RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys (edit: and BluestBlue, I see) are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Well France is quite dangerous, a teacher got beheaded in the streets there the other day for showing a cartoon.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
That is a big problem. As I've said before the taper rate should be <50%, not 65%.
I think the rate is £409.89 per month for singles aged 25+ so ~£95-100 a week. I don't like how if you're in a couple you get £594.04 for both (less than £300 a month each!) which is a serious disincentive to people being together. I imagine people really only start doing this once they're both working.
You get £235.83 for every eligible child (no limit) on top. If we're saying that's insufficient to provide lunches for children in school holidays then that needs looking at, or modifying for school holiday months.
However, on the face of it, the financial incentive looks strongly there for adults to live apart and to have more children *if* they can't/don't work - of course, it's very hard to work with multiple children in one person's care anyway so it then becomes a vicious circle.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Those are economic migration reasons though not refugee reasons. So if they wish to apply for economic migration then fair enough there is a procedure for that.
Nice try Dom, but not making headway at PMQs is a bit Westminster Bubble.
So he was pretty crap then?
If headway at PMQs means the PM no longer even attempts to answer forensic questioning and instead makes quite often fictional accusations that even the most competent lawyer cannot answer because there is no answer, yes Starmer is not very good at dealing with Johnson.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
Genuine question: are most schools open and able to offer meals during the school holidays? If not, how are free school meal vouchers to be utilised? Are they to especially open and staff kitchens and facilities - with all that associated overhead that requires, plus the children needing to travel to and from school - or are they "general" vouchers to be spent by the kids/parents at supermarkets and corner shops to get the kids food?
It is different in school holidays (and at weekends) as children are under the care of their parents at that time, or that of a third party. The state doesn't look after kids outside of school. That doesn't make the expense easier to meet of course - but it is a shift. At present, we recognise free school meals for 190 lunches a year (normal school days) and the argument is now to increase it to 261 lunches a year.
There was a good post on here yesterday about how we've shied away from food vouchers in the past, as for some reason it's considered subsistence-like and demeaning, toward cash benefits. UC is designed to get workers used to budgeting and spending their own money to help them transition into salaried work.
I think the Covid-19 crisis is one thing (and I'd continue support for now until that was over in the Spring) and, personally, in the longer-term, I wouldn't object to a mixture of both - cash and child food vouchers - that is part of the overall UC assessment for each individual.
It just feels like it's not been fully thought-through at present.
Completely reasonable question. I suspect primary schools are close enough to most people’s homes that delivering school means there is both reasonable & possible - staff availability would be the only barrier & so long as the school is happy for kitchen staff to bring their children to school in the mornings any problems could be sorted out.
Secondary schools are another matter though, especially in rural areas.
Food vouchers are (rightly imo) seen as stigmatising. Cash is better, where possible. A major problem with the current benefit system is that the government simultaneously sees UC as a benefit to prevent people starving in the street /and/ a stick to beat the poor with by withholding it for every possible infraction. It cannot be both.
Thanks. I don't think it should be seen as stigmatising (if free school meal vouchers are not at present) but perhaps a better answer would be the lift the child element of UC during holiday months - i.e. December, April, July and August.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Even if Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states it would be 269 to 269 (assuming Biden also won NE02) and Trump would be re elected in the House
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
I'm reasonably confident that the left would insist I am not even centre-left anymore. So that isn't me. But you can't just dismiss this as a stereotype. Listen to LBC - a *lot* of English people say exactly what @OnlyLivingBoy posted above. Which is of course the very goal that the right were aiming to achieve.
Oh a radio call-in is all we need to judge whole countries by now - very scientific!
You claimed "the left" make stereotypes. And yet here is the right calling in saying that exact thing...
Reminds me, who was the guy (Israeli?) asserting that the pandemic burns out everywhere in 70 days (apparently entirely naturally, not due to even the most incompetent governments doing something about it within a month or so). Has he been commenting on recent events?
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would still see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower victory margin than 2016, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
UNS really doesn't work state by state, so your outcome doesn't work on that basis alone.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I think Scotland has a slightly different history/structure of land ownership, freeholding and tenancy.
It tends to make the English a bit more individualistic/independent - "my home is my castle" - and the Scottish more collectivist/co-dependent but I don't think you can draw conclusions on who's nicer/nastier from that.
RE observations about me using RCP as a source in the header. This was done entirely on aesthetics grounds. Landscape mode fits much better than portrait mode for images on the site and it is harder to get suitable screen grabs from 538 or elsewhere.
Point is, the Conservatives can be the most transparently bad government and yet 40% of the population will vote for them. Being competent and decent doesn't get other parties anywhere because that 40% don't care about competence and decency. In the Westminster system 40% is enough to win you an outright majority.
I don't know what the answer is, except in Scotland to become independent.
I don't think necessarily that people don't care about competence, they also need to believe a change would lead to an increase in competence, and when it comes to technical delivery of policy they may be more inclined to blame officials, at least whilst the competence of the opposition may still be under the shadow of the Corbyn years.
And Starmer's 'the gentleman in Whitehall knows best' mentality is not an attraction to those who think the gentlemen in Whitehall are neither competent nor interested in the plebs of proletown.
This is the big warning with @CorrectHorseBattery celebrating "nationalise everything" when it comes to the railways. A state owned commercial organisation would be a great thing. State owned enterprises have been running most of the "privatised" trains here. But the idea that we "renationalise" by taking control off these state owned operators to "nationalise" them by handing them over to the DfT's private Operator of Last Resort and suddenly everything gets better is madness.
The problem with passenger rail operations isn't the greedy (state owned) private operators. Its the cretins at the Department for Transport who create unworkable franchises from the start and then throttle the operators with imposed rolling stock bought for £lots with crap spec that needs to be fixed later for £lots. When it comes to transport the "gentlemen in Whitehall" are a disaster.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
I'm reasonably confident that the left would insist I am not even centre-left anymore. So that isn't me. But you can't just dismiss this as a stereotype. Listen to LBC - a *lot* of English people say exactly what @OnlyLivingBoy posted above. Which is of course the very goal that the right were aiming to achieve.
I'm listening to LBC a lot these days when I can. Loving the contentiousness of if although really don't like Eddie (I'm a saint, and a saint who is right) Mair.
But Nick Ferrari and JOB are great.
This morning there were a lot of people saying families should budget more carefully but they seemed to be saying this more in sorrow than anger and didn't seem to be the "those feckless poor" types.
There is of course no answer for a Tory to the "are you willing to let children go hungry?" question. There are plenty of measures to help those in need already. We are of course however in a crisis and under those circumstances I don't have a problem with extra measures such as FSMs until the situation improves. Just listen to the howls when and if it was ended.
Lab of course can include year-round FSMs in their next manifesto, and announce it now, and reap the polling rewards.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Didn’t Biden leave Scranton in 1953? Not exactly up with it
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Even if Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states it would be 269 to 269 (assuming Biden also won NE02) and Trump would be re elected in the House
Provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states is a bold assumption under the circumstances.
The PB lefties continue to obsess about the top 10% and the bottom 10%.
If they ever met the middle 80% they would realise that they talk about different things.
I'm in the top 10% and am really worried about the bottom 10%. That doesn't mean that I am not pro-business, pro-aspiration, pro- good old fashioned hard work.
Genuine question: are most schools open and able to offer meals during the school holidays? If not, how are free school meal vouchers to be utilised? Are they to especially open and staff kitchens and facilities - with all that associated overhead that requires, plus the children needing to travel to and from school - or are they "general" vouchers to be spent by the kids/parents at supermarkets and corner shops to get the kids food?
It is different in school holidays (and at weekends) as children are under the care of their parents at that time, or that of a third party. The state doesn't look after kids outside of school. That doesn't make the expense easier to meet of course - but it is a shift. At present, we recognise free school meals for 190 lunches a year (normal school days) and the argument is now to increase it to 261 lunches a year.
There was a good post on here yesterday about how we've shied away from food vouchers in the past, as for some reason it's considered subsistence-like and demeaning, toward cash benefits. UC is designed to get workers used to budgeting and spending their own money to help them transition into salaried work.
I think the Covid-19 crisis is one thing (and I'd continue support for now until that was over in the Spring) and, personally, in the longer-term, I wouldn't object to a mixture of both - cash and child food vouchers - that is part of the overall UC assessment for each individual.
It just feels like it's not been fully thought-through at present.
It's a £15 a week Online voucher. Redeemable at big supermarkets. Asda (for one) allow it to be used on deliveries. So it is effectively a gift card. £15 off your shopping. One of the issues has been for rural parents without transport whose supermarket won't accept them for deliveries.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
Go and live on it for a year and then come back to tell us all about how it is largesse really.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It also ignores any corrections that the pollsters have done in the interim to avoid an overstatement of the Democratic position.
In fairness a site like that needs traffic and a horse race. Its harder if one of the horses is already in the abattoir.
Currently nationally about 2 to 3% of voters are not saying who they will vote for, more in the rustbelt, as in 2016 I expect most of them to go to Trump.
538's final national 2016 forecast in the popular vote was Hillary 48% and Trump 44%, so it got the Hillary share about right in the popular vote but underestimated the Trump share by about 2%
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I believe the large rump of every country is filled with decent, sympathetic, caring human beings and that there is a tail of people who are none of those things.
I also believe that opponents and proponents of various such "national characteristic" theories prefer to swap one for the other as it suits them.
Perhaps you can also help by defining some other "English" traits.
a) Employers are resistant to providing corrections to payroll figures b) Those working in UC have no idea how to read payroll information - i.e if employer provides a secondary Week 27 figure it doesn't mean the person was paid twice!
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Even if Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states it would be 269 to 269 (assuming Biden also won NE02) and Trump would be re elected in the House
That's not implausible, but Pennsylvania has looked easier for Trump than Wisconsin for most of the cycle. A tie is probably more likely in an election where Biden wins WI-MI-AZ due to Trump again overperforming in the Midwest, although on the other hand Biden would probably win NE-2 in those circumstances.
The truth is a tie just requires a few stars aligning in a way which makes it always an unlikely outcome, not that you are suggesting otherwise I should add.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Those are economic migration reasons though not refugee reasons. So if they wish to apply for economic migration then fair enough there is a procedure for that.
"Refugee" and "economic migrant" are miscible categories. The fact that someone is one, doesn't not stop them also being the other. Would be good if everyone could remember that.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer.
They don't fear him. Why the fuck should they? If insufficient people will vote for him in the current circumstances then what, exactly, has to happen for him to get a sustained poll lead?
The PB lefties continue to obsess about the top 10% and the bottom 10%.
If they ever met the middle 80% they would realise that they talk about different things.
I'm in the top 10% and am really worried about the bottom 10%. That doesn't mean that I am not pro-business, pro-aspiration, pro- good old fashioned hard work.
Its just that I'm not an amoral git.
Over the years I have become less tolerant of the people the Conservative Party would consider to be "scroungers" but I don't believe their children should starve as a result of the parents' shortcomings.
The circle I can't square is the notion that the idle and feckless poor deserve no compassion, but an idle and feckless Foreign Secretary deserved to be rewarded with £250k a year for a short weekly column in the Daily Telegraph as a prize for his failure.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It also ignores any corrections that the pollsters have done in the interim to avoid an overstatement of the Democratic position.
In fairness a site like that needs traffic and a horse race. Its harder if one of the horses is already in the abattoir.
Currently nationally about 2 to 3% of voters are not saying who they will vote for, more in the rustbelt, as in 2016 I expect most of them to go to Trump.
538's final national 2016 forecast in the popular vote was Hillary 48% and Trump 44%, so it got the Hillary share about right in the popular vote but underestimated the Trump share by about 2%
I am not sure that is accurate. About 99% of votes won't say who they are voting for or take part in polling.
The assumption that the oddities that do are an accurate reflection of the rest of the electorate is, well, a part of the optimism needed by pollsters generally. My expectation, FWIW, is that those not expressing a preference will not vote at all in the main. After all, nearly half of all Americans won't.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I think Scotland has a slightly different history/structure of land ownership, freeholding and tenancy.
It tends to make the English a bit more individualistic/independent - "my home is my castle" - and the Scottish more collectivist/co-dependent but I don't think you can draw conclusions on who's nicer/nastier from that.
I think it is also that Scotland is a much smaller country (population wise). Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word nice. It was shorthand for "care more about kids having enough food" which in my view is kind of synonymous or at least correlated with being a nice person, but I am happy to substitute an alternative word for the avoidance of doubt if people can suggest a good one. I have English parents, kids and wife and live in England so am not anti-English, I was simply agreeing with Mr Rochdale that there are slightly different attitudes on this issue in Scotland than in England, and I do find the attitudes on this site bewildering at times.
Genuine question: are most schools open and able to offer meals during the school holidays? If not, how are free school meal vouchers to be utilised? Are they to especially open and staff kitchens and facilities - with all that associated overhead that requires, plus the children needing to travel to and from school - or are they "general" vouchers to be spent by the kids/parents at supermarkets and corner shops to get the kids food?
It is different in school holidays (and at weekends) as children are under the care of their parents at that time, or that of a third party. The state doesn't look after kids outside of school. That doesn't make the expense easier to meet of course - but it is a shift. At present, we recognise free school meals for 190 lunches a year (normal school days) and the argument is now to increase it to 261 lunches a year.
There was a good post on here yesterday about how we've shied away from food vouchers in the past, as for some reason it's considered subsistence-like and demeaning, toward cash benefits. UC is designed to get workers used to budgeting and spending their own money to help them transition into salaried work.
I think the Covid-19 crisis is one thing (and I'd continue support for now until that was over in the Spring) and, personally, in the longer-term, I wouldn't object to a mixture of both - cash and child food vouchers - that is part of the overall UC assessment for each individual.
It just feels like it's not been fully thought-through at present.
It's a £15 a week Online voucher. Redeemable at big supermarkets. Asda (for one) allow it to be used on deliveries. So it is effectively a gift card. £15 off your shopping. One of the issues has been for rural parents without transport whose supermarket won't accept them for deliveries.
I'm listening to LBC a lot these days when I can. Loving the contentiousness of if although really don't like Eddie (I'm a saint, and a saint who is right) Mair.
But Nick Ferrari and JOB are great.
This morning there were a lot of people saying families should budget more carefully but they seemed to be saying this more in sorrow than anger and didn't seem to be the "those feckless poor" types.
There is of course no answer for a Tory to the "are you willing to let children go hungry?" question. There are plenty of measures to help those in need already. We are of course however in a crisis and under those circumstances I don't have a problem with extra measures such as FSMs until the situation improves. Just listen to the howls when and if it was ended.
Lab of course can include year-round FSMs in their next manifesto, and announce it now, and reap the polling rewards.
The transition between Nick and James can be entertaining to listen to. Are they really back to back presenters on the same station? Both can be very fair, both can be very patronising. Then onto Sheilagh Fogarty who sounds mournful most of the time.
It is absolutely true that there are feckless parents. And caring parents unable to budget. But the harsh light of day is that too many full time jobs do not pay enough to sustain more than a subsistence level of existence, and Universal Credit is a trapdoor to drop straight into crisis territory. You can't budget better if your incomings do not cover your outgoings no matter how meagre.
Which makes it so funny when the Tories insist that work does pay and that UC is sufficient and that anyone saying not must be an idiot leftie feckless doley. I suspect many of them know what they are saying isn't based in fact and don't care, and some of them are just stupid and believe whatever they are fed because it fits their world view to kick the poor.
Some Tory MPs have had a week they will not survive. They campaigned on an insufficient financial settlement for their constituents. And then voted against emergency feeding required as a result of insufficient finances.
When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer.
They don't fear him. Why the fuck should they? If insufficient people will vote for him in the current circumstances then what, exactly, has to happen for him to get a sustained poll lead?
He needs to take extra classes at the Jeremy Corbyn School of Being Leader of the Opposition.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It also ignores any corrections that the pollsters have done in the interim to avoid an overstatement of the Democratic position.
In fairness a site like that needs traffic and a horse race. Its harder if one of the horses is already in the abattoir.
Currently nationally about 2 to 3% of voters are not saying who they will vote for, more in the rustbelt, as in 2016 I expect most of them to go to Trump.
538's final national 2016 forecast in the popular vote was Hillary 48% and Trump 44%, so it got the Hillary share about right in the popular vote but underestimated the Trump share by about 2%
I am not sure that is accurate. About 99% of votes won't say who they are voting for or take part in polling.
The assumption that the oddities that do are an accurate reflection of the rest of the electorate is, well, a part of the optimism needed by pollsters generally. My expectation, FWIW, is that those not expressing a preference will not vote at all in the main. After all, nearly half of all Americans won't.
Or else you can look at Rasmussen and IBID/TIPP who are now showing barely any swing from 2016 unlike most pollsters
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
That is a big problem. As I've said before the taper rate should be <50%, not 65%.
I think the rate is £409.89 per month for singles aged 25+ so ~£95-100 a week. I don't like how if you're in a couple you get £594.04 for both (less than £300 a month each!) which is a serious disincentive to people being together. I imagine people really only start doing this once they're both working.
You get £235.83 for every eligible child (no limit) on top. If we're saying that's insufficient to provide lunches for children in school holidays then that needs looking at, or modifying for school holiday months.
However, on the face of it, the financial incentive looks strongly there for adults to live apart and to have more children *if* they can't/don't work - of course, it's very hard to work with multiple children in one person's care anyway so it then becomes a vicious circle. </p>
I think part of the problem with all benefits is that they aren't taxable which means there's always odd scenarios that means people are better off on benefits rather than working. We should increase the gross amount and make it taxable so when people do get jobs their income replaces their benefits at a minimum like for like rate.
I also think bringing people into the tax system makes sense in general, especially those with a very high benefit amount.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
A point well made.
It is probably an unwise assumption for me to make, but I suspect with what comes next (post-Covid and post-Brexit) the Conservatives toxicity will surpass anything Corbyn could even muster.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between ethnic groups? I very much believe that there are (and see them often, backed up by evidence in my research) but it doesn't tell me anything about person 1 in ethnic group A compared to person 2 in ethnic group B - within group differences much bigger than between groups differences.
What I'm saying is that I'm with @felix in thinking you're making a bit of an over-generalisation and also that 'agrees more closely with my worldview' != nicer, necessarily.
To be fair though, in my own experience I do agree with you, though I'd bring northerners into the 'nice' group with the Scots (I'm a southerner by birth, northerner by residence). Makes me as much of a bigot as the next man, I guess
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It would see Trump re elected actually but by a narrower margin than Hillary did, Biden would win Michigan which Trump won by 0.23% but Trump would hold Pennsylvania which he won by 0.72% and Wisconsin which he won by 0.77% assuming the same error and UNS
Trump is not beating the boy from Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Even if Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states it would be 269 to 269 (assuming Biden also won NE02) and Trump would be re elected in the House
Provided Trump held Wisconsin and his other 2016 states is a bold assumption under the circumstances.
Yes. 538 have a nice model for that. If you take the basic model then hardwire in Biden taking Penn, Michigan and NE2 but not Wisconsin then Biden still has a 74% chance because he's got quite a few other pickup opportunities with very different demographics to Wisconsin so they won't swing uniformly - Arizona, N Carolina, Florida. He only needs to win one of those.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I believe the large rump of every country is filled with decent, sympathetic, caring human beings and that there is a tail of people who are none of those things.
I also believe that opponents and proponents of various such "national characteristic" theories prefer to swap one for the other as it suits them.
Perhaps you can also help by defining some other "English" traits.
Not really, I think I have explained quite clearly all the points I want to make on this topic. If you are interested in English social attitudes, Scottish attitudes and the similarities (many) and differences (not that great, but nevertheless real) then there are lots of studies out there and Google is your friend.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Those are economic migration reasons though not refugee reasons. So if they wish to apply for economic migration then fair enough there is a procedure for that.
"Refugee" and "economic migrant" are miscible categories. The fact that someone is one, doesn't not stop them also being the other. Would be good if everyone could remember that.
If someone wants to move here permanently for work - rather than to take temporary refuge from conflict or persecution - then we rightly have a process for that.
RCP have been pushing a measure that showed Trump ahead in battleground states versus where he was at the same stage in the race against Clinton.
That has now flipped to Biden being 4.2% ahead versus Clinton's 3.8% lead at the same stage.
Oops, that's not quite fitting the preferred narrative.
It also ignores any corrections that the pollsters have done in the interim to avoid an overstatement of the Democratic position.
In fairness a site like that needs traffic and a horse race. Its harder if one of the horses is already in the abattoir.
Currently nationally about 2 to 3% of voters are not saying who they will vote for, more in the rustbelt, as in 2016 I expect most of them to go to Trump.
538's final national 2016 forecast in the popular vote was Hillary 48% and Trump 44%, so it got the Hillary share about right in the popular vote but underestimated the Trump share by about 2%
I am not sure that is accurate. About 99% of votes won't say who they are voting for or take part in polling.
The assumption that the oddities that do are an accurate reflection of the rest of the electorate is, well, a part of the optimism needed by pollsters generally. My expectation, FWIW, is that those not expressing a preference will not vote at all in the main. After all, nearly half of all Americans won't.
Or else you can look at Rasmussen and IBID/TIPP who are now showing barely any swing from 2016 unlike most pollsters
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
I wonder whether Brexit being back in the news temporarily reminds Leavers what the Blue Wall was built for. Tory support sits at around the same level it has returned to for 4 years whenever Leavers have been of the mind that things are being taken forward.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
That is a big problem. As I've said before the taper rate should be <50%, not 65%.
I think the rate is £409.89 per month for singles aged 25+ so ~£95-100 a week. I don't like how if you're in a couple you get £594.04 for both (less than £300 a month each!) which is a serious disincentive to people being together. I imagine people really only start doing this once they're both working.
You get £235.83 for every eligible child (no limit) on top. If we're saying that's insufficient to provide lunches for children in school holidays then that needs looking at, or modifying for school holiday months.
However, on the face of it, the financial incentive looks strongly there for adults to live apart and to have more children *if* they can't/don't work - of course, it's very hard to work with multiple children in one person's care anyway so it then becomes a vicious circle. </p>
I think part of the problem with all benefits is that they aren't taxable which means there's always odd scenarios that means people are better off on benefits rather than working. We should increase the gross amount and make it taxable so when people do get jobs their income replaces their benefits at a minimum like for like rate.
I also think bringing people into the tax system makes sense in general, especially those with a very high benefit amount.
An old chestnut that won't go down well with the new "never been on the dole before" post Covid benefits claimants when they come to vote next time. Particularly, armed with the knowledge that Boris is "struggling" to manage on £150k a year.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
Go and live on it for a year and then come back to tell us all about how it is largesse really.
Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't use. I never said it was largesse I said it isn't fuck all.
There is a difference between fuck all and largesse.
If you are claiming for multiple children, housing benefit etc then you can be talking well over a thousand pounds a month, that is not fuck all, nor is it largesse.
If it was up to me I would like to (as I said) address the taper rate to make UC more generous not less.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
The best thing Starmer could do to win (and it might be he's not "ready" yet with Labour's internal battles) is to do what Obama did and talk tough on border security and illegal migration.
He's started this by posing patriotic tweets, occasionally. The trouble is people aren't yet sure if he's sincere or not and when they see him taking a knee (which many WWC voters view as the thin end of a wedge of a philosophy that ultimately works against them) they start to wonder.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
I think we can all remember occasions when kids who were 'different' turned up at school and had a hard time.
One point I saw made recently that made me pause was how the Scots don't have a slang word for the English equivalent to 'jocks'. They don't refer to the 'poms' and sassenachs is hardly common currency.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
Don't think Jorgenson can pull it out the bag then ?
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
It is, but there are some old hands he could turn to once the need to appease Len McCluskey has passed.
Blair also won due to a subtle agreement with the Lib Dems. Corbyn was more about winning the Labour Party, so had no interest in aligning with social democrats, much less Orange Bookers. I just can't see that happening under Starmer and Davey.
I expect a fairly stable minority government of Labour, supported by the Lib Dems. SNP will also support them until late into government. Expect some Devo max and alignment with the EU/EEA to stave off independence.
With this scenario of nod-and-a-wink cooperation, the electoral calculator becomes compromised and Portillo events take place with the likes of Jacob RM.
He's insisted this time that he has already addressed the challenge with his new "not enough to save your job" scheme so why is anyone expecting a u-turn? Oh yeah, because you know they will u-turn when they say they definitely won't u-turn.
"But where will they get the money from" I hear a cry. They'll have to get the money to pay for the economic shock of *not* spending the money, so better to keep people in work than let them all lose their jobs, start claiming and stop spending.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
Yes like the kid who told my wife that "my dad hates p***s but you're all right". The 1980s, great days. In my experience in Scotland kids go through an intense bout of anti Englishness around the age of your ned assailants and it then subsides significantly. Very few adult Scots harbour any real animosity towards the English. One reason I have come round to the idea of Scottish independence is that it may help to end the inferiority complex around England that feeds some of this sentiment. Plus Brexit, obvs.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I believe the large rump of every country is filled with decent, sympathetic, caring human beings and that there is a tail of people who are none of those things.
I also believe that opponents and proponents of various such "national characteristic" theories prefer to swap one for the other as it suits them.
Perhaps you can also help by defining some other "English" traits.
Not really, I think I have explained quite clearly all the points I want to make on this topic. If you are interested in English social attitudes, Scottish attitudes and the similarities (many) and differences (not that great, but nevertheless real) then there are lots of studies out there and Google is your friend.
From what I have seen of attitudes surveys, where the question is "what concerns you?", on most subjects, with 2 exceptions, English and Scottish attitudes are similar. On health, education, the economy etc the % concerned about issues are close between England and Scotland. The 2 exceptions, which the Scottish are much less agitated about than the English, are crime and immigration.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
If that's what you take from my post then I think it says it all. I'm just observing that having lived in both countries, the English seem much more ready to imagine the worst of their fellow countrymen, especially the poor. Anyway,if you knew your Trainspotting, you would know that the English are not scum, but wankers. 😉
Try substituting black for English in your post. It might give you a clue.
Except if I did that I would be making a baseless claim based on race rather than asserting something for which there is evidence (eg in voting behaviour and to a lesser extent in polling on attitudes to poverty and government redistribution, where Scots are more left wing on average) and for which I have first hand experience, having lived for considerable time in both countries. Do you genuinely believe that there are no differences in social attitudes between different countries?
I believe the large rump of every country is filled with decent, sympathetic, caring human beings and that there is a tail of people who are none of those things.
I also believe that opponents and proponents of various such "national characteristic" theories prefer to swap one for the other as it suits them.
Perhaps you can also help by defining some other "English" traits.
Not really, I think I have explained quite clearly all the points I want to make on this topic. If you are interested in English social attitudes, Scottish attitudes and the similarities (many) and differences (not that great, but nevertheless real) then there are lots of studies out there and Google is your friend.
I must say that telling people to google things really does make for a scintillating internet chat room.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
I think we can all remember occasions when kids who were 'different' turned up at school and had a hard time.
One point I saw made recently that made me pause was how the Scots don't have a slang word for the English equivalent to 'jocks'. They don't refer to the 'poms' and sassenachs is hardly common currency.
Sassenachs is probably used as much relatively (remember there are 8 times more English to say "jock" than scots to say sassenachs. Also if you live in England you will of course think that jocks is more prevalent (as its the english saying it ).
As an example of living in the wrong country to hear such slang I only heard out loud last week the term "gog" which i believe is a slang term used by South Welsh to refer to North Welsh. Some South Welsh bloke came to our office and rather diplomatically (not!) accused our welsh receptionist of being a "gog" as she spoke Welsh. She laughed it off and all the non-welsh around were bemused at the whole thing
Actually keeping calm was the way Dave and George governed/led their party.
They were forged by the summer and autumn of 2007 when it looked like Gordon Brown was going to call a snap election and win a landslide.
They kept calm and they delivered an awesome conference and set of policies that turned the tide, rather than the expected leadership challenge that would have followed.
But Boris Johnson and his lackeys aren't as calm as Dave and George.
I don't think people how close Brown was to calling an election, one of his MPs wrote this piece in September 2007.
Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increases its majority.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
It's 2020, there must be some weird procedural route that can somehow hand the presidency over to Brock Pierce.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
Don't think Jorgenson can pull it out the bag then ?
Nope, if only Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson was the Libertarian candidate.
- One third of all interactions occur in the workplace - When R is just below 1, the Government push people to go back to their place of work just as they're reopening schools and Universities (Dominic Cummings, super genius). - The proportion of the workforce at their normal place of work increases from 34.8% in early June (when the virus was under control) to 59.3%..
The virus is now spreading out of control beyond an R of 1
We respond by shutting restaurants with minimal support to them.
You can see why the hospitality industry are feeling rather hard done by.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
The best thing Starmer could do to win (and it might be he's not "ready" yet with Labour's internal battles) is to do what Obama did and talk tough on border security and illegal migration.
He's started this by posing patriotic tweets, occasionally. The trouble is people aren't yet sure if he's sincere or not and when they see him taking a knee (which many WWC voters view as the thin end of a wedge of a philosophy that ultimately works against them) they start to wonder.
Depending on recollection of some of the seeming favours being doled out now, SKS' best shot is what really got Blair in in 1997. Sleaze and fatigue of the Tories.
The danger for him (SKS) is that Covid is "beaten" and Brexit done (fudged) and Boris calls a celebratory GE just as SKS is gearing up for his "attack" phase of opposition.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
Go and live on it for a year and then come back to tell us all about how it is largesse really.
Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't use. I never said it was largesse I said it isn't fuck all.
There is a difference between fuck all and largesse.
If you are claiming for multiple children, housing benefit etc then you can be talking well over a thousand pounds a month, that is not fuck all, nor is it largesse.
If it was up to me I would like to (as I said) address the taper rate to make UC more generous not less.
£1000/ month, £250/ week with multiple children must be heaven
When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer.
They don't fear him. Why the fuck should they? If insufficient people will vote for him in the current circumstances then what, exactly, has to happen for him to get a sustained poll lead?
I'm hoping he's just saving his thunder for when it'll have more impact. At the moment he's turning being vanilla into an art form. Johnson and his organ grinder deserve destroying and the only person with the stage to do it is musing about whether we should be in lockdown for two weeks! It's pathetic and his supporters are losing patience
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
Don't think Jorgenson can pull it out the bag then ?
Nope, if only Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson was the Libertarian candidate.
Or if John McAfee had chosen the hustings over the whale-fucking contest.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
It's absolutely remarkable that, in all their haste to depict the Tories as evil and unfeeling, I haven't seen a single advocate for the free school meals proposal provide any data at all on the scale of the problem it is supposed to address, nor any reasoned argument that it's a good way to deal with the problem. Impugning the motives of those on the other side of the argument is not convincing.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
I think we can all remember occasions when kids who were 'different' turned up at school and had a hard time.
One point I saw made recently that made me pause was how the Scots don't have a slang word for the English equivalent to 'jocks'. They don't refer to the 'poms' and sassenachs is hardly common currency.
Sassenachs is probably used as much relatively (remember there are 8 times more English to say "jock" than scots to say sassenachs. Also if you live in England you will of course think that jocks is more prevalent (as its the english saying it ).
As an example of living in the wrong country to hear such slang I only heard out loud last week the term "gog" which i believe is a slang term used by South Welsh to refer to North Welsh. Some South Welsh bloke came to our office and rather diplomatically (not!) accused our welsh receptionist of being a "gog" as she spoke Welsh. She laughed it off and all the non-welsh around were bemused at the whole thing
I have never heard the word Sassenach used in normal conversation in Scotland. Apart from anything else, it is the Gaelic word for Saxon and is applied equally to lowland Scots as to the English.
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
Go and live on it for a year and then come back to tell us all about how it is largesse really.
Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't use. I never said it was largesse I said it isn't fuck all.
There is a difference between fuck all and largesse.
If you are claiming for multiple children, housing benefit etc then you can be talking well over a thousand pounds a month, that is not fuck all, nor is it largesse.
If it was up to me I would like to (as I said) address the taper rate to make UC more generous not less.
£1000/ month, £250/ week with multiple children must be heaven
I note you missed my saying "well over" and that I never said heaven.
Someone working Full Time minimum wage only takes home a comparable amount after tax and national insurance too.
Plus once more you missed the fact I made a specific proposal as to how the system should be made more generous by slashing the taper rate.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
Well, to be fair his retirement wasn't exactly his own choice. But I agree with your main point.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
Someone thinks Hillary might win and will take 970/1
It's absolutely remarkable that, in all their haste to depict the Tories as evil and unfeeling, I haven't seen a single advocate for the free school meals proposal provide any data at all on the scale of the problem it is supposed to address, nor any reasoned argument that it's a good way to deal with the problem. Impugning the motives of those on the other side of the argument is not convincing.
Well you need to follow Marcus Rashford on twitter.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
I agree. I guess they retire because being a politician is a pretty rubbish career choice. You get a ton of hate and very little compensation in comparison to the top of other vocations.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Those are economic migration reasons though not refugee reasons. So if they wish to apply for economic migration then fair enough there is a procedure for that.
"Refugee" and "economic migrant" are miscible categories. The fact that someone is one, doesn't not stop them also being the other. Would be good if everyone could remember that.
If someone wants to move here permanently for work - rather than to take temporary refuge from conflict or persecution - then we rightly have a process for that.
Confusing them doesn't do justice to either.
Exactly wrong. By pretending that someone is EITHER fleeing from danger OR seeking better fortunes is to reduce complex messy situations into binaries. When you impose arbitrary classifications on people, that is exactly the way you arrive at absurdity and injustice. As a general rule, we should avoid classification heuristics because they dehumanise. If a refugee admits to wanting to live with friends in one particular country, it doesn't mean they're a fake asylum seeker. If someone claims persecution it doesn't follow it's definitely real. If someone is a member of the Conservative Party they aren't "scum" by default. If someone voted Leave they aren't necessarily racist. If someone voted Remain they aren't necessarily a haughty elitist. If someone questions inequality, envy need not play any part. And so on. We make these classifications to make it easier to hold onto our opinions and dismiss situations where reality might intrude.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
The only time I ever experienced serious racism was in Scotland.
I am sorry to hear it. What happened?
Thanks, obviously well over it now. I was thirteen in Dumfries. Weekend shopping trip. Four local boys heard me asking for something in WHSmith with an English accent.
They then followed me down a side alley and one of them punched me in the side of my face calling me a "English c**t" whilst laughing.
I didn't react just wriggled free and escaped to the police station, who were understanding and sympathetic - and found the incident on CCTV - but couldn't do anything.
That is sad to hear, I am glad to hear you are OK. I am assuming you are white (based solely on the relative prevalence in the population) in which case it is perhaps easy to see why you would not have been likely to experience any comparable racism in England, being part of the majority population (apologies if this assumption is wide of the mark). Your assailants sound like the worst kind of ignorant small town neds, of which unfortunately there are a few. My family are English so I certainly experienced a bit of this on a minor scale when I was young. It's not widespread. My wife is Asian and grew up in England and undoubtedly experienced worse racism in her childhood than either you or I experienced in Scotland, not to belittle your experience.
Agreed, and that's a fair post. I just think making carte-blanche assertions about niceness or race by nation or ethnicity isn't helpful. Of course the salience varies.
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
I think we can all remember occasions when kids who were 'different' turned up at school and had a hard time.
One point I saw made recently that made me pause was how the Scots don't have a slang word for the English equivalent to 'jocks'. They don't refer to the 'poms' and sassenachs is hardly common currency.
Sassenachs is probably used as much relatively (remember there are 8 times more English to say "jock" than scots to say sassenachs. Also if you live in England you will of course think that jocks is more prevalent (as its the english saying it ).
As an example of living in the wrong country to hear such slang I only heard out loud last week the term "gog" which i believe is a slang term used by South Welsh to refer to North Welsh. Some South Welsh bloke came to our office and rather diplomatically (not!) accused our welsh receptionist of being a "gog" as she spoke Welsh. She laughed it off and all the non-welsh around were bemused at the whole thing
I have never heard the word Sassenach used in normal conversation in Scotland. Apart from anything else, it is the Gaelic word for Saxon and is applied equally to lowland Scots as to the English.
I'd say it would almost be used ironically today - almost as a deliberate archaism. It's more what the English think the Scots say, almost Brigadoon stuff. As you say, it is hopelessly ambiguous in usage (like 'haver', which non-Scots have misused so much that it's not safe to employ it).
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
I agree. I guess they retire because being a politician is a pretty rubbish career choice. You get a ton of hate and very little compensation in comparison to the top of other vocations.
I believe Ed Balls has been very clear that his time as a Politician is over.
On topic, my accurate, tested, and flawless prediction for the Presidential election is that there is a 100% chance that one of Trump or Biden will win.
Someone thinks Hillary might win and will take 970/1
I've been laying Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama in this race like I laid David Milliband in the last two Labour leadership contests.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
You are Danny Alexander and I claim my £5!
Partly because they come into office too young, are unsurprisingly not very good and then their reputation is tarnished. Also Camborne were stuck in the 1980s other than the odd social reform and not really attuned to things post-2008.
There'll be the inevitable 'but they won' etc - though the proof of the pudding is in the eating. There's no clamour for them to return or to revisit their policies.
This is the sort of thing that will cling to the Conservatives like a bad smell. It will be a reminder to wavers of why the "nasty party" shouldn't get their vote.
Astounding result. Like asking "Do you agree that everything should be nice and nothing should be nasty?" More illuminating if the question said either "forever" or "for the duration of covid 19" (or gave the choice). If the former, has it ever been in a Labour manifesto and why has it never been enacted by a Labour government?
Holiday provision for free school meals has been enacted by the Labour government here in Wales.
This really shouldn't be a party political issue, but a moral conscience issue. Hungry children is not a good look for any political party. Scapegoating idle and feckless adults is fair game, but deliberately voting to malnourish children doesn't go down well with the mums.
As my wife has just put it "there is an inability for too many people in England to put themselves in other people's shoes". I have no problem if England wants to descend into the right wing pit - that's free choice. I've had enough of it. "If you don't like it go and live somewhere else" say some Tories. OK, I will.
It is remarkable how some people are so devoid of empathy. They simply assert that of course you can feed a family easily on benefits, and fall back on lazy stereotypes about booze and fags, feckless parents and the like. The poverty line for a single parent with one kid is about £200 per week after housing costs. Many millions of families on benefits including those in work are below that level, especially after post-2010 cuts. That £200 has to cover not just food but travel costs, clothing including school uniform, utilities, school trips, furniture and appliances, internet access and phone bills, and any sudden and lumpy costs like repairing your car. It's really not hard to see how that leaves many struggling to provide food at times, and indeed it is easy to find accounts by those affected explaining in great detail. And yet, through sheer arrogance and lack of empathy, people who have never wondered how they will stretch the last tenner to the end of the week, or how they will afford a winter coat for their child, or seen their kid bring the only one in her class who doesn't go on the school trip, are happy to bleat on about how people just need to be better at budgeting. It's really disgusting, and I don't blame you for moving to Scotland, where in all honesty people actually are nicer.
Lol - stereotyping a whole country comes do easily to the left. The English are just scum, as someone once said.
Its amazing why those migrants are prepared to risk their lives to cross the channel rather than staying in France seeing how terrible everything is in England.
Because they speak English not French and their relatives are in England not France, don’t be so bloody stupid.
The fact that people like Nerys are unable to attribute normal human motives to migrants shows just how successful the dehumanisation campaign has been. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Those are economic migration reasons though not refugee reasons. So if they wish to apply for economic migration then fair enough there is a procedure for that.
"Refugee" and "economic migrant" are miscible categories. The fact that someone is one, doesn't not stop them also being the other. Would be good if everyone could remember that.
If someone wants to move here permanently for work - rather than to take temporary refuge from conflict or persecution - then we rightly have a process for that.
Confusing them doesn't do justice to either.
Exactly wrong. By pretending that someone is EITHER fleeing from danger OR seeking better fortunes is to reduce complex messy situations into binaries. When you impose arbitrary classifications on people, that is exactly the way you arrive at absurdity and injustice. As a general rule, we should avoid classification heuristics because they dehumanise. If a refugee admits to wanting to live with friends in one particular country, it doesn't mean they're a fake asylum seeker. If someone claims persecution it doesn't follow it's definitely real. If someone is a member of the Conservative Party they aren't "scum" by default. If someone voted Leave they aren't necessarily racist. If someone voted Remain they aren't necessarily a haughty elitist. If someone questions inequality, envy need not play any part. And so on. We make these classifications to make it easier to hold onto our opinions and dismiss situations where reality might intrude.
If a refugee wants to live with friends in another country they can apply for a visa to get to that country.
If a refugee wants safety they can apply for it where they are safe to do so.
I think part of the problem with all benefits is that they aren't taxable which means there's always odd scenarios that means people are better off on benefits rather than working. We should increase the gross amount and make it taxable so when people do get jobs their income replaces their benefits at a minimum like for like rate.
I also think bringing people into the tax system makes sense in general, especially those with a very high benefit amount.
The LibDems used to have a policy of replacing benefits with a negative income tax, i.e. complete integration of the tax and benefits systems. I think it's quite a good idea - much better than their current universal income gimmick - since it could completely eliminate some of the nasty cliff-edge problems and high marginal rates for people on low incomes. And it could be introduced gradually, phasing out existing benefits one by one and gradually bumping up the negative income tax component.
Pretty desperate stuff. When this type of propaganda is put out by Tories it just further demonstrates how much they fear Starmer. It reminds me of the guff that Labour supporters used to put out about Cameron. Remember those? Cameron was a chameleon, a lightweight, no experience, a SPAD. None of it worked, because the electorate eventually worked out that Gordon Brown was essentially a pretty useless leader and PM. Gordo looks like a colossus compared to Shagger, and I would say Starmer's back story is a lot lot stronger than Cameron's. The Tories didn't throw Cameron overboard because they knew he was the best they had. Labour will be even less inclined to do so with Starmer, because he is the best they have by a country mile. I can see that and I am not a Labour supporter.
I agree.
Labour have nobody near him at this time, even though it seems he is not cutting through by as much as one may expect
Still early days. Do we really need an inspirational Tony Blair figure for 2024? By the time we get to 2024, the last thing we will need or want is another bull******, uninspiring and competent will fit the bill perfectly.
It's worth remembering that when Blair became Labour leader Labour already had a sizeable lead in the polls and the party was a few years into a detoxification process. He built on work already begun. Starmer inherited a very different position.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
It is also worth remembering that Tony Blair did inspire a lot of people. It's harder to remember on the wrong side of Iraq, tuition fees, and the general grubbiness that being in power stains you with, that Blair was like a rock star in 90s. I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
Blair was the real deal, but he also had a very strong supporting cast. Labour looked like the government long before it took charge. I think a fair few people could imagine Starmer in Downing Street, but there is no Gordon Brown to stand beside him - or a Cook, a Mandelson, a Mowlam, a Straw etc etc. That is the challenge Labour has. Voters probably would not mind the party's leader as PM, but they want Rishi Sunak running the economy. Things can change, though.
Yeah the Labour shadow cabinet is wank.
I tell you who Labour need right now...Ed Balls. He's only 53 and been around the block a few times and isn't as hated as he used to be.
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again? Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough. Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
I agree. I guess they retire because being a politician is a pretty rubbish career choice. You get a ton of hate and very little compensation in comparison to the top of other vocations.
I believe Ed Balls has been very clear that his time as a Politician is over.
In the same way Boris Johnson said there would be no border in the Irish Sea?
James O'Brien going on the government's backflip to blame the kids for being hungry. Why? he asks.
Its simple. Work doesn't pay. Universal Credit doesn't work. But they insist both are fine therefore kids can't be hungry unless they are feckless iPhone owners. They can't feed these hungry kids because to do so is to admit that work doesn't pay and UC doesn't work and their whole pack of cards falls down.
As this goes on, I suspect the UC mirage will dissipate anyway. Its one thing for Tory voters to insist UC - of which they know nothing Jon Snow - is largesse when its other people complaining about penury, another thing when its them being dumped onto it and discovering they are entitled to fuck all AND now being blamed for their situation by their former allies.
UC isn't fuck all.
The biggest problem with UC though is the taper rate (and it's predecessors were worse) which means that people on it are punitively taxed if they earn more.
Go and live on it for a year and then come back to tell us all about how it is largesse really.
Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't use. I never said it was largesse I said it isn't fuck all.
There is a difference between fuck all and largesse.
If you are claiming for multiple children, housing benefit etc then you can be talking well over a thousand pounds a month, that is not fuck all, nor is it largesse.
If it was up to me I would like to (as I said) address the taper rate to make UC more generous not less.
£1000/ month, £250/ week with multiple children must be heaven
I note you missed my saying "well over" and that I never said heaven.
Someone working Full Time minimum wage only takes home a comparable amount after tax and national insurance too.
Plus once more you missed the fact I made a specific proposal as to how the system should be made more generous by slashing the taper rate.
So what more do you want me to say?
Unfortunately many think £1000 a month adequate not really getting at you. Although to be honest €1000 a month is the normal income in Spain for a very large proportion of the population with little differentiation between a petrol pump attendant and say a town hall clerk. The €1000 is take home and people do seem to mange but it’s cheaper out here across the board.
It's absolutely remarkable that, in all their haste to depict the Tories as evil and unfeeling, I haven't seen a single advocate for the free school meals proposal provide any data at all on the scale of the problem it is supposed to address, nor any reasoned argument that it's a good way to deal with the problem. Impugning the motives of those on the other side of the argument is not convincing.
This research from the HoL library is a good place to start:
I think part of the problem with all benefits is that they aren't taxable which means there's always odd scenarios that means people are better off on benefits rather than working. We should increase the gross amount and make it taxable so when people do get jobs their income replaces their benefits at a minimum like for like rate.
I also think bringing people into the tax system makes sense in general, especially those with a very high benefit amount.
The LibDems used to have a policy of replacing benefits with a negative income tax, i.e. complete integration of the tax and benefits systems. I think it's quite a good idea - much better than their current universal income gimmick - since it could completely eliminate some of the nasty cliff-edge problems and high marginal rates for people on low incomes. And it could be introduced gradually, phasing out existing benefits one by one and gradually bumping up the negative income tax component.
Wasn't Keynes (or perhaps Friedman?) in favour of this?
Comments
I think the rate is £409.89 per month for singles aged 25+ so ~£95-100 a week. I don't like how if you're in a couple you get £594.04 for both (less than £300 a month each!) which is a serious disincentive to people being together. I imagine people really only start doing this once they're both working.
You get £235.83 for every eligible child (no limit) on top. If we're saying that's insufficient to provide lunches for children in school holidays then that needs looking at, or modifying for school holiday months.
However, on the face of it, the financial incentive looks strongly there for adults to live apart and to have more children *if* they can't/don't work - of course, it's very hard to work with multiple children in one person's care anyway so it then becomes a vicious circle.
It tends to make the English a bit more individualistic/independent - "my home is my castle" - and the Scottish more collectivist/co-dependent but I don't think you can draw conclusions on who's nicer/nastier from that.
In fairness a site like that needs traffic and a horse race. Its harder if one of the horses is already in the abattoir.
The problem with passenger rail operations isn't the greedy (state owned) private operators. Its the cretins at the Department for Transport who create unworkable franchises from the start and then throttle the operators with imposed rolling stock bought for £lots with crap spec that needs to be fixed later for £lots. When it comes to transport the "gentlemen in Whitehall" are a disaster.
But Nick Ferrari and JOB are great.
This morning there were a lot of people saying families should budget more carefully but they seemed to be saying this more in sorrow than anger and didn't seem to be the "those feckless poor" types.
There is of course no answer for a Tory to the "are you willing to let children go hungry?" question. There are plenty of measures to help those in need already. We are of course however in a crisis and under those circumstances I don't have a problem with extra measures such as FSMs until the situation improves. Just listen to the howls when and if it was ended.
Lab of course can include year-round FSMs in their next manifesto, and announce it now, and reap the polling rewards.
Its just that I'm not an amoral git.
So it is effectively a gift card. £15 off your shopping.
One of the issues has been for rural parents without transport whose supermarket won't accept them for deliveries.
538's final national 2016 forecast in the popular vote was Hillary 48% and Trump 44%, so it got the Hillary share about right in the popular vote but underestimated the Trump share by about 2%
I also believe that opponents and proponents of various such "national characteristic" theories prefer to swap one for the other as it suits them.
Perhaps you can also help by defining some other "English" traits.
a) Employers are resistant to providing corrections to payroll figures
b) Those working in UC have no idea how to read payroll information - i.e if employer provides a secondary Week 27 figure it doesn't mean the person was paid twice!
The truth is a tie just requires a few stars aligning in a way which makes it always an unlikely outcome, not that you are suggesting otherwise I should add.
Given how crap the government has proved to be, it is pretty clear that the reason it remains ahead in the polling is largely a Labour issue. There is a lot more work to be done. I doubt many people serious about Labour winning again would dispute that.
The circle I can't square is the notion that the idle and feckless poor deserve no compassion, but an idle and feckless Foreign Secretary deserved to be rewarded with £250k a year for a short weekly column in the Daily Telegraph as a prize for his failure.
The assumption that the oddities that do are an accurate reflection of the rest of the electorate is, well, a part of the optimism needed by pollsters generally. My expectation, FWIW, is that those not expressing a preference will not vote at all in the main. After all, nearly half of all Americans won't.
I never voted for him, but it was an exciting time for many.
It is absolutely true that there are feckless parents. And caring parents unable to budget. But the harsh light of day is that too many full time jobs do not pay enough to sustain more than a subsistence level of existence, and Universal Credit is a trapdoor to drop straight into crisis territory. You can't budget better if your incomings do not cover your outgoings no matter how meagre.
Which makes it so funny when the Tories insist that work does pay and that UC is sufficient and that anyone saying not must be an idiot leftie feckless doley. I suspect many of them know what they are saying isn't based in fact and don't care, and some of them are just stupid and believe whatever they are fed because it fits their world view to kick the poor.
Some Tory MPs have had a week they will not survive. They campaigned on an insufficient financial settlement for their constituents. And then voted against emergency feeding required as a result of insufficient finances.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318953044478971905?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318950068091785216?s=20
Kids can be cruel, of course, but, in my experience, these attitudes tend to start from the parents.
I also think bringing people into the tax system makes sense in general, especially those with a very high benefit amount.
It is probably an unwise assumption for me to make, but I suspect with what comes next (post-Covid and post-Brexit) the Conservatives toxicity will surpass anything Corbyn could even muster.
What I'm saying is that I'm with @felix in thinking you're making a bit of an over-generalisation and also that 'agrees more closely with my worldview' != nicer, necessarily.
To be fair though, in my own experience I do agree with you, though I'd bring northerners into the 'nice' group with the Scots (I'm a southerner by birth, northerner by residence). Makes me as much of a bigot as the next man, I guess
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-map/?cid=abcnews
Confusing them doesn't do justice to either.
https://twitter.com/TomBoadle/status/1319212550169518085
There is a difference between fuck all and largesse.
If you are claiming for multiple children, housing benefit etc then you can be talking well over a thousand pounds a month, that is not fuck all, nor is it largesse.
If it was up to me I would like to (as I said) address the taper rate to make UC more generous not less.
He's started this by posing patriotic tweets, occasionally. The trouble is people aren't yet sure if he's sincere or not and when they see him taking a knee (which many WWC voters view as the thin end of a wedge of a philosophy that ultimately works against them) they start to wonder.
One point I saw made recently that made me pause was how the Scots don't have a slang word for the English equivalent to 'jocks'. They don't refer to the 'poms' and sassenachs is hardly common currency.
I expect a fairly stable minority government of Labour, supported by the Lib Dems. SNP will also support them until late into government. Expect some Devo max and alignment with the EU/EEA to stave off independence.
With this scenario of nod-and-a-wink cooperation, the electoral calculator becomes compromised and Portillo events take place with the likes of Jacob RM.
"But where will they get the money from" I hear a cry. They'll have to get the money to pay for the economic shock of *not* spending the money, so better to keep people in work than let them all lose their jobs, start claiming and stop spending.
In my experience in Scotland kids go through an intense bout of anti Englishness around the age of your ned assailants and it then subsides significantly. Very few adult Scots harbour any real animosity towards the English. One reason I have come round to the idea of Scottish independence is that it may help to end the inferiority complex around England that feeds some of this sentiment. Plus Brexit, obvs.
On health, education, the economy etc the % concerned about issues are close between England and Scotland.
The 2 exceptions, which the Scottish are much less agitated about than the English, are crime and immigration.
As an example of living in the wrong country to hear such slang I only heard out loud last week the term "gog" which i believe is a slang term used by South Welsh to refer to North Welsh. Some South Welsh bloke came to our office and rather diplomatically (not!) accused our welsh receptionist of being a "gog" as she spoke Welsh. She laughed it off and all the non-welsh around were bemused at the whole thing
They were forged by the summer and autumn of 2007 when it looked like Gordon Brown was going to call a snap election and win a landslide.
They kept calm and they delivered an awesome conference and set of policies that turned the tide, rather than the expected leadership challenge that would have followed.
But Boris Johnson and his lackeys aren't as calm as Dave and George.
I don't think people how close Brown was to calling an election, one of his MPs wrote this piece in September 2007.
Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increases its majority.
https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
- One third of all interactions occur in the workplace
- When R is just below 1, the Government push people to go back to their place of work just as they're reopening schools and Universities (Dominic Cummings, super genius).
- The proportion of the workforce at their normal place of work increases from 34.8% in early June (when the virus was under control) to 59.3%..
The virus is now spreading out of control beyond an R of 1
We respond by shutting restaurants with minimal support to them.
You can see why the hospitality industry are feeling rather hard done by.
The danger for him (SKS) is that Covid is "beaten" and Brexit done (fudged) and Boris calls a celebratory GE just as SKS is gearing up for his "attack" phase of opposition.
https://youtu.be/SF9sG2bwImc
😘
He'd be a good shadow chancellor, much better than er....who is it again?
Give some bung to a Labour MP in a safe seat and get him back in parliament.
Actually the Tories could do with some of their old guard back, Cameron, Osborne and Hague who are all still young enough.
Why do politicians seem to retire so young these days?
Someone working Full Time minimum wage only takes home a comparable amount after tax and national insurance too.
Plus once more you missed the fact I made a specific proposal as to how the system should be made more generous by slashing the taper rate.
So what more do you want me to say?
https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford/status/1318869551057076226
https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford/status/1318864632321331200
https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford/status/1318865275115229187
As a general rule, we should avoid classification heuristics because they dehumanise.
If a refugee admits to wanting to live with friends in one particular country, it doesn't mean they're a fake asylum seeker. If someone claims persecution it doesn't follow it's definitely real. If someone is a member of the Conservative Party they aren't "scum" by default. If someone voted Leave they aren't necessarily racist. If someone voted Remain they aren't necessarily a haughty elitist. If someone questions inequality, envy need not play any part. And so on.
We make these classifications to make it easier to hold onto our opinions and dismiss situations where reality might intrude.
Partly because they come into office too young, are unsurprisingly not very good and then their reputation is tarnished. Also Camborne were stuck in the 1980s other than the odd social reform and not really attuned to things post-2008.
There'll be the inevitable 'but they won' etc - though the proof of the pudding is in the eating. There's no clamour for them to return or to revisit their policies.
If a refugee wants safety they can apply for it where they are safe to do so.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/free-school-meals-in-the-holidays-a-permanent-change/
Much of the evidence is drawn from a 2019 report for Defra by the founder of the Leon restaurant chain.
3mn children at risk of hunger over the school holidays, apparently.
I will defer to the resident economists (@Philip_Thompson...?)