65K pa for 2 days work a week and another prestigious job without having to go through any application process. That real world, you mean?
Why on earth would anyone go for a senior job in the civil service knowing that Ministers will not take responsibility, that they will be ruled by fear and discarded if it is politically useful to the Minister regardless of the actual facts about who took what decisions, on what advice and whether such decisions were executed well.
By all means let’s improve civil service effectiveness. But the way Ministers are behaving: lying, blaming others, more interested in coming up with pithy phrases is not how to improve effectiveness or culture. They’re not genuinely interested in getting an effective civil service. Just one that does what it’s told without question and can be blamed when things go wrong.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
This government is clearly sacking civil servants for cover for it's continual u-turns in policy because the senior ministers are untouchable as long as they are loyal to Johnson.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
And death is absolutely, uncontroversially, the only possible adverse effect of contracting covid 19, is it?
Well it is the main one, the PM and Health Secretary are far older than 18, have both already had Covid and are already back at work
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
And death is absolutely, uncontroversially, the only possible adverse effect of contracting covid 19, is it?
Of course it's not. But I'm one parent who would much prefer my son goes to Uni and incurs the risk of Covid rather than going quietly mad studying for a degree in the splendid isolation of his bedroom.
LOL, more bollox , 65B sent to London , 32B sent back , London squander an absolute fortune and pretend it was spent on Scotland and try to say they owe us 15B. Unionists will need to do a little bit better than that when it comes to the referendum.. They are either robbing lairs or could not run a bath, unlike the Scottish Government which manages to run with ZERO deficit year after year, is it any wonder 70% believe they would do a better job than London crooks.
I await Agent Pish being deployed.
Where is the £32bn figure from?
That's the money the Scottish Govt spends and ignores the money spent by Scottish local authorities and by the UK government on welfare (which they were offered, but keep delaying) such as pensions etc. But if the SNP doesn't (mis)spend it it doesn't count.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
And yet if they don't already have any major health issues the risk is minimal to themselves.
A leaked government report suggests a "reasonable worst case scenario" of 85,000 deaths across the UK this winter due to Covid-19.
"Prof Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, said some of the assumptions made in the model were "implausible" and that the report assumes that "we've learnt nothing from the first wave of this disease". "
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
And death is absolutely, uncontroversially, the only possible adverse effect of contracting covid 19, is it?
Of course it's not. But I'm one parent who would much prefer my son goes to Uni and incurs the risk of Covid rather than going quietly mad studying for a degree in the splendid isolation of his bedroom.
'Splendid isolation of his bedroom.' Welcome to pb. A quite brilliant line.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
And yet if they don't already have any major health issues the risk is minimal to themselves.
Even on that article the damage they are talking about only affects a minority of those who had cases and is not by itself fatal.
You can get injured crossing the road or driving a car or in the kitchen, you can get heart disease eating too much fatty food, cancer from smoking, liver disease from drinking too much alcohol does not mean we stop doing it or ban it
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
Anyway - on other "difficult to explain" decisions that are quite possibly imminent - reversing the quarantine status of Portugal could be, er, interesting.
It's absolutely farcical that the quarantine situation seems to be based, as far as anyone can ascertain, to be based on country's reaching a self reported case level of 20 per 100,000 people. Quite how this level was determined, or how it takes account of the fact that it is hugely dependent on levels and targeting of testing, remains a bit of a mystery. Not to mention the still ignored issue of reported numbers often not aligning with people (eg. 4 positive tests for one person equals, er 4 reported cases). In the UK anyway - who knows about elsewhere.
Indeed. Portugal has already been put into quarantine twice and taken out twice. I've been flagging the Austrian situation, where the country was put into quarantine the same day as Portugal was released, for reasons that were flaky at the time, and have been followed by a series of relatively good statistics.
I see today's Austrian new case number is out already, at +181. Recent performance suggests Portugal's is likely to be worse.
This all stems from the inexplicable refusal simply to tell people to do without their sunshine holidays this year. If the Foreign Office advice to avoid all non-essential journeys outside of the Common Travel Area had remained in place then all of these problems would've been avoided.
Incidentally, has anybody seen Dominic Raab recently? I'm thinking perhaps he dissented from the change in travel advice, and has been spending the last couple of months tied to a chair in the basement of No.10?
Foreign holidays might not be essential but for many people they are something worse - an obsession.
For such people the focus of their life is the next foreign holiday.
To be fair Dorset was packed when I went earlier this month and Devon and Cornwall have never had as many visitors as they had this summer so plenty are staycationing.
While France and Spain and Florida may be off this summer you can still go to Italy without quarantine, Italy has fewer new cases than we do
A staycation (a portmanteau of "stay" and "vacation"), or holistay (a portmanteau of "holiday" and "stay"), is a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within day trip distance of their home and does not require overnight accommodation.
...
In British English the term has increasingly come to mean taking a holiday in one's own country as opposed to travelling abroad (domestic tourism).
That the meaning of staycation has morphed into taking a holiday in the UK shows how deep the obsession with foreign holidays is in this country.
Not very meaningful though Richard.
If someone from Melbourne goes to a holiday in the Gold Coast they're not leaving their country but they're flying the same distance as eg London to Ibiza.
Ours is a very physically small country, if people fly the odds are it is going to be overseas. Not a shock or something to be bothered by outside of pandemics really.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
It's interesting how polarised America is between rural and urban areas. Here in the UK, by contrast, it's easy to find rural villages where people hold quite liberal views and urban areas where they don't.
LOL, more bollox , 65B sent to London , 32B sent back , London squander an absolute fortune and pretend it was spent on Scotland and try to say they owe us 15B. Unionists will need to do a little bit better than that when it comes to the referendum.. They are either robbing lairs or could not run a bath, unlike the Scottish Government which manages to run with ZERO deficit year after year, is it any wonder 70% believe they would do a better job than London crooks.
I await Agent Pish being deployed.
Where is the £32bn figure from?
It is the approx budget of the Scottish pocket money.
Is "being prepared to die for Pret" somehow the new mark of moral righteousness? Don't follow Dan, sorry...
He's wrong. I'm sure most people realise that millions of jobs will be lost. It's obviously bad for those in the firing line, but it doesn't mean it's avoidable, or that we should return to living as before. Things that the goverment usually advocates, like less commuting, working from home, and flexible working have made a couple of decades progress in a matter of months. There are economic consequences of that, but in the long run these changes will likely prove to be a good thing; so we should figure out how to make the new normal work best, not go backwards.
That's right. It's the speed of the changes that is the problem not the changes. Less City centric? Fine. Death of the commute and the office? Fine. Far more use of tech and less travelling around? Fine. All by next Wednesday? Hmm. Hang on.
Governments earn their salt at such times. Requires long term strategic thinking, structural reform, and measures to ease the pain for the losers. the cost of which to be borne by those most able to bear it.
It's a big challenge. Big enough to test the best of political leaders.
LOL, more bollox , 65B sent to London , 32B sent back , London squander an absolute fortune and pretend it was spent on Scotland and try to say they owe us 15B. Unionists will need to do a little bit better than that when it comes to the referendum.. They are either robbing lairs or could not run a bath, unlike the Scottish Government which manages to run with ZERO deficit year after year, is it any wonder 70% believe they would do a better job than London crooks.
I await Agent Pish being deployed.
Where is the £32bn figure from?
It is the approx budget of the Scottish pocket money.
So you're not counting a single penny of UK Government expenditure as going to Scots? No welfare, no defence or anything else?
This was the one that Boris f**ked up right at the beginning, with that rambling incoherent television address so memorably lampooned by Matt Lucas, which included announcing the supposedly clear new five-stage national alert system, and then saying we were currently at level three-and-a-half.
It never got off the runway.
The new system is: watch what Scotland is doing; wait a week during which ministers can build the suspense by denying or trashing the Scottish approach; do the same.
Yes, Johnson copies Sturgeons homework then hands it in late.
The SNP would not be anywhere near as popular without the Tories as a foil. It has been the cover for a lot of other failures.
It is Johnson's malevolent incompetence, as outlined in the header, that will end the United Kingdom.
The end of Transition is set to be a trainwreck too. What else can we expect?
Yesterday’s Briefing Room on R4 is well worth a listen. It included the suggestion that a thin last minute deal might be accompanied by an “implementation period” - during which everything would stay the same as currently. As a way to extend without actually extending.
He’ll be out of the door as quickly as Theresa May was, if he tries that one.
But who would they replace him with?
Rishi (= Disraeli)?????? Traditionally the Tories love a winner. And that goes above anything else.
Looks like Rishi plans to copy Corbyns 2019 manifesto on tax. The cycle of copying Labours manifesto is accelerating.
If they ramp up IHT or lower the thresholds then I'll be surprised - in a good way. But I doubt that they will. Going after estates enrages both stickbangers and their heirs in a way almost nothing else will, and is political nuclear death (as Theresa May discovered with the dementia tax.)
The Government won't want to go after income tax, NI and VAT - too controversial, too obvious - with the caveat that they might scrap the preferential NI rate currently enjoyed by the self-employed, which is something that Sunak has hinted at in the past. They daren't touch the stickbangers, of course, so we are stuck with the wretched triple lock for the foreseeable. Hiking corporation tax at the same time as trying to get us through Brexit might be considered brave, in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Thus, the most obvious targets are tax reliefs enjoyed by the working age population. The prime candidate is a big Brown-style raid on pensions, this time normalising reliefs at the basic rate for all contributions. The FT was suggesting earlier in the year that CGT might be rounded up to a flat rate of 28% for all assets, and my husband was also speculating just yesterday that the annual contribution limit for ISAs might be cut in half.
Of course, the most radical measure would be to go all out with a wealth tax and pocket a one-off levy on all assets - savings, pensions, shares, property, the lot - which could potentially recoup the cost of all the extra borrowing taken out during the Plague. But I think it really would take a Corbyn Government to dare to try something like that!
The Sunday Times is reporting this differently - with all pensions relief given at 30% thus higher than the basic rate but lower than the higher rate thus avoiding the obvious headlines of either.
I think something like that is likely.
Some interesting ideas.
But they need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the £25bn+ spent on the main residence relief CGT loophole.
That is worth more than all the rest put together.
Careful Matt, I brought this up a few weeks ago and got absolutely minced.
CGT on primary residence would end Sunak's chances of being elected Tory leader within about five seconds.
Also replying to @contrarian who basically posted the same.
You are probably right.
Can anyone remember the impact of removing Mortgage Tax Relief which I would have thought even more dramatic.
Lawson salami sliced it and at a time of rapidly rising house prices (which the government was seeking to cool) it had minimal impact.
Thanks David. I remember it happening, but have no other memory than that.
LOL, more bollox , 65B sent to London , 32B sent back , London squander an absolute fortune and pretend it was spent on Scotland and try to say they owe us 15B. Unionists will need to do a little bit better than that when it comes to the referendum.. They are either robbing lairs or could not run a bath, unlike the Scottish Government which manages to run with ZERO deficit year after year, is it any wonder 70% believe they would do a better job than London crooks.
I await Agent Pish being deployed.
Where is the £32bn figure from?
That's the money the Scottish Govt spends and ignores the money spent by Scottish local authorities and by the UK government on welfare (which they were offered, but keep delaying) such as pensions etc. But if the SNP doesn't (mis)spend it it doesn't count.
More help , was that the 22M actual cash that in Westminster minds was 800M. Not hard to see how they get us having a deficit. Can you provide some details of all these extra imaginary jobs for youth or extra to hand out benefits of dole money , how using Scottish tax for furlough is help and I am still PMSL at the half price hamburgers.
This was the one that Boris f**ked up right at the beginning, with that rambling incoherent television address so memorably lampooned by Matt Lucas, which included announcing the supposedly clear new five-stage national alert system, and then saying we were currently at level three-and-a-half.
It never got off the runway.
The new system is: watch what Scotland is doing; wait a week during which ministers can build the suspense by denying or trashing the Scottish approach; do the same.
Yes, Johnson copies Sturgeons homework then hands it in late.
The SNP would not be anywhere near as popular without the Tories as a foil. It has been the cover for a lot of other failures.
It is Johnson's malevolent incompetence, as outlined in the header, that will end the United Kingdom.
The end of Transition is set to be a trainwreck too. What else can we expect?
Yesterday’s Briefing Room on R4 is well worth a listen. It included the suggestion that a thin last minute deal might be accompanied by an “implementation period” - during which everything would stay the same as currently. As a way to extend without actually extending.
He’ll be out of the door as quickly as Theresa May was, if he tries that one.
But who would they replace him with?
Rishi (= Disraeli)?????? Traditionally the Tories love a winner. And that goes above anything else.
Looks like Rishi plans to copy Corbyns 2019 manifesto on tax. The cycle of copying Labours manifesto is accelerating.
If they ramp up IHT or lower the thresholds then I'll be surprised - in a good way. But I doubt that they will. Going after estates enrages both stickbangers and their heirs in a way almost nothing else will, and is political nuclear death (as Theresa May discovered with the dementia tax.)
The Government won't want to go after income tax, NI and VAT - too controversial, too obvious - with the caveat that they might scrap the preferential NI rate currently enjoyed by the self-employed, which is something that Sunak has hinted at in the past. They daren't touch the stickbangers, of course, so we are stuck with the wretched triple lock for the foreseeable. Hiking corporation tax at the same time as trying to get us through Brexit might be considered brave, in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Thus, the most obvious targets are tax reliefs enjoyed by the working age population. The prime candidate is a big Brown-style raid on pensions, this time normalising reliefs at the basic rate for all contributions. The FT was suggesting earlier in the year that CGT might be rounded up to a flat rate of 28% for all assets, and my husband was also speculating just yesterday that the annual contribution limit for ISAs might be cut in half.
Of course, the most radical measure would be to go all out with a wealth tax and pocket a one-off levy on all assets - savings, pensions, shares, property, the lot - which could potentially recoup the cost of all the extra borrowing taken out during the Plague. But I think it really would take a Corbyn Government to dare to try something like that!
The Sunday Times is reporting this differently - with all pensions relief given at 30% thus higher than the basic rate but lower than the higher rate thus avoiding the obvious headlines of either.
I think something like that is likely.
Some interesting ideas.
But they need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the £25bn+ spent on the main residence relief CGT loophole.
That is worth more than all the rest put together.
Careful Matt, I brought this up a few weeks ago and got absolutely minced.
CGT on primary residence would end Sunak's chances of being elected Tory leader within about five seconds.
Also replying to @contrarian who basically posted the same.
You are probably right.
Can anyone remember the impact of removing Mortgage Tax Relief which I would have thought even more dramatic.
Lawson salami sliced it and at a time of rapidly rising house prices (which the government was seeking to cool) it had minimal impact.
He preannounced it which accelerated the boom and then caused a subsequent bust.
That makes no sense. Its not as if MIRAS was locked in for those who bought before a particular date. It was removed for everyone from a date. Pre-announcing it meant people could work out what their mortgage would be when it was gone and whether they could afford the house. This caused a modest dampening to the market not a boom or a subsequent bust.
It was pre-announcing the withdrawal of dual MIRAS that caused the stampede to buy before the deadline. The rate of relief itself was only slowly lowered.
Is "being prepared to die for Pret" somehow the new mark of moral righteousness? Don't follow Dan, sorry...
He's wrong. I'm sure most people realise that millions of jobs will be lost. It's obviously bad for those in the firing line, but it doesn't mean it's avoidable, or that we should return to living as before. Things that the goverment usually advocates, like less commuting, working from home, and flexible working have made a couple of decades progress in a matter of months. There are economic consequences of that, but in the long run these changes will likely prove to be a good thing; so we should figure out how to make the new normal work best, not go backwards.
That's right. It's the speed of the changes that is the problem not the changes. Less City centric? Fine. Death of the commute and the office? Fine. Far more use of tech and less travelling around? Fine. All by next Wednesday? Hmm. Hang on.
Governments earn their salt at such times. Requires long term strategic thinking, structural reform, and measures to ease the pain for the losers. the cost of which to be borne by those most able to bear it.
It's a big challenge. Big enough to test the best of political leaders.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
It's interesting how polarised America is between rural and urban areas. Here in the UK, by contrast, it's easy to find rural villages where people hold quite liberal views and urban areas where they don't.
Britain is still polarised even if not quite as much, it was rural Britain that voted for Brexit not urban areas and in the latest Opinium in Urban areas Labour are on 45% to just 36% for the Tories while in rural areas the Tories are on 43% and Labour on just 35%.
On topic a scale of 1-5 for something as complex as this was never going to be much use. What the government has done instead is seek a more granular analysis focusing on "hot spots" and the tracking and tracing of people affected by particular outbreaks such as the chicken factory up the road from me at Coupar Angus (which has given us our first ICU patient in over a month).
By any sensible measure we are now edging down towards 2 with approximately 1000 new cases a day in a country of 65m despite a much more proactive testing regime than we had in the early months where it was reasonable to assume that the true number of cases was a significant multiple of the number found. This, however, would send the wrong message, which is just another illustration of the inadequacy of the scale.
Alastair is right to query the competence of those who ever thought this was a good idea. Similarly, the algorithm for education was just so stupid that the only remarkable thing is not the odd resignation but that so many remain in post.
Our Ministers have not shone in either example but those who retain a delusion that we have a world beating or even competent civil service really need to give themselves a shake. People moan about the number of senior civil servants who are being squeezed out and blame Dom because most things do seem to come back to him eventually but I would rather focus on whether we can change the ethos of the Civil Service to something actual that produces actual results, the quantitative measurement of those results and consequences for failure. Those used to being promoted despite repeated incompetence and finish with a gong and spectacular pension may not like this very much. Welcome to the real world.
The real world where Gavin Williamson is still in post, where Grayling gets repeated promotions and a humongous pension, where Ms Harding gets a Baronetcy, a seat in the legislature for life, 65K pa for 2 days work a week and another prestigious job without having to go through any application process. That real world, you mean?
Why on earth would anyone go for a senior job in the civil service knowing that Ministers will not take responsibility, that they will be ruled by fear and discarded if it is politically useful to the Minister regardless of the actual facts about who took what decisions, on what advice and whether such decisions were executed well.
By all means let’s improve civil service effectiveness. But the way Ministers are behaving: lying, blaming others, more interested in coming up with pithy phrases is not how to improve effectiveness or culture. They’re not genuinely interested in getting an effective civil service. Just one that does what it’s told without question and can be blamed when things go wrong.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
The art of being a good politician as far as dealing with your officials is concerned is mostly about asking the right questions. Williamson asked for an algorithm that only had one job, and in that it succeeded.
Exactly. I completely agree. The man is an idiot and should not be in charge of anything. Had he been capable of thought he would have seen the consequences. As would his officials. They didn't, not even after the Scottish debacle.
But you don't know this. Civil servants/officials have a vow of silence - they cannot defend themselves. They may well have been warning ministers that the algorithm was a recipe for disaster. We will never know, and that's one of the problems with the attack on the civil service. They can't answer back.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
On Corbyn. The only way I can see him getting the boot is in giving Starmer no choice - which isn't something with a probability of 0 for the obvious reason that a reversion back to his actions pre-2015 - e.g. backing people kicked out of Labour, appearing at events with toxic antisemites (if he's stupid enough to turn up at another Al Quds day march, Starmer would at the very least have to suspend the whip), and saying or posting things that clearly cross the line as Starmer has drawn it now - would back the Labour leader into a corner with little choice.
The other point is that the EHRC and Labour leaks provide a flashpoint that could lead to an open revolt, if both are damning towards the Corbyn left and he cries conspiracy as a result (something that again could put him the wrong side of the line now drawn on antisemitism and related behaviour) there'd be little choice but to at the very least, close to ostracise him within the party. We saw a bit of a dry run with the whistleblower settlements - and a similar course of action over those reports (again, if they find broadly against him and his team) would be much worse.
The question therefore isn't whether people want him expelled, but whether Corbyn can stay within the lines that avoid that becoming a necessary course of action given a) his words and actions are now under much more scrutiny than when he was an obscure backbencher and b) the line has now understandably shifted and hardened in order to rebuild the trust haemorrhaged during the Corbyn years. There is, after all, little that Chris Williamson was guilty of that Corbyn himself wasn't over the years - and even before Labour was placed under new management there was an acknowledgement MPs and members should no longer get away with stuff that was overlooked in the past.
As for members, I think outside the true die hards the slightly rose-tinted view Labour members have of him won't last if he crosses those lines and dares the party to act. It would be with sorrow - but he'd have proved his critics right as to what he is.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
If the Police Force are answerable to Portland's voters, why are they complicit?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
The death rate from Covid for 18 year olds is near zero, the death rate for over 80 year olds in care homes from Covid is almost 25%, they are in no way comparable
And death is absolutely, uncontroversially, the only possible adverse effect of contracting covid 19, is it?
Well it is the main one, the PM and Health Secretary are far older than 18, have both already had Covid and are already back at work
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
I'd hope that "outrider" section of the party gradually fades away - I was out knocking on doors for Corbyn, despite my reservations, because I believe his Labour party would have been good for the country. I can see the majority of his supporters doing the same for Starmer, but the vitriol of that section of the left is astonishing.
Passion, and differing views are vital, but the support for Kerry-Anne Mendoza when she compared Starmer's "Jobs Jobs Job"s slogan alongside a couple of Boris slogans to the Nazi's "Arbeit macht frei" was genuinely shocking.
I expect they'll find out that they don't speak for the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
I'd hope that "outrider" section of the party gradually fades away - I was out knocking on doors for Corbyn, despite my reservations, because I believe his Labour party would have been good for the country. I can see the majority of his supporters doing the same for Starmer, but the vitriol of that section of the left is astonishing.
Passion, and differing views are vital, but the support for Kerry-Anne Mendoza when she compared Starmer's "Jobs Jobs Job"s slogan alongside a couple of Boris slogans to the Nazi's "Arbeit macht frei" was genuinely shocking.
I expect they'll find out that they don't speak for the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.
I take Owen Jones as my litmus for where the pragmatic and decent strand of the radical left are. And he duly crucified Mendoza for that utterly crass comment.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
If the Police Force are answerable to Portland's voters, why are they complicit?
Are you not paying attention? It is becoming clearer by the day that many American police departments have been systematically infiltrated by far right racists.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
If the Police Force are answerable to Portland's voters, why are they complicit?
American police forces are quite a thing. In many cases they are only nominally controlled by the politicians
For example in Portsmouth Virginia the police keep trying to prosecute Politicians who were voted in on a platform of reforming the out of control police department
There's about 400,000 people in care homes, all of them having already got most out of life of what they are going to get. A million 18 year olds is an infinitely bigger deal.
And yet if they don't already have any major health issues the risk is minimal to themselves.
This was the one that Boris f**ked up right at the beginning, with that rambling incoherent television address so memorably lampooned by Matt Lucas, which included announcing the supposedly clear new five-stage national alert system, and then saying we were currently at level three-and-a-half.
It never got off the runway.
The new system is: watch what Scotland is doing; wait a week during which ministers can build the suspense by denying or trashing the Scottish approach; do the same.
Yes, Johnson copies Sturgeons homework then hands it in late.
The SNP would not be anywhere near as popular without the Tories as a foil. It has been the cover for a lot of other failures.
It is Johnson's malevolent incompetence, as outlined in the header, that will end the United Kingdom.
The end of Transition is set to be a trainwreck too. What else can we expect?
Yesterday’s Briefing Room on R4 is well worth a listen. It included the suggestion that a thin last minute deal might be accompanied by an “implementation period” - during which everything would stay the same as currently. As a way to extend without actually extending.
He’ll be out of the door as quickly as Theresa May was, if he tries that one.
But who would they replace him with?
Rishi (= Disraeli)?????? Traditionally the Tories love a winner. And that goes above anything else.
Looks like Rishi plans to copy Corbyns 2019 manifesto on tax. The cycle of copying Labours manifesto is accelerating.
If they ramp up IHT or lower the thresholds then I'll be surprised - in a good way. But I doubt that they will. Going after estates enrages both stickbangers and their heirs in a way almost nothing else will, and is political nuclear death (as Theresa May discovered with the dementia tax.)
The Government won't want to go after income tax, NI and VAT - too controversial, too obvious - with the caveat that they might scrap the preferential NI rate currently enjoyed by the self-employed, which is something that Sunak has hinted at in the past. They daren't touch the stickbangers, of course, so we are stuck with the wretched triple lock for the foreseeable. Hiking corporation tax at the same time as trying to get us through Brexit might be considered brave, in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Thus, the most obvious targets are tax reliefs enjoyed by the working age population. The prime candidate is a big Brown-style raid on pensions, this time normalising reliefs at the basic rate for all contributions. The FT was suggesting earlier in the year that CGT might be rounded up to a flat rate of 28% for all assets, and my husband was also speculating just yesterday that the annual contribution limit for ISAs might be cut in half.
Of course, the most radical measure would be to go all out with a wealth tax and pocket a one-off levy on all assets - savings, pensions, shares, property, the lot - which could potentially recoup the cost of all the extra borrowing taken out during the Plague. But I think it really would take a Corbyn Government to dare to try something like that!
The Sunday Times is reporting this differently - with all pensions relief given at 30% thus higher than the basic rate but lower than the higher rate thus avoiding the obvious headlines of either.
I think something like that is likely.
Some interesting ideas.
But they need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the £25bn+ spent on the main residence relief CGT loophole.
That is worth more than all the rest put together.
Careful Matt, I brought this up a few weeks ago and got absolutely minced.
CGT on primary residence would end Sunak's chances of being elected Tory leader within about five seconds.
Also replying to @contrarian who basically posted the same.
You are probably right.
Can anyone remember the impact of removing Mortgage Tax Relief which I would have thought even more dramatic.
Lawson salami sliced it and at a time of rapidly rising house prices (which the government was seeking to cool) it had minimal impact.
He preannounced it which accelerated the boom and then caused a subsequent bust.
That makes no sense. Its not as if MIRAS was locked in for those who bought before a particular date. It was removed for everyone from a date. Pre-announcing it meant people could work out what their mortgage would be when it was gone and whether they could afford the house. This caused a modest dampening to the market not a boom or a subsequent bust.
It was pre-announcing the withdrawal of dual MIRAS that caused the stampede to buy before the deadline. The rate of relief itself was only slowly lowered.
And those who bought before hand were in theory able to profit from their use of MIRAS as it slowly tapered away.
The issue was that it literally created a boom in prices that disappeared over night leaving lots of people who take advantage of MIRAS at it's last throws trapped in negative equity for years.
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
No it doesn’t. The politics of England and Wales will adapt over time.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
I'd hope that "outrider" section of the party gradually fades away - I was out knocking on doors for Corbyn, despite my reservations, because I believe his Labour party would have been good for the country. I can see the majority of his supporters doing the same for Starmer, but the vitriol of that section of the left is astonishing.
Passion, and differing views are vital, but the support for Kerry-Anne Mendoza when she compared Starmer's "Jobs Jobs Job"s slogan alongside a couple of Boris slogans to the Nazi's "Arbeit macht frei" was genuinely shocking.
I expect they'll find out that they don't speak for the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.
I take Owen Jones as my litmus for where the pragmatic and decent strand of the radical left are. And he duly crucified Mendoza for that utterly crass comment.
And the response he got was pretty extreme. Lots of people who would just a few months ago have been getting updates direct from the leader's office were encouraging abuse and sharing offensive memes/videos of Jones.
I know a lot of Labour members, and was out campaigning with plenty of those radical young momentum types, and they have little in common with the people close to Corbyn who claim to be "the left".
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Recover by giving their pro-independence voters no choice but to vote for the SNP, and driving their anti-independence voters to the Tories?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
Or at least with the odd Blairite exception
Blairite, Wilsonian or Attlee-esque exception.
Attlee would have lost in 1950 in England alone and Wilson would have lost in 1964, February and October 1974 in England alone.
Only Blair would still have won all of his 3 elections in England alone.
So English Labour really needs to keep Scotland and if Scotland goes they better well do everything to stop Wales going or they really are screwed without returning permanently to New Labour
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I don’t think it would make any difference what Labour says. They aren’t going to recover in Scotland in the near-term regardless.
On Alastair Meeks's opinion poll reference in his article I'd suggest in the newly polarised world dramatic flips were always unlikely. We have seen though a gradual chipping away of the lead as confidence in this government's competence is steadily eroded and this may have significance - I wonder if parity will begin to gradually drift towards a norm of small Labour leads.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I don’t think it would make any difference what Labour says. They aren’t going to recover in Scotland in the near-term regardless.
Scotland has gone - the only question is really when does it go and does it go with the blessing of the rest of the UK or not.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I don’t think it would make any difference what Labour says. They aren’t going to recover in Scotland in the near-term regardless.
Scotland has gone - the only question is really when does it go and does it go with the blessing of the rest of the UK or not.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I don’t think it would make any difference what Labour says. They aren’t going to recover in Scotland in the near-term regardless.
Scotland has gone - the only question is really when does it go and does it go with the blessing of the rest of the UK or not.
It isn't gone, including Don't Knows Yes is still only around 50% and that is despite PM Boris and Brexit already being delivered and Covid etc.
In any case Boris will block indyref2 while he remains PM so indyref2 will likely only come under a PM Starmer reliant on SNP MPs support
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The real world where Gavin Williamson is still in post, where Grayling gets repeated promotions and a humongous pension, where Ms Harding gets a Baronetcy, a seat in the legislature for life, 65K pa for 2 days work a week and another prestigious job without having to go through any application process. That real world, you mean?
Why on earth would anyone go for a senior job in the civil service knowing that Ministers will not take responsibility, that they will be ruled by fear and discarded if it is politically useful to the Minister regardless of the actual facts about who took what decisions, on what advice and whether such decisions were executed well.
By all means let’s improve civil service effectiveness. But the way Ministers are behaving: lying, blaming others, more interested in coming up with pithy phrases is not how to improve effectiveness or culture. They’re not genuinely interested in getting an effective civil service. Just one that does what it’s told without question and can be blamed when things go wrong.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
Maybe they provided him with exactly the advice he asked for. He asked a stupid question; they gave him stupid advice; they may even have pointed out that it was stupid and why but were told to go away and do what they were told. Who knows?
But you are making the hefty assumption that all these Permanent Secretaries - 5? 6? - and the Cabinet Secretary have all been so bad that they deserved to lose their jobs, just like that, with no due process at all. Is that likely? Or is it possible that they were simply blamed because this simply suited Ministers?
I was a government lawyer for a few years. A good first job. Some time ago so matters may well have changed. There were some appalling time servers in there - shockers who did the bare minimum and waited for their pension; there were some very bright hard-working types who really kept the show on the road and there was a floating population, like me, who came in, did the job (a really interesting one) for a bit and got out.
Why? Prospects. Beyond a certain level, promotion depended on dead men’s shoes. And the pay was awful. Plus the then Tory government went round saying how bloody useless the public service was, we should all be shot at dawn etc despite us having to dig them daily out of the holes they dug themselves into. No wonder the bright young things who joined left.
If the government wants to get the best out of civil servants and improve them it might want to think a bit about its man management. Because, in an atmosphere where people at the top ostentatiously lie, refuse to take responsibility and stab their staff in the back, they are going to get timid “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” time-servers not the imaginative effective people they claim to want.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The roughly 35% of Scottish voters who are anti hard Brexit and pro devomax but voted No to independence in 2014.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
Which Labour leader did you have in mind, Nick, when you write about wanting Starmer to govern “in a way that isn’t reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity”?
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
On Corbyn. The only way I can see him getting the boot is in giving Starmer no choice - which isn't something with a probability of 0 for the obvious reason that a reversion back to his actions pre-2015 - e.g. backing people kicked out of Labour, appearing at events with toxic antisemites (if he's stupid enough to turn up at another Al Quds day march, Starmer would at the very least have to suspend the whip), and saying or posting things that clearly cross the line as Starmer has drawn it now - would back the Labour leader into a corner with little choice.
The other point is that the EHRC and Labour leaks provide a flashpoint that could lead to an open revolt, if both are damning towards the Corbyn left and he cries conspiracy as a result (something that again could put him the wrong side of the line now drawn on antisemitism and related behaviour) there'd be little choice but to at the very least, close to ostracise him within the party. We saw a bit of a dry run with the whistleblower settlements - and a similar course of action over those reports (again, if they find broadly against him and his team) would be much worse.
The question therefore isn't whether people want him expelled, but whether Corbyn can stay within the lines that avoid that becoming a necessary course of action given a) his words and actions are now under much more scrutiny than when he was an obscure backbencher and b) the line has now understandably shifted and hardened in order to rebuild the trust haemorrhaged during the Corbyn years. There is, after all, little that Chris Williamson was guilty of that Corbyn himself wasn't over the years - and even before Labour was placed under new management there was an acknowledgement MPs and members should no longer get away with stuff that was overlooked in the past.
As for members, I think outside the true die hards the slightly rose-tinted view Labour members have of him won't last if he crosses those lines and dares the party to act. It would be with sorrow - but he'd have proved his critics right as to what he is.
The difference from Williamson etc. is that Corbyn always plays the ball, not the man (Williamson was open about trying to get colleagues deselected, something Corbyn never did), and plays it in a dry academic way. He is quite capable of saying something that Starmer will see as unhelpful about Palestine (and frankly there will remain a range of acceptable opinions on that post-ECHR), but it will be put too soberly to be a genuine hanging offence.
But quotes like the one which Nova mentions are obviously bonkers and throwing out people who say stuff like that (on the catch-all basis of bringing the party into disrepute) will be fine with most of us on the left.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The roughly 35% of Scottish voters who are anti hard Brexit and pro devomax but voted No to independence in 2014.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
Haven't heard much from you lately about the pro Union alliance Ruth is supposedly putting together for next May. Howzitgauin?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The roughly 35% of Scottish voters who are anti hard Brexit and pro devomax but voted No to independence in 2014.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
Haven't heard much from you lately about the pro Union alliance Ruth is supposedly putting together for next May. Howzitgauin?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I don’t think it would make any difference what Labour says. They aren’t going to recover in Scotland in the near-term regardless.
Scotland has gone - the only question is really when does it go and does it go with the blessing of the rest of the UK or not.
It isn't gone, including Don't Knows Yes is still only around 50% and that is despite PM Boris and Brexit already being delivered and Covid etc.
In any case Boris will block indyref2 while he remains PM so indyref2 will likely only come under a PM Starmer reliant on SNP MPs support
You can cook dinner for a dead body if you want, but it doesn’t stop it being dead.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
Labour Lists "broad readership" had Rebecca Long-Bailey winning the leadership election, so they're definitely skewed left. If that poll was shared on one of the Corbyn outrider twitter feeds, which seem to share as much anti-Starmer stuff than Anti-Tory, then it gets skewed even further.
I agree with your analysis of what happens next though - And the leadership seem to be aware that's not getting through to all members - There have been articles in the Guardian, Labour List, New Statesman recently, all explaining why Starmer isn't coming up with new policies constantly, or calling for people to be sacked. Surely not a coincidence.
I'd add the enquiry into Labour Leaks in with the EHRC report. That's not going to please anyone involved, but I suspect there will be expulsions on both sides (although I doubt anyone will walk away quietly), and hopefully that will cut through, and people will see it's now Starmer's party.
Fair points - I'd forgotten the RLB poll. I don't think the wider public is very interested in blame-passing over 2019 between backroom staff that few of us have ever heard of - they can expel all, some or none of them, and it will mainly concern those who know them personally. The outriders here who want to see Corbyn expelled are I think not Labour at all - certainly I don't expect that to happen, nor is it necessary to establish Starmer's centrist credentials, as he's already shown. We do not need to conduct the party as though we hope to win over HYUFD and Philip, perfectly civil people though they both are.
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
I'd hope that "outrider" section of the party gradually fades away - I was out knocking on doors for Corbyn, despite my reservations, because I believe his Labour party would have been good for the country. I can see the majority of his supporters doing the same for Starmer, but the vitriol of that section of the left is astonishing.
Passion, and differing views are vital, but the support for Kerry-Anne Mendoza when she compared Starmer's "Jobs Jobs Job"s slogan alongside a couple of Boris slogans to the Nazi's "Arbeit macht frei" was genuinely shocking.
I expect they'll find out that they don't speak for the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.
I take Owen Jones as my litmus for where the pragmatic and decent strand of the radical left are. And he duly crucified Mendoza for that utterly crass comment.
And the response he got was pretty extreme. Lots of people who would just a few months ago have been getting updates direct from the leader's office were encouraging abuse and sharing offensive memes/videos of Jones.
I know a lot of Labour members, and was out campaigning with plenty of those radical young momentum types, and they have little in common with the people close to Corbyn who claim to be "the left".
He did get a roasting online, that's true. And just as imo those who constantly attack him from the right should not be in the party, same goes for that strand of the radical left. Broad church, yes, but not that broad. For me, the pews can hold everybody from OJ to around about Lisa Nandy and that's about the size of it. As members and MPs, I mean. All voters welcome of course.
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
A classic technique.
If the Tangerine Nightmare were still capable of getting his leg over, I'm sure that he'd be heading into Portland with 2 big cylinders throbbing between his legs.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
England doesn't give much of a f*ck about Labour either then given the Tories have a majority of 157 in England alone at the moment compared to just 80 across the UK which is the main point, without Scotland and Wales English Labour are screwed.
We also remember how the Tory posters of Miliband in Salmond's pocket in 2015 helped destroy his campaign, the risk for Labour is the Tories would repeat the trick in 2024 with Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket.
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
A classic technique.
If the Tangerine Nightmare were still capable of getting his leg over, I'm sure that he'd be heading into Portland with 2 big cylinders throbbing between his legs.
He could send Ivanka in a reprise of Brigette Bardot's Harley Davidson.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
It doesn't give much of a f*ck about Labour either then given the Tories have a majority of 157 in England alone at the moment compared to just 80 across the UK which is the main point, without Scotland and Wales English Labour are screwed
The real world where Gavin Williamson is still in post, where Grayling gets repeated promotions and a humongous pension, where Ms Harding gets a Baronetcy, a seat in the legislature for life, 65K pa for 2 days work a week and another prestigious job without having to go through any application process. That real world, you mean?
Why on earth would anyone go for a senior job in the civil service knowing that Ministers will not take responsibility, that they will be ruled by fear and discarded if it is politically useful to the Minister regardless of the actual facts about who took what decisions, on what advice and whether such decisions were executed well.
By all means let’s improve civil service effectiveness. But the way Ministers are behaving: lying, blaming others, more interested in coming up with pithy phrases is not how to improve effectiveness or culture. They’re not genuinely interested in getting an effective civil service. Just one that does what it’s told without question and can be blamed when things go wrong.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
Maybe they provided him with exactly the advice he asked for. He asked a stupid question; they gave him stupid advice; they may even have pointed out that it was stupid and why but were told to go away and do what they were told. Who knows?
But you are making the hefty assumption that all these Permanent Secretaries - 5? 6? - and the Cabinet Secretary have all been so bad that they deserved to lose their jobs, just like that, with no due process at all. Is that likely? Or is it possible that they were simply blamed because this simply suited Ministers?
I was a government lawyer for a few years. A good first job. Some time ago so matters may well have changed. There were some appalling time servers in there - shockers who did the bare minimum and waited for their pension; there were some very bright hard-working types who really kept the show on the road and there was a floating population, like me, who came in, did the job (a really interesting one) for a bit and got out.
Why? Prospects. Beyond a certain level, promotion depended on dead men’s shoes. And the pay was awful. Plus the then Tory government went round saying how bloody useless the public service was, we should all be shot at dawn etc despite us having to dig them daily out of the holes they dug themselves into. No wonder the bright young things who joined left.
If the government wants to get the best out of civil servants and improve them it might want to think a bit about its man management. Because, in an atmosphere where people at the top ostentatiously lie, refuse to take responsibility and stab their staff in the back, they are going to get timid “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” time-servers not the imaginative effective people they claim to want.
Unless we hypothesise that the question from the Minister was what is the stupidest way to hand out certificates in the absence of exams that we could pretend was vaguely credible, which seems unlikely and in any event failed the latter part of the test then I think it is safe to assume that producer focused civil servants came up with this monstrosity and sold it to Williamson. They did this because their entire mindset is focused on the output of the system and they are completely indifferent to the life consequences of any particular child. They are not fit for purpose.
As I keep saying WIlliamson is not either but that does not excuse them. The concept of Ministerial responsibility is completely daft in the modern world. Ministers come and go with painful regularity, they cannot master their brief, they are dependent upon the technical advice they are given and not given, they play at being "In charge" whilst in fact being passengers most of the time. When they do stick their oar in, like Jennick, they almost always mess things up because they are ignorant and ill informed.
What we actually need is a civil service that no longer gets to hide behind this absurd fiction but is genuinely accountable and also gets the credit when things go right. That would, in my view, attract the more enthusiastic people you describe.
Is "being prepared to die for Pret" somehow the new mark of moral righteousness? Don't follow Dan, sorry...
He's wrong. I'm sure most people realise that millions of jobs will be lost. It's obviously bad for those in the firing line, but it doesn't mean it's avoidable, or that we should return to living as before. Things that the goverment usually advocates, like less commuting, working from home, and flexible working have made a couple of decades progress in a matter of months. There are economic consequences of that, but in the long run these changes will likely prove to be a good thing; so we should figure out how to make the new normal work best, not go backwards.
That's right. It's the speed of the changes that is the problem not the changes. Less City centric? Fine. Death of the commute and the office? Fine. Far more use of tech and less travelling around? Fine. All by next Wednesday? Hmm. Hang on.
Governments earn their salt at such times. Requires long term strategic thinking, structural reform, and measures to ease the pain for the losers. the cost of which to be borne by those most able to bear it.
It's a big challenge. Big enough to test the best of political leaders.
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
A classic technique.
If the Tangerine Nightmare were still capable of getting his leg over, I'm sure that he'd be heading into Portland with 2 big cylinders throbbing between his legs.
He could send Ivanka in a reprise of Brigette Bardot's Harley Davidson.
"Dad, I love you because you're real. And I respect you because you're effective."
Is "being prepared to die for Pret" somehow the new mark of moral righteousness? Don't follow Dan, sorry...
He's wrong. I'm sure most people realise that millions of jobs will be lost. It's obviously bad for those in the firing line, but it doesn't mean it's avoidable, or that we should return to living as before. Things that the goverment usually advocates, like less commuting, working from home, and flexible working have made a couple of decades progress in a matter of months. There are economic consequences of that, but in the long run these changes will likely prove to be a good thing; so we should figure out how to make the new normal work best, not go backwards.
There will be, undoubtedly, anguished articles in the Guardian about the plight of the low paid workers who cleaned, guarded, fixed etc the office buildings. And the buildings that housed the various shops around them.
They will also point out that the poor areas of the cities supply these workers. And that such workers are predominately BAME. And that the transfer of spend to local high streets has massively benefited the middle class suburbs. Which are, in the words of Emma Thompson. "hideously white".
I think it probable that they will mention the fortunes made by landlords being given blanket approval to turn offices into homes.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The roughly 35% of Scottish voters who are anti hard Brexit and pro devomax but voted No to independence in 2014.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
Haven't heard much from you lately about the pro Union alliance Ruth is supposedly putting together for next May. Howzitgauin?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
Very sorry to hear that. I certainly care about England and the United Kingdom.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
Very sorry to hear that. I certainly care about England and the United Kingdom.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
The art of being a good politician as far as dealing with your officials is concerned is mostly about asking the right questions. Williamson asked for an algorithm that only had one job, and in that it succeeded.
Exactly. I completely agree. The man is an idiot and should not be in charge of anything. Had he been capable of thought he would have seen the consequences. As would his officials. They didn't, not even after the Scottish debacle.
But you don't know this. Civil servants/officials have a vow of silence - they cannot defend themselves. They may well have been warning ministers that the algorithm was a recipe for disaster. We will never know, and that's one of the problems with the attack on the civil service. They can't answer back.
Re your last sentence, I wonder how long this convention will last.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
Very sorry to hear that. I certainly care about England and the United Kingdom.
I would prefer the union to endure but realistically, unless something drastic happens, it’s gone. The English feel English, and concern themselves with issues and politics that affect them.
For those that don't know Portland is a highly symbolic city for the far Right in America. Oregon, like many American states is one of highly Liberal cities and very Conservative rural areas. Portland is seen as a foreign Liberal outpost in a sea of "true" America. As a result the far Right regularly organise what they call invasions of the city. Hit and runs where they swoop in, trash a gay bar or two then flee, often aided by a complicit police force.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
If the Police Force are answerable to Portland's voters, why are they complicit?
American police forces are quite a thing. In many cases they are only nominally controlled by the politicians
For example in Portsmouth Virginia the police keep trying to prosecute Politicians who were voted in on a platform of reforming the out of control police department
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
A classic technique.
If the Tangerine Nightmare were still capable of getting his leg over, I'm sure that he'd be heading into Portland with 2 big cylinders throbbing between his legs.
Yikes. If I'm surrounded by them I'm coming over very "patriotic" indeed until they've gone.
The Donald, of course, would likely run a mile from any actual danger. One does not sense great physical courage there.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
All I was suggesting was Labour have lost Scotland, in or out of the Union. With Scotland out of the Union they have lost England and Wales too.
If Starmer were to attempt to form a government on the proviso that there would be SIndyref2 he would ensure permanent Conservative governments south of the border. That would make him appear even more stupid than he looks.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
He is one of PB's very far right Tory cult members
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
All I was suggesting was Labour have lost Scotland, in or out of the Union. With Scotland out of the Union they have lost England and Wales too.
If Starmer were to attempt to form a government on the proviso that there would be SIndyref2 he would ensure permanent Conservative governments south of the border. That would make him appear even more stupid than he looks.
No he would not. Yes England has a Tory majority at present, and for the foreseeable future, but English (and Welsh) politics would realign eventually.
There would not be a “permanent Conservative government”. Either the Labour Party would have to position itself further to the right, or the Lib Dems or another party would hive off more “centrist” Tory voters.
People would get sick of the government eventually.
I do not seek to excuse Ministers at all in my post. The fact that Williamson was too stupid to immediately see that the algorithm proposed was idiotic and unfair with politically damaging consequences means that he is not fit for office. Obviously. But he didn't come up with that as the preferred option, he simply followed stupid advice because he is incapable of critical thought. As are his officials, apparently.
The art of being a good politician as far as dealing with your officials is concerned is mostly about asking the right questions. Williamson asked for an algorithm that only had one job, and in that it succeeded.
Exactly. I completely agree. The man is an idiot and should not be in charge of anything. Had he been capable of thought he would have seen the consequences. As would his officials. They didn't, not even after the Scottish debacle.
But you don't know this. Civil servants/officials have a vow of silence - they cannot defend themselves. They may well have been warning ministers that the algorithm was a recipe for disaster. We will never know, and that's one of the problems with the attack on the civil service. They can't answer back.
Re your last sentence, I wonder how long this convention will last.
The appropriation and elevation of "patriotism" and "patriots" to mean the support of the indigenous, salt of the earth citizens for the Strongman defender of the "real" country and its people - "our" country - our "great" nation and its traditions - against a dangerous and traitorous enemy within who look different to "us" and don't share "our" values.
A classic technique.
So the gangs that have been rioting and looting for months are the good guys and anyone opposing them are the bad guys.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The only way they start to recover in Scotland, is for Starmer to clearly and unequivocally state that he would never work with the SNP.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
'appeased the nationalists'? I see the 'good Jew' stylee isn't just limited to the Scotch Unionists. Presumably you don't think the LDs were appeasing the right In 2010?
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
The roughly 35% of Scottish voters who are anti hard Brexit and pro devomax but voted No to independence in 2014.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
Haven't heard much from you lately about the pro Union alliance Ruth is supposedly putting together for next May. Howzitgauin?
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
All I was suggesting was Labour have lost Scotland, in or out of the Union. With Scotland out of the Union they have lost England and Wales too.
If Starmer were to attempt to form a government on the proviso that there would be SIndyref2 he would ensure permanent Conservative governments south of the border. That would make him appear even more stupid than he looks.
No he would not. Yes England has a Tory majority at present, and for the foreseeable future, but English (and Welsh) politics would realign eventually.
There would not be a “permanent Conservative government”. Either the Labour Party would have to position itself further to the right, or the Lib Dems or another party would hive off more “centrist” Tory voters.
People would get sick of the government eventually.
Of course Blairite governments would still be possible in England but without Scotland and certainly without Wales as well Old Labour would effectively be dead as a force for power in England for any sustained period of time, New Labour allied to the Lib Dems would be the only way to keep out the Tories
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
England doesn't give much of a f*ck about Labour either then given the Tories have a majority of 157 in England alone at the moment compared to just 80 across the UK which is the main point, without Scotland and Wales English Labour are screwed.
We also remember how the Tory posters of Miliband in Salmond's pocket in 2015 helped destroy his campaign, the risk for Labour is the Tories would repeat the trick in 2024 with Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket.
I am with you to the point where it worked for Cameron. However Cameron hadn't just overseen social and economic armageddon. The Tory leader in 2024 will have that millstone writ-large on his CV.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
Unless they win a landslide without winning back significant seats in Scotland Labour will always need SNP support to get into power now, that then risks creating a backlash in England while having the threat that independence could lead to them losing power again soon after
England doesn’t give a f*ck about Scotland. You’re out of touch.
Very sorry to hear that. I certainly care about England and the United Kingdom.
I would prefer the union to endure but realistically, unless something drastic happens, it’s gone. The English feel English, and concern themselves with issues and politics that affect them.
It is true that ever since the botched devolution settlement under Blair everything possible seems to have been done to undermine the Union and the common purpose that was once so self evident. I regret those trends (of course) and hope it is not too late for us once again to think about what we do better together, to coin a phrase.
Politics in Britain has always been largely tribal, certainly at UK general rather than European or local or Scottish elections, indeed even in 1997 the Tories retained 3/4 of their 1992 voters and even in 2010 Labour retained 80% of its 2005 voters so there is nothing really new there.
On the morning after an Opinium poll which had the Tories down 4% on GE19 and Labour up 8% it also seems rather dated already anyway
I still believe for the next six months or so the Tories will generally hold a circa 5 point lead. Johnson is on the TV news every night and the post pandemic fiscal issues are only biting at the fringes.
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
With Opinium today showing Labour tied with the Tories Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support, he does not need to be ahead to get to No10, just to get a majority, in which case he needs to start a revival of Scottish Labour
With the new boundary changes Labour are further handicapped. If they need the SNP to form a government, they should pass. Scottish Independence hands England and Wales to the Tories forever.
The latest poll has Tories and SCons on 40% each, that's with the SNP on 5%.
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
All I was suggesting was Labour have lost Scotland, in or out of the Union. With Scotland out of the Union they have lost England and Wales too.
If Starmer were to attempt to form a government on the proviso that there would be SIndyref2 he would ensure permanent Conservative governments south of the border. That would make him appear even more stupid than he looks.
No he would not. Yes England has a Tory majority at present, and for the foreseeable future, but English (and Welsh) politics would realign eventually.
There would not be a “permanent Conservative government”. Either the Labour Party would have to position itself further to the right, or the Lib Dems or another party would hive off more “centrist” Tory voters.
People would get sick of the government eventually.
Of course Blairite governments would still be possible in England but without Scotland and certainly without Wales as well Old Labour would effectively be dead as a force for power in England, New Labour allied to the Lib Dems would be the only way to keep out the Tories
Not necessarily. We don’t know what factors will become important in English (and Welsh) politics in a hypothetical future.
Comments
Most members are left-leaning - that's why we joined - but we're also up for Starmer having a decent chance of winning and governing in a way that isn't actually reactionary or self-indulgent vacuity, and we're quite patient about it. Insofar as the dissatisfaction is widespread, a lot of it has simply been that if we're going to put up with vague centrism, at least we want successful vague centrism, and polls up to now haven't been that encouraging. That seems to be changing, and I think that most members will be fine with Starmer if that continues.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-survivors-can-suffer-damage-to-almost-every-major-organ-12027749
and a million other sources.
Portland is totemic to them, and so it has become to Trump.
I'm more concerned by peculiar exemptions around investment income. To be fair Hammond did a fair job starting to clear up Osborne's gimmicks and Sunak looks to be of the same mindset.
https://twitter.com/UKGovScotland/status/1299364856630513669?s=20
"Prof Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, said some of the assumptions made in the model were "implausible" and that the report assumes that "we've learnt nothing from the first wave of this disease". "
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53954492?at_custom2=twitter&at_custom4=06063BFA-E98D-11EA-9032-2BC2923C408C&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=@BBCNewsnight&at_medium=custom7&at_custom1=[post+type]
If Labour aren't sizeably ahead by this time next year, they might as well give up.
You can get injured crossing the road or driving a car or in the kitchen, you can get heart disease eating too much fatty food, cancer from smoking, liver disease from drinking too much alcohol does not mean we stop doing it or ban it
If someone from Melbourne goes to a holiday in the Gold Coast they're not leaving their country but they're flying the same distance as eg London to Ibiza.
Ours is a very physically small country, if people fly the odds are it is going to be overseas. Not a shock or something to be bothered by outside of pandemics really.
Governments earn their salt at such times. Requires long term strategic thinking, structural reform, and measures to ease the pain for the losers. the cost of which to be borne by those most able to bear it.
It's a big challenge. Big enough to test the best of political leaders.
We have Boris Johnson.
https://twitter.com/DomWalsh13/status/1300031640329228288?s=20
Can you provide some details of all these extra imaginary jobs for youth or extra to hand out benefits of dole money , how using Scottish tax for furlough is help and I am still PMSL at the half price hamburgers.
https://www.opinium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/VI-2020-08-26-Data-Tables.xlsx
In the US in 2016 Hillary got 59% in cities to 35% for Trump while Trump got 62% in rural areas to 34% for Hillary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election
The main difference is the left liberal vote in the UK also votes for the LDs and SNP not just Labour.
The other point is that the EHRC and Labour leaks provide a flashpoint that could lead to an open revolt, if both are damning towards the Corbyn left and he cries conspiracy as a result (something that again could put him the wrong side of the line now drawn on antisemitism and related behaviour) there'd be little choice but to at the very least, close to ostracise him within the party. We saw a bit of a dry run with the whistleblower settlements - and a similar course of action over those reports (again, if they find broadly against him and his team) would be much worse.
The question therefore isn't whether people want him expelled, but whether Corbyn can stay within the lines that avoid that becoming a necessary course of action given a) his words and actions are now under much more scrutiny than when he was an obscure backbencher and b) the line has now understandably shifted and hardened in order to rebuild the trust haemorrhaged during the Corbyn years. There is, after all, little that Chris Williamson was guilty of that Corbyn himself wasn't over the years - and even before Labour was placed under new management there was an acknowledgement MPs and members should no longer get away with stuff that was overlooked in the past.
As for members, I think outside the true die hards the slightly rose-tinted view Labour members have of him won't last if he crosses those lines and dares the party to act. It would be with sorrow - but he'd have proved his critics right as to what he is.
Passion, and differing views are vital, but the support for Kerry-Anne Mendoza when she compared Starmer's "Jobs Jobs Job"s slogan alongside a couple of Boris slogans to the Nazi's "Arbeit macht frei" was genuinely shocking.
I expect they'll find out that they don't speak for the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.
For example in Portsmouth Virginia the police keep trying to prosecute Politicians who were voted in on a platform of reforming the out of control police department
https://newrepublic.com/article/159142/portsmouth-virginia-police-louise-lucas-lisa-lucas-burke
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/health/long-term-effects-young-people-covid-wellness/index.html
https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/16/chronic-covid-meet-the-survivors-who-ve-had-coronavirus-symptoms-for-months
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53368768
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53169736
etc
The issue was that it literally created a boom in prices that disappeared over night leaving lots of people who take advantage of MIRAS at it's last throws trapped in negative equity for years.
Pretty much every wargaming of a UK coalition involving the SNP ends with a quick second election, where the U.K. electorate can can pass judgement on the party that appeased the nationalists to get their own power.
I know a lot of Labour members, and was out campaigning with plenty of those radical young momentum types, and they have little in common with the people close to Corbyn who claim to be "the left".
Only Blair would still have won all of his 3 elections in England alone.
So English Labour really needs to keep Scotland and if Scotland goes they better well do everything to stop Wales going or they really are screwed without returning permanently to New Labour
In any case Boris will block indyref2 while he remains PM so indyref2 will likely only come under a PM Starmer reliant on SNP MPs support
A classic technique.
So Lab should replace the 40%+ of their current voters in Scotland who currently support indy with other voters from where?
But you are making the hefty assumption that all these Permanent Secretaries - 5? 6? - and the Cabinet Secretary have all been so bad that they deserved to lose their jobs, just like that, with no due process at all. Is that likely? Or is it possible that they were simply blamed because this simply suited Ministers?
I was a government lawyer for a few years. A good first job. Some time ago so matters may well have changed. There were some appalling time servers in there - shockers who did the bare minimum and waited for their pension; there were some very bright hard-working types who really kept the show on the road and there was a floating population, like me, who came in, did the job (a really interesting one) for a bit and got out.
Why? Prospects. Beyond a certain level, promotion depended on dead men’s shoes. And the pay was awful. Plus the then Tory government went round saying how bloody useless the public service was, we should all be shot at dawn etc despite us having to dig them daily out of the holes they dug themselves into. No wonder the bright young things who joined left.
If the government wants to get the best out of civil servants and improve them it might want to think a bit about its man management. Because, in an atmosphere where people at the top ostentatiously lie, refuse to take responsibility and stab their staff in the back, they are going to get timid “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” time-servers not the imaginative effective people they claim to want.
They can then leave the roughly 20% of Scottish voters who also voted No in 2014 but are pro hard Brexit and anti devomax to the Tories and the 45% of Scottish voters who are pro independence and voted Yes in 2014 to the SNP
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Thwarting the Nats has been a consistent Lab policy for pretty much all of the 21stC, doesn't seem to have done much for them in Scotland thus far.
But quotes like the one which Nova mentions are obviously bonkers and throwing out people who say stuff like that (on the catch-all basis of bringing the party into disrepute) will be fine with most of us on the left.
https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/
We also remember how the Tory posters of Miliband in Salmond's pocket in 2015 helped destroy his campaign, the risk for Labour is the Tories would repeat the trick in 2024 with Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_England
As I keep saying WIlliamson is not either but that does not excuse them. The concept of Ministerial responsibility is completely daft in the modern world. Ministers come and go with painful regularity, they cannot master their brief, they are dependent upon the technical advice they are given and not given, they play at being "In charge" whilst in fact being passengers most of the time. When they do stick their oar in, like Jennick, they almost always mess things up because they are ignorant and ill informed.
What we actually need is a civil service that no longer gets to hide behind this absurd fiction but is genuinely accountable and also gets the credit when things go right. That would, in my view, attract the more enthusiastic people you describe.
They will also point out that the poor areas of the cities supply these workers. And that such workers are predominately BAME. And that the transfer of spend to local high streets has massively benefited the middle class suburbs. Which are, in the words of Emma Thompson. "hideously white".
I think it probable that they will mention the fortunes made by landlords being given blanket approval to turn offices into homes.
Will there be a common Unionist position on Nutella and rimming?
https://twitter.com/Alliance4Unity/status/1298582690011250688?s=20
The Donald, of course, would likely run a mile from any actual danger. One does not sense great physical courage there.
If Starmer were to attempt to form a government on the proviso that there would be SIndyref2 he would ensure permanent Conservative governments south of the border. That would make him appear even more stupid than he looks.
There would not be a “permanent Conservative government”. Either the Labour Party would have to position itself further to the right, or the Lib Dems or another party would hive off more “centrist” Tory voters.
People would get sick of the government eventually.
Ok then.