As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Must say that, thanks to current events - as amplified on PB - my current anxiety level is such that I am contemplating petitioning whomever is President next St Patrick's Day to appoint me Governor of American Samoa.
Where America's day begins. Or ends? I always get that mixed up!
Iowa has moved firmly to Republicans over the past month.Really little chance pof change in Texas or Georgia Looks as if Florida and Airzona have been held, South Carolina probably as well. All on Michigan, Pennsylvannia and Wisconsin. Suspect they will just go Democrat, that is what 44 votes added to Clintons 227, makes 271, OUch. probably the Maine District and maybe one from Nebraska 2 District, ie 272 or 273. Trump will go to the Supreme Court, they'll find a reason to block the result. Congress and Senat may try to block him. They will be suspended, Trump will remain Prtesident, the Opposition will be locked up and freedom extinguished. If I was black I would cross the bordser to Canada. The future looks neither red or blue, just a mess. Air Force and Armed Forces moved from Europe, how could we stop the Russians oh it just goes on and on.
You cannot suspend Congress under the Constitution and no matter what ideology SC justices have they are all legal scholars and they will not ignore the Constitution.
4 years into Trump's term US troops are still in Europe and it remains part of Nato
Yes. Maybe the surge of White High School education voters is on its way. Terrifying.
The previous Selzer poll have been neck and neck. This one seems huuuuuge swing amongst independents and a big swing amongst women to give Trump the lead.
Narrator voice: It was never actually neck and neck in Iowa.
That is right. The betting markets never believed the 50/50 poll, and instead had the Republicans 1/2 to take Iowa for months. If there is any value to the new poll and it is not just correcting its earlier mistake, then perhaps even 1/2 is value for a stone bonking certainty (the same price as Biden to win the whole presidency) and it might even be there has been a late move to Trump (if we think the polls are wrongly calibrated).
Starmer’s call for a lockdown to coincide with half term was incredibly sensible. It completely sidelined the problem of schools causing the rise in (some of) the cases.
Due to Johnson’s dither and delay we’re going to lockdown longer. I don’t think one month will be enough at this stage. ....
We saw quite the same thing back at Easter, when starting a lockdown before rather than after the school holidays would have been both more effective and less disruptive. You can argue about policies, but if you’re going to intervene, sooner is always better.
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
Faced with their own complete failure in the face of a crisis, Britain's political classes are herding together against their own citizens. No difference between Starmer and Johnson really. Fear, command and control.
The implications of this are far, far beyond anything we have seen in our country in my lifetime.
Post brexit, I don;t think either are really fit for purpose.
If Trump wins, well, 2024 could be anything. But one thing is for sure. Nigel Farage will be bringing Trump's message back to Britain.
Belgium 1,002 deaths/1m on worldometer, joining Peru and San Marino.
I’m glad I read that twice. I was appalled at San Marino’s death rate until I realised the figure was per capita.
Does anyone know why Belgium is doing so badly? Heck, they’re even doing worse than we are and that must take some effort.
I'm not sure they're doing enough testing - the positivity rate in Liege is 41% - across England its 6-7%, with "hot spots" in the teens.
what exactly is testing achieving? Hospitalisations and death I get to some extent although deaths are being inflated due to the dying with covid not of it , however testing generally is achieving nothing in controlling the illlness is it?
If its leading to isolation and contact tracing then it may be helping to slow the spread - especially if its picking up asymptomatic carriers via contacts. Guernsey now has 10 known cases - all in quarantine, all identified via test, track & trace, except for the initial case (which is a worry).
I understand that the 10 cases were related on one individual who came back from the mainland having tested positive, and then visited her (I think) relations on the Island before the end of the quarantine period.
Given there will be more cows than people there it is absolutely useless as a measure for countries.
Out by a factor of over 20 (what is it with Nats & Numbers?)
Also population density is around 3 times Belgium's so we must be doing something right.
It's not difficult. The virus doesn't "blow on the wind" - it moves with people. So control the movement of people, control the virus. Something the UK has failed to do, but successful countries like NZ, Australia, Singapore, Japan & South Korea (and Guernsey) have all done.
Hi Carlotta. Do you know if Sark is allowing visitors at the moment?
Same quarantine rules as Guernsey - test on arrival, then 14 days self quarantine, robustly policed with fines up to £10,000 for breaches.
I guess the hotels are open then but I wonder how you quarantine in a hotel there?
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
Well, under this current populist government we are getting economic stagnation and intergenerational inequality. Plus their immigration policy is to let in people from all around the world and keep out Europeans.
Johnson really is a "Useful Idiot" of the first order.
BTW - I was sorry to read about the travails of the younger Cyclefrees. I hope everything improves soon.
The real problem is Johnson has now bet the whole house on getting the pandemic under control while keeping schools open, and he has pretty well trashed the whole economy to do so.
Which may be acceptable to everyone, given how important education is - if it is possible.
If we get to the 22nd November and there’s only a limited effect, what does he do then? Does he accept he’s failed, and shut schools early? What about unis? Does he order students to stay in halls over Christmas? If so, expect actual riots. If not, there seems a risk of a massive spike in infections as they go home and spread it all round the country. When do they return? Do they return?
I worry that by delaying two weeks he has made bad choices into disastrous ones. It seems very possible we will two months from now have a pandemic that shows no signs of abating and a trashed economy.
1. Students home for Xmas is surely easy to arrange. Cambridge University is testing its whole undergraduate population each week. It is not hard to do that. Some unlucky students may find their return home delayed by a week or two, that is all.
The prediction of riots .... dearie me ...
2. Schools staying open is the right choice. IMO, despite the undoubted difficulties to students and teachers. Who knows if it is possible, the virus has never happened before. But, it is right to try.
3. Two weeks earlier is what Wales did. We can see whether it has any effect, but on the available data, Wales is doing slightly worse than England at the moment. I agree, the data could change. In fact, I expect there will be little statistically significant difference between Wales & England (or Scotland) in the long run.
If the incubation timescale is 2 weeks, the vaccine timescale is 1 year (say) & the pandemic lasts for 3 years (say), then 2 weeks earlier or latter will make little difference.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
I didn't say it had gone for good, it's always been there and it comes and goes. However I think you'd better predict which it will do based on the correlation "length of time since last time it was tried, and intensity with which you tried it" than based on "economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration".
Populism never "works" because it proposes simple solutions to complex problems. However, voters vote them in when they're talking about the complex problems that other moderate politicians are ignoring.
So, the correct response is to both give them enough rope *and* to then park your tanks on their lawn.
Far too many seem to think the answer is just the former.
People switch to populists when they see the existing elites as self-serving (and let's face it, many Western elites are).
And, they then patronise or insult voters who share those concerns on top (bigots, racists, idiots etc.) which makes some want to burn their house down.
We are currently governed by an elite where appointment to any post seems to depend on who you went to school with or who you are married to or your loyalty to the leader, rather than any competence or expertise.
It is an elite which has prioritised giving its friends and relations and those who donate to it lucrative posts and contracts.
It is an elite which seems to think that insulting those who do their job is good governance.
It is an elite which has done everything it can to avoid any sort of Parliamentary scrutiny.
It is an elite which seems to think that anyone opposing it is some sort of traitor or enemy and its outriders in the press are very free with such accusations, on the basis of no evidence.
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
Hartlepudlians. But when I lived in the North-East some 30+ years ago, ‘monkey hangers’ was the much more common term. Edit, I think OKC is right: two ds looks odd.
Iowa has moved firmly to Republicans over the past month.Really little chance pof change in Texas or Georgia Looks as if Florida and Airzona have been held, South Carolina probably as well. All on Michigan, Pennsylvannia and Wisconsin. Suspect they will just go Democrat, that is what 44 votes added to Clintons 227, makes 271, OUch. probably the Maine District and maybe one from Nebraska 2 District, ie 272 or 273. Trump will go to the Supreme Court, they'll find a reason to block the result. Congress and Senat may try to block him. They will be suspended, Trump will remain Prtesident, the Opposition will be locked up and freedom extinguished. If I was black I would cross the bordser to Canada. The future looks neither red or blue, just a mess. Air Force and Armed Forces moved from Europe, how could we stop the Russians oh it just goes on and on.
I think most of your analysis on the states there is right though you mention South Carolina (which is safe Trump already). I#m assuming you meant North (which is very close). I actually think Biden will win one of NC or AZ but not both, though AZ does seem to be moving back a bit to Trump I agree. Other than that I think your assessment is about right, except I don't think Trump will hang on whatever shenaingans he gets up to. though with the rhetoric he's spouting I guess nothing is impossible. A very bumpy road ahead I feel for the US.
You are both ignoring the bellwether state of Ohio with its crucial 18 ECVs. The polls are showing this as being a toss-up, but trending Biden and if he should win that would present Trump with a huge hole to fill arithmetically.
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
One d as I understand it. Hartlepudlians.
Newcastle -- Geordies Sunderland -- Mackems South Shields -- Sand Dancers Hartlepool -- Monkey Hangers (for reasons already discussed) ETA don't mention they are all within a short walk bus ride of each other.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
It was quite a sight seeing them though. And in my childhood, they were brave 'knights of the air', in single, although admittedly not quite hand to hand combat with the enemy. TBH I don't remember actually seeing a dogfight; by the time I was old enough to be really aware it was bombers at night and, once, as I've posted before, a doodle-bug over the school I attended. I don't think any of my father's friends flew them, although a friend of an uncle did about 30 trips in Bomber Command, and was then criticised for 'lack of moral fibre' when he couldn't do any more.
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
I didn't say it had gone for good, it's always been there and it comes and goes. However I think you'd better predict which it will do based on the correlation "length of time since last time it was tried, and intensity with which you tried it" than based on "economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration".
Populism never "works" because it proposes simple solutions to complex problems. However, voters vote them in when they're talking about the complex problems that other moderate politicians are ignoring.
So, the correct response is to both give them enough rope *and* to then park your tanks on their lawn.
Far too many seem to think the answer is just the former.
Park the tanks on the lawn is *sometimes* a good strategy, but the problem is that in doing that politicians often end up pretending to agree with things that aren't true and that they don't actually believe. This can work for you in the short term but you're eating your seed-corn, because you're telling people something that isn't true, and they'll understandably get mad at you when you fail to act on it.
A clear example from British politics: David Cameron thought it was better for Britain to be in the EU. (Let's leave aside the question of whether he was right.) To avoid losing support to people who wanted to leave the EU, he affected to believe that unless the EU was reformed into some unspecified different kind of thing, it might be better for Britain to leave. He then ended up backed into a corner where he'd called a vote on something he thought was a terrible idea, having claimed Britain should leave the EU unless it was reformed, then failed to reform it. So now he'd spent years making the argument for his opponents, and made himself look implausible when he finally had to turn around and argue for what he actually thought.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
Also costs too much and plays to those who ‘think’ they won the war.
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not entirely, some Corbyn 2019 voters have now gone to the Greens and of course in Scotland the left wing vote is still mainly SNP
Very effective (though deteriorated towards the end). What is it about Tory aides and ad men? I guess it's that selling is more important than the product or maybe just a tangential relationship with truth
If it hadn't been for Covid this would be a very different election but a pandemic has vividly illustrated the weaknesses of an atomised, self centred society and economy where the safety nets have gaping holes, where the administration is emasculated because of distrust of the State and where we all have an interest in each others health, not just our own.
Trump's America was always a bit too tough for Europeans with its utter disregard for those unable to help themselves but for many, in the short term, it worked.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
I have heard Hartlepudlians. But Monkey Hangers is more common.
Interesting question: is English the only major language without a formal way of creating a word for the inhabitants of most major cities, counties etc?
Very effective (though deteriorated towards the end). What is it about Tory aides and ad men? I guess it's that selling is more important than the product or maybe just a tangential relationship with truth
If it hadn't been for Covid this would be a very different election but a pandemic has vividly illustrated the weaknesses of an atomised, self centred society and economy where the safety nets have gaping holes, where the administration is emasculated because of distrust of the State and where we all have an interest in each others health, not just our own.
Trump's America was always a bit too tough for Europeans with its utter disregard for those unable to help themselves but for many, in the short term, it worked.
If there hadn't been a pandemic it would have been a stroll in the park for Trump.
Last night, in an absolutely teeming meeting in PA he told Americans 2021 would be a the best year for growth and prosperity ever.
There really were tens of thousands there on a chilly autumn night.
Trump is offering hope. What are our politicians offering? fear.
Great article. I remain of the opinion that the underlying illness is polarised social media news, and Trump and the GOP merely its symptoms. Trump or even the GOP falling are not sufficient cures although obviously help with a few years delay in the march to fascism.
Iowa has moved firmly to Republicans over the past month.Really little chance pof change in Texas or Georgia Looks as if Florida and Airzona have been held, South Carolina probably as well. All on Michigan, Pennsylvannia and Wisconsin. Suspect they will just go Democrat, that is what 44 votes added to Clintons 227, makes 271, OUch. probably the Maine District and maybe one from Nebraska 2 District, ie 272 or 273. Trump will go to the Supreme Court, they'll find a reason to block the result. Congress and Senat may try to block him. They will be suspended, Trump will remain Prtesident, the Opposition will be locked up and freedom extinguished. If I was black I would cross the bordser to Canada. The future looks neither red or blue, just a mess. Air Force and Armed Forces moved from Europe, how could we stop the Russians oh it just goes on and on.
I had you down as pro-Trump for some reason, maybe because your posts have emphasised the (often sparse) evidence in support of his re-election, but clearly you are not in favour of the outcome you outline.
Trump gaming the result would truly be an 'end of days' situation. Scary.
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
Iowa has moved firmly to Republicans over the past month.Really little chance pof change in Texas or Georgia Looks as if Florida and Airzona have been held, South Carolina probably as well. All on Michigan, Pennsylvannia and Wisconsin. Suspect they will just go Democrat, that is what 44 votes added to Clintons 227, makes 271, OUch. probably the Maine District and maybe one from Nebraska 2 District, ie 272 or 273. Trump will go to the Supreme Court, they'll find a reason to block the result. Congress and Senat may try to block him. They will be suspended, Trump will remain Prtesident, the Opposition will be locked up and freedom extinguished. If I was black I would cross the bordser to Canada. The future looks neither red or blue, just a mess. Air Force and Armed Forces moved from Europe, how could we stop the Russians oh it just goes on and on.
I had you down as pro-Trump for some reason, maybe because your posts have emphasised the (often sparse) evidence in support of his re-election, but clearly you are not in favour of the outcome you outline.
Trump gaming the result would truly be an 'end of days' situation. Scary.
Most posters on here are very clear that principles should take priority over realpolitik in our relationship with China.
I do wonder how many of them would say the same about our relationship with a potential neo-fascist election cheating USA.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
I think it's quite likely to see a marked improvement in test and trace by December.
There was a marginal improvement last week but capacity is growing to keep track with increasing cases. If cases fall then test and trace should automatically improve. If capacity continues to improve while cases fall then there should be a marked improvement in test and trace.
The real test for track and trace will be after the lockdown is lifted, not during.
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
I didn't say it had gone for good, it's always been there and it comes and goes. However I think you'd better predict which it will do based on the correlation "length of time since last time it was tried, and intensity with which you tried it" than based on "economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration".
Populism never "works" because it proposes simple solutions to complex problems. However, voters vote them in when they're talking about the complex problems that other moderate politicians are ignoring.
So, the correct response is to both give them enough rope *and* to then park your tanks on their lawn.
Far too many seem to think the answer is just the former.
People switch to populists when they see the existing elites as self-serving (and let's face it, many Western elites are).
There are fewer more kleptocratic and self serving than Populists in power, whether here, USA, India or Venezuela.
The secret of Populism is to fleece the peasants while feeding them on bread and circuses.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
Isn't the Scout movement a lasting monument to the Boer War?
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
I think it's quite likely to see a marked improvement in test and trace by December.
There was a marginal improvement last week but capacity is growing to keep track with increasing cases. If cases fall then test and trace should automatically improve. If capacity continues to improve while cases fall then there should be a marked improvement in test and trace.
The real test for track and trace will be after the lockdown is lifted, not during.
Agreed 100%.
Test and trace was doing a good job until schools returned and cases exploded past capacity. We will have to see what happens next time but we shouldn't automatically assume it will be a failure.
The UKs system is certainly starting a lot closer to what we need than eg France.
Blue states shift bluer. Red states shift blue (Montana fromc.20 Trump to c. 5 Trump, for example).
Biden retakes Michigan, Wisconsin.
Trump holds Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona all with sub-1% leads after days of counting and possible shenanigans.
Trump loses by something like 51-45 in votes and wins 279-259 in EVs
I'm not sure where you get blue states shifting bluer from. Nevada, as I understand it, is in play. They are a couple of steps to the left of Michigan and Wisconsin.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
There are certainly a lot of examples of spurious court cases as well as slow delivery of postal votes.
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
My two brothers and all their friends would join, as would large numbers of the N London Labour Party, you fail to realize that true socialist control of the party is more important than winning elections.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
Also registered voter patterns look better for him.
In some states, registered republican voters are paring back the dems postal lead.
But of course we don;'t know yet how these registered voters, or independents, are actually voting. Registration does not imply unquestioning loyalty.
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
Not a single final poll in 1997 had Blair and New Labour ahead by anything less than 10% over Major's Tories, Rasmussen has Biden ahead by just 3%, within range of a Trump EC win, IBD by just 5%, Democracy Institute even has Trump ahead by 1% https://ukpollingreport.co.uk/historical-polls/voting-intention-1992-1997
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
No, it's more about them sueing to have 100,000 mainly Democrat votes chucked out in Texas.
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
One d as I understand it. Hartlepudlians.
Newcastle -- Geordies Sunderland -- Mackems South Shields -- Sand Dancers Hartlepool -- Monkey Hangers (for reasons already discussed) ETA don't mention they are all within a short walk bus ride of each other.
Newcastle's a lot closer to Sunderland (14 miles or so) than Hartlepool (30 miles) is. Don't think that, in my day anyway, there was a bus, either. Train, yes.
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
I didn't say it had gone for good, it's always been there and it comes and goes. However I think you'd better predict which it will do based on the correlation "length of time since last time it was tried, and intensity with which you tried it" than based on "economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration".
Populism never "works" because it proposes simple solutions to complex problems. However, voters vote them in when they're talking about the complex problems that other moderate politicians are ignoring.
So, the correct response is to both give them enough rope *and* to then park your tanks on their lawn.
Far too many seem to think the answer is just the former.
People switch to populists when they see the existing elites as self-serving (and let's face it, many Western elites are).
And, they then patronise or insult voters who share those concerns on top (bigots, racists, idiots etc.) which makes some want to burn their house down.
We are currently governed by an elite where appointment to any post seems to depend on who you went to school with or who you are married to or your loyalty to the leader, rather than any competence or expertise.
It is an elite which has prioritised giving its friends and relations and those who donate to it lucrative posts and contracts.
It is an elite which seems to think that insulting those who do their job is good governance.
It is an elite which has done everything it can to avoid any sort of Parliamentary scrutiny.
It is an elite which seems to think that anyone opposing it is some sort of traitor or enemy and its outriders in the press are very free with such accusations, on the basis of no evidence.
Beams and motes, beams and motes ......
This righteous indignation stuff is really rather tedious. Yes, the Government is crap, Boris is awful etc. and you know I agree.
So, what is the point in continually reposting it with this "beams and motes" stuff as if I somehow don't get it?
It's just not very interesting and it adds little to the debate.
I'm interested in the future of Western democracy and civilisation here and how we defend and fix it.
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
We’ve already been down that road. Arthur Scargill’s party - can’t remember what they were called; GG’s Respect. I can imagine there’ll be another along soon - and they’ll have even less impact.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
The Boer war did not go awfully well, hence Kipling's poem: Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.
Not to mention the 1914-18 show in between.
The endless invocation of the Blitz Spirit by politicians plainly too young to remember it does grate, though calls to forget the war and move on will surely be denounced as lefty antisemitism ("denying the holocaust") in a future election.
On celebrating the second world war, well, first, we were on the winning side, and on that note the Americans and Russians also make more of the war than, say, the Germans, though things have got worse recently. It used to be that the war was remembered rather than fetishised, with dramas about PoW camps and sitcoms about the Home Guard, Occupied France, and also the forgotten war in the East. Even in the 70s and 80s there were old soldiers in wheelchairs, and bombsites yet to be redeveloped (the old mock grace: we thank Herman Goering for our National Car Parks). It was all a bit of joke. Aspiring politicians would see nothing wrong in Nazi fancy dress.
If the Federal Judge rules that the drive-thru votes in Texas are invalid, where does the case go from there?
Does his Judgement over-rule the Texas Supreme Court?
And if it does, can his Judgement be appealed to a Federal Appeals Court?
And after that would it ultimately go to the US Supreme Court?
IANAL but IIUC: 1) Yes, it can go to a Federal Appeals Court 2) After that either side could appeal it to SCOTUS, but it's up to SCOTUS whether or not to take it
It I was a ratfucking partisan judge I think what I'd do would be to just tell them to make sure they had a separate count for the ballots cast in the disputed way, then tell everybody to come back in a week. In all probability it will turn out not to be important in which case you can make some reasonable-sounding judge-like ruling, but if an important race turns out to turn on these ballots you can turn the ratfucking up to 11, and also start the clock ticking later, reducing the time for appeals.
I wish EiT would join the leader-writing team on PB - his posts are such good value.
In Louisiana in 1991, the race for Governor came down to two choices:
>> Edwin Edwards "the Cajun Fox" former Democratic Congressman & former 3-term governor with a checked reputation (to put it mildly) for questionable financial dealings ("It was illegal for him to give me the money, but it was not illegal for me to take it") and a fondness for gambling and women (not necessarily in that order).
>> David Duke, notorious, first in Louisiana and then nationally, as a neo-Nazi (as a teenager he used to parade around Baton Rouge in a storm-trooper uniform) turned Klu Klux Klansman, who was eager to break into electoral politics (running as a Democrat) by appealing to both hard core racists & fascists, but (like a proto-Trumpsky) to much broader audience of conservatives turned of by corrupt politics and wary of Edwards' appeal to & for Blacks.
Interestingly, Duke shared his rival's love of high stakes and hot women (and visa versa). Both men were frequent visitors as Las Vegas, both high-rollers flown in by casinos & given free lodging, dining, etc., etc. With respect to sex, honors were about even: Duke had published (anonymously) a pornographic novel, while Edwards was (at that time) on wife #2 who was about 30 years younger than wife #1 (he is today with wife #3 who is about 50 years his junior; they met as pen-pals when he was serving time at Angola State Prison).
Or as Edwin Edwards himself said during the campaign, "David Duke and me are both a lot alike - we're both wizards under the sheets."
AND that year many cars in the Pelican State displayed this bumper-sticker:
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Yeah, I know, it's just I get spammed with it on my work email and with ads on my social media feeds too.
There are far too many "days", "weeks" and "months" now that feel almost semi-compulsory to buy into.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
No, it's more about them sueing to have 100,000 mainly Democrat votes chucked out in Texas.
If it makes you feel any better Biden is probably going to lose Texas by considerably more than 100,000 votes.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
And the reason for it all? Companies like to sell crap to dimwitted people who eat it up, and politicians have easy stories about people who don't wear a poppy or don't take a knee. It's a self sustaining circle jerk, all of it, and we're not going to get rid of it because people love to read about who didn't wear a poppy or which footballer didn't take a knee before the match and companies love to sell pride editions or remembrance editions of normal items and people buy them.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Final week of October? Halloween isn't a season, it's a day.
The Selzer poll in Iowa is the first one that has given me real concern.
Very good A+ pollster that gives Trump a 7 point lead. Sienna (another A4) pollster gave Biden a 3 point lead but was taken a good week earlier.
If Selzer is accurate there has been a significant swing back to Trump over the last week and it would not bode well for Biden in other parts of the midwest. If other polls begin to show any sort of late swing I will be nervous.
Having said that the Selzer poll still has sufficient swing against Trump from 2016 to see him lose if it were replicated in every state.
If he’s losing them he’s losing the next election.
HYUFD has previously said that doesn’t matter as Sunak will win back voters in London and the South. But they are also going cold on Johnson.
Even on the polls last week Starmer's lead is still closer to that Kinnock had before 1992 than Blair had in 1997 and the white working class is not going to him in anywhere near the numbers it went to Blair
I don't dispute the validity of Section 60 orders in extreme circumstances. However the curbs on the freedoms of the citizen should not be sanctioned by an Inspector. Such an important decision should be authorised much further up the food chain - Assistant Chief Constable and above.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
I don't think so, there was the Seltzer poll but that's just one poll in a state Biden doesn't need, the rest has been more of the same, and 538 is still showing a 90/10 race assuming no new shenanigans.
The stuff about Trump stealing the election is coming up again because: 1) A lawsuit was just filed in Texas with a notoriously partisan judge aiming to throw out over 100,000 ballots 2) Trump's been making comments that the count should be decided on the night, while at the PA GOP's insistence the mail-in ballots can't possibly be counted on the night, so he's obviously intending for them not to be counted 3) Three conservatives on the Supreme Court signed onto an opinion to the effect that their court should overrule the state court, to prevent ballots which the state court (and the instructions sent out with the ballot) said should be counted from being counted. This wasn't a majority because the (also conservative) head of the court didn't agree 4) They just rushed another conservative justice onto the court, and plan to resubmit the issue from (3)
So it's definitely a serious issue. IMHO they'll only put their thumbs on the scale if it's otherwise a coin-flip, but if you're betting you should consider the possibility that I'm wrong.
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
No, it's more about them sueing to have 100,000 mainly Democrat votes chucked out in Texas.
And USPS sorting offices full of mailed in votes which are scheduled for delivery after they expire.
It would be so ironic if Trump lost and the ballots were largely for him
I've noticed a lot more bleating about Trump stealing the election in the last day or so, does this mean there are some polls that show him doing better recently?
No, it's because there have been more examples of the GOP using the Courts to try and steal the election.
Belgium 1,002 deaths/1m on worldometer, joining Peru and San Marino.
I’m glad I read that twice. I was appalled at San Marino’s death rate until I realised the figure was per capita.
Does anyone know why Belgium is doing so badly? Heck, they’re even doing worse than we are and that must take some effort.
I'm not sure they're doing enough testing - the positivity rate in Liege is 41% - across England its 6-7%, with "hot spots" in the teens.
what exactly is testing achieving? Hospitalisations and death I get to some extent although deaths are being inflated due to the dying with covid not of it , however testing generally is achieving nothing in controlling the illlness is it?
If its leading to isolation and contact tracing then it may be helping to slow the spread - especially if its picking up asymptomatic carriers via contacts. Guernsey now has 10 known cases - all in quarantine, all identified via test, track & trace, except for the initial case (which is a worry).
I understand that the 10 cases were related on one individual who came back from the mainland having tested positive, and then visited her (I think) relations on the Island before the end of the quarantine period.
Given there will be more cows than people there it is absolutely useless as a measure for countries.
Out by a factor of over 20 (what is it with Nats & Numbers?)
Also population density is around 3 times Belgium's so we must be doing something right.
It's not difficult. The virus doesn't "blow on the wind" - it moves with people. So control the movement of people, control the virus. Something the UK has failed to do, but successful countries like NZ, Australia, Singapore, Japan & South Korea (and Guernsey) have all done.
Hi Carlotta. Do you know if Sark is allowing visitors at the moment?
Same quarantine rules as Guernsey - test on arrival, then 14 days self quarantine, robustly policed with fines up to £10,000 for breaches.
I guess the hotels are open then but I wonder how you quarantine in a hotel there?
Very effective (though deteriorated towards the end). What is it about Tory aides and ad men? I guess it's that selling is more important than the product or maybe just a tangential relationship with truth
If it hadn't been for Covid this would be a very different election but a pandemic has vividly illustrated the weaknesses of an atomised, self centred society and economy where the safety nets have gaping holes, where the administration is emasculated because of distrust of the State and where we all have an interest in each others health, not just our own.
Trump's America was always a bit too tough for Europeans with its utter disregard for those unable to help themselves but for many, in the short term, it worked.
If there hadn't been a pandemic it would have been a stroll in the park for Trump.
Last night, in an absolutely teeming meeting in PA he told Americans 2021 would be a the best year for growth and prosperity ever.
There really were tens of thousands there on a chilly autumn night.
Trump is offering hope. What are our politicians offering? fear.
Trump has finally shown in this last week some of what made him such an effective campaigner in 2016. He is just brilliant with a crowd, it brings him alive. The lack of crowds and the pressure not to have these rallies in September and most of October has hurt him badly and rather suited Biden who is, frankly, decent but boring.
Is it too late, given how many have already voted? I think so and still expect a comfortable Biden win built on recovering the 3 key states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania but there is no question who has the energy going into election day.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
I hope he wins.
It will be fascinating and hilarious to see labour inherit an economic basket case from the tories, when it is so often the other way around
I'm particularly looking forward to Starmer's solemn address to the nation when the IMF's conditions for a hard currency bailout loan include hundreds of thousands of public sector job cuts.
Two very conflicting polls just out from ABC/Wash Post:
FL - Trump +2 PA - Biden +7
Apparently Biden is spending all of Monday in PA - ultimately I think it all boils down to PA - whoever wins PA will win.
Pennsylvania is important with its 20 ECVs, but not as important as say Florida with its 29. Trump is quite capable of winning without PA.
Biden wins with MI, WI and PA. Trump needs to win 1 of those (assuming AZ goes to trump, if not he will need 2 to cover AZ). If Biden losses PA he has other routes but they are harder for him, Trump loses PA it's likely over, as his other routes to victory after that are even harder than Biden's. So that's why PA is seen as the tipping point, however if trump loses FL he needs 2 of MI, WI and PA to cover it and those are harder to win for him since he only just won them last time. Basically if FL goes to Biden it's more of less over, not mathematically but in reality it is.
I agree that a Biden win in Florida just about finishes Trump provided that there is evidence that the mid-west is not voting significantly differently.
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
My two brothers and all their friends would join, as would large numbers of the N London Labour Party, you fail to realize that true socialist control of the party is more important than winning elections.
I can't speak for all CLPs or all left-wingers, but in my constituency we have had zero resignations, zero public grumbling though a fair amount of gritted teeth - as one colleague who is even further left than me says, "I'm going to post a lot of cat videos for a bit until things calm down". We're all - lefties and others - quite serious about not letting this disrupt the building of a serious alternative to the Government. Joining another party is not even remotely on the agenda.
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
I didn't say it had gone for good, it's always been there and it comes and goes. However I think you'd better predict which it will do based on the correlation "length of time since last time it was tried, and intensity with which you tried it" than based on "economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration".
Populism never "works" because it proposes simple solutions to complex problems. However, voters vote them in when they're talking about the complex problems that other moderate politicians are ignoring.
So, the correct response is to both give them enough rope *and* to then park your tanks on their lawn.
Far too many seem to think the answer is just the former.
People switch to populists when they see the existing elites as self-serving (and let's face it, many Western elites are).
And, they then patronise or insult voters who share those concerns on top (bigots, racists, idiots etc.) which makes some want to burn their house down.
We are currently governed by an elite where appointment to any post seems to depend on who you went to school with or who you are married to or your loyalty to the leader, rather than any competence or expertise.
It is an elite which has prioritised giving its friends and relations and those who donate to it lucrative posts and contracts.
It is an elite which seems to think that insulting those who do their job is good governance.
It is an elite which has done everything it can to avoid any sort of Parliamentary scrutiny.
It is an elite which seems to think that anyone opposing it is some sort of traitor or enemy and its outriders in the press are very free with such accusations, on the basis of no evidence.
Beams and motes, beams and motes ......
This righteous indignation stuff is really rather tedious. Yes, the Government is crap, Boris is awful etc. and you know I agree.
So, what is the point in continually reposting it with this "beams and motes" stuff as if I somehow don't get it?
It's just not very interesting and it adds little to the debate.
I'm interested in the future of Western democracy and civilisation here and how we defend and fix it.
Insightful posts please.
No insightful answer but a question here, will principles be more important than realpolitik if dealing with a USA where there has been blatant and significant electoral fraud followed by a march towards fascism?
You are right in your diagnosis that Western democracy and its civilisation is in peril, it may already be too late and the questions should actually be how to manage its decline the best, and how to shape the new technology society that will inevitably emerge over the next century to pass on some of the characteristics of Western democracy.
This is the Twitter post of a party that knows it has lost the argument and is losing to Labour badly.
All the countries that locked down hardest and quickest have the same can of worms that we do. It makes no difference really, because all it is is a delaying tactic.
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
There is clearly a growing space for an anti-lockdown policy. Whether it needs to be a separate party is moot, but it looks that way at the moment.
Whether such a move has any longevity is anyone's guess. If a suitable vaccine is available by spring with a roll out to enough people to stop a fourth lockdown next October then there will no long term mileage in Farage reopening his party for this.
There should be a space for a "risk based" lockdown approach. Which distinguishes
Given his lockdown decision is on a nonsensical level with hanging monkeys as spies you may be right.
Monkeys as spies? I missed that one!
Hartlepool hung a monkey around the time of Waterloo for being a French spy
40 or so years apparently (I never tried) one could start a fight in a Hartlepool pub by asking the apparently simple question 'Who hanged the monkey?'
They seem to have to come to terms with the folklore now, though. The story was that an ape swam a shore from a wrecked ship which had been carrying a circus and the locals thought it was Frenchman, never having seen either an ape or a Frenchman before.
Are people (and related species) from Hartlepool called Hartlepuddlians? Or maybe Hartlepolitans?
Comments
Where America's day begins. Or ends? I always get that mixed up!
4 years into Trump's term US troops are still in Europe and it remains part of Nato
You can argue about policies, but if you’re going to intervene, sooner is always better.
And on the schools theme, some strong evidence for children regularly transmitting the virus in the home environment.
https://twitter.com/AliNouriPhD/status/1322533730074972161
Hartlepudlians.
The implications of this are far, far beyond anything we have seen in our country in my lifetime.
Post brexit, I don;t think either are really fit for purpose.
If Trump wins, well, 2024 could be anything. But one thing is for sure. Nigel Farage will be bringing Trump's message back to Britain.
I love Sark. It used to be my favourite place.
BTW - I was sorry to read about the travails of the younger Cyclefrees. I hope everything improves soon.
The prediction of riots .... dearie me ...
2. Schools staying open is the right choice. IMO, despite the undoubted difficulties to students and teachers. Who knows if it is possible, the virus has never happened before. But, it is right to try.
3. Two weeks earlier is what Wales did. We can see whether it has any effect, but on the available data, Wales is doing slightly worse than England at the moment. I agree, the data could change. In fact, I expect there will be little statistically significant difference between Wales & England (or Scotland) in the long run.
If the incubation timescale is 2 weeks, the vaccine timescale is 1 year (say) & the pandemic lasts for 3 years (say), then 2 weeks earlier or latter will make little difference.
Well, they're not going to blame Gove, are they!
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
It is an elite which has prioritised giving its friends and relations and those who donate to it lucrative posts and contracts.
It is an elite which seems to think that insulting those who do their job is good governance.
It is an elite which has done everything it can to avoid any sort of Parliamentary scrutiny.
It is an elite which seems to think that anyone opposing it is some sort of traitor or enemy and its outriders in the press are very free with such accusations, on the basis of no evidence.
Beams and motes, beams and motes ......
https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2016/11/05/iowa-poll-trump-opens-7-point-lead-over-clinton/93347134/
Sunderland -- Mackems
South Shields -- Sand Dancers
Hartlepool -- Monkey Hangers (for reasons already discussed)
ETA don't mention they are all within a short walk bus ride of each other.
I don't think any of my father's friends flew them, although a friend of an uncle did about 30 trips in Bomber Command, and was then criticised for 'lack of moral fibre' when he couldn't do any more.
https://twitter.com/MPIainDS/status/1322832684129918976?s=20
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
https://www.270towin.com/maps/9klwk
A clear example from British politics: David Cameron thought it was better for Britain to be in the EU. (Let's leave aside the question of whether he was right.) To avoid losing support to people who wanted to leave the EU, he affected to believe that unless the EU was reformed into some unspecified different kind of thing, it might be better for Britain to leave. He then ended up backed into a corner where he'd called a vote on something he thought was a terrible idea, having claimed Britain should leave the EU unless it was reformed, then failed to reform it. So now he'd spent years making the argument for his opponents, and made himself look implausible when he finally had to turn around and argue for what he actually thought.
Trump's America was always a bit too tough for Europeans with its utter disregard for those unable to help themselves but for many, in the short term, it worked.
https://twitter.com/MPSWestminster/status/1322672741267496967?s=20
Interesting question: is English the only major language without a formal way of creating a word for the inhabitants of most major cities, counties etc?
Last night, in an absolutely teeming meeting in PA he told Americans 2021 would be a the best year for growth and prosperity ever.
There really were tens of thousands there on a chilly autumn night.
Trump is offering hope. What are our politicians offering? fear.
I had you down as pro-Trump for some reason, maybe because your posts have emphasised the (often sparse) evidence in support of his re-election, but clearly you are not in favour of the outcome you outline.
Trump gaming the result would truly be an 'end of days' situation. Scary.
Blue states shift bluer. Red states shift blue (Montana fromc.20 Trump to c. 5 Trump, for example).
Biden retakes Michigan, Wisconsin.
Trump holds Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona all with sub-1% leads after days of counting and possible shenanigans.
Trump loses by something like 51-45 in votes and wins 279-259 in EVs
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
I do wonder how many of them would say the same about our relationship with a potential neo-fascist election cheating USA.
The secret of Populism is to fleece the peasants while feeding them on bread and circuses.
Test and trace was doing a good job until schools returned and cases exploded past capacity. We will have to see what happens next time but we shouldn't automatically assume it will be a failure.
The UKs system is certainly starting a lot closer to what we need than eg France.
"I think he'll need to win Pennsylvania by 4 or 5 to overcome the voter fraud that's gonna happen there."
Lol the Tories are hopeless. Khan has walked all over them
In some states, registered republican voters are paring back the dems postal lead.
But of course we don;'t know yet how these registered voters, or independents, are actually voting. Registration does not imply unquestioning loyalty.
https://ukpollingreport.co.uk/historical-polls/voting-intention-1992-1997
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
So, what is the point in continually reposting it with this "beams and motes" stuff as if I somehow don't get it?
It's just not very interesting and it adds little to the debate.
I'm interested in the future of Western democracy and civilisation here and how we defend and fix it.
Insightful posts please.
If he’s losing them he’s losing the next election.
HYUFD has previously said that doesn’t matter as Sunak will win back voters in London and the South. But they are also going cold on Johnson.
Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.
Not to mention the 1914-18 show in between.
The endless invocation of the Blitz Spirit by politicians plainly too young to remember it does grate, though calls to forget the war and move on will surely be denounced as lefty antisemitism ("denying the holocaust") in a future election.
On celebrating the second world war, well, first, we were on the winning side, and on that note the Americans and Russians also make more of the war than, say, the Germans, though things have got worse recently. It used to be that the war was remembered rather than fetishised, with dramas about PoW camps and sitcoms about the Home Guard, Occupied France, and also the forgotten war in the East. Even in the 70s and 80s there were old soldiers in wheelchairs, and bombsites yet to be redeveloped (the old mock grace: we thank Herman Goering for our National Car Parks). It was all a bit of joke. Aspiring politicians would see nothing wrong in Nazi fancy dress.
>> Edwin Edwards "the Cajun Fox" former Democratic Congressman & former 3-term governor with a checked reputation (to put it mildly) for questionable financial dealings ("It was illegal for him to give me the money, but it was not illegal for me to take it") and a fondness for gambling and women (not necessarily in that order).
>> David Duke, notorious, first in Louisiana and then nationally, as a neo-Nazi (as a teenager he used to parade around Baton Rouge in a storm-trooper uniform) turned Klu Klux Klansman, who was eager to break into electoral politics (running as a Democrat) by appealing to both hard core racists & fascists, but (like a proto-Trumpsky) to much broader audience of conservatives turned of by corrupt politics and wary of Edwards' appeal to & for Blacks.
Interestingly, Duke shared his rival's love of high stakes and hot women (and visa versa). Both men were frequent visitors as Las Vegas, both high-rollers flown in by casinos & given free lodging, dining, etc., etc. With respect to sex, honors were about even: Duke had published (anonymously) a pornographic novel, while Edwards was (at that time) on wife #2 who was about 30 years younger than wife #1 (he is today with wife #3 who is about 50 years his junior; they met as pen-pals when he was serving time at Angola State Prison).
Or as Edwin Edwards himself said during the campaign, "David Duke and me are both a lot alike - we're both wizards under the sheets."
AND that year many cars in the Pelican State displayed this bumper-sticker:
"Vote for the Crook - It's the Right Thing to Do"
Look at that "Did not Vote" figure.
There are far too many "days", "weeks" and "months" now that feel almost semi-compulsory to buy into.
Getting a bit fed up with it.
These guys projectionism is brilliant.
Someone who would feel quite at home in Pulpstar's Trump/McConnell populist nightmare.
https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/1322703935262625792
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/
Very good A+ pollster that gives Trump a 7 point lead. Sienna (another A4) pollster gave Biden a 3 point lead but was taken a good week earlier.
If Selzer is accurate there has been a significant swing back to Trump over the last week and it would not bode well for Biden in other parts of the midwest. If other polls begin to show any sort of late swing I will be nervous.
Having said that the Selzer poll still has sufficient swing against Trump from 2016 to see him lose if it were replicated in every state.
The stuff about Trump stealing the election is coming up again because:
1) A lawsuit was just filed in Texas with a notoriously partisan judge aiming to throw out over 100,000 ballots
2) Trump's been making comments that the count should be decided on the night, while at the PA GOP's insistence the mail-in ballots can't possibly be counted on the night, so he's obviously intending for them not to be counted
3) Three conservatives on the Supreme Court signed onto an opinion to the effect that their court should overrule the state court, to prevent ballots which the state court (and the instructions sent out with the ballot) said should be counted from being counted. This wasn't a majority because the (also conservative) head of the court didn't agree
4) They just rushed another conservative justice onto the court, and plan to resubmit the issue from (3)
So it's definitely a serious issue. IMHO they'll only put their thumbs on the scale if it's otherwise a coin-flip, but if you're betting you should consider the possibility that I'm wrong.
It would be so ironic if Trump lost and the ballots were largely for him
This is the Twitter post of a party that knows it has lost the argument and is losing to Labour badly.
Is it too late, given how many have already voted? I think so and still expect a comfortable Biden win built on recovering the 3 key states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania but there is no question who has the energy going into election day.
It will be fascinating and hilarious to see labour inherit an economic basket case from the tories, when it is so often the other way around
I'm particularly looking forward to Starmer's solemn address to the nation when the IMF's conditions for a hard currency bailout loan include hundreds of thousands of public sector job cuts.
That will be brilliant.
Keir breaks with the unions
After all, Ed Miliband recorded double digit leads over the Coalition.
You are right in your diagnosis that Western democracy and its civilisation is in peril, it may already be too late and the questions should actually be how to manage its decline the best, and how to shape the new technology society that will inevitably emerge over the next century to pass on some of the characteristics of Western democracy.
https://twitter.com/ppollingnumbers/status/1322847266433105920?s=21