This country is likely to boom over the next decade. Bet accordingly.
You this country, mean Little England?
BoZo is fuelling Irish reunification, Scottish independence, and even the Welsh are stirring
Missed yesterday's polls?
Early days, cant speak to a trend yet. But we can hope.
Have a look at Andrew Rawnsley in todays Guardian 'Why Boris Johnson, the greased piglet, is eluding the grasp of Keir Starmer.'
Interesting as always from Rawnsley but he is completely blind to a central fact in trying to account for Boris 'getting away with it'.
In politics all things are relative. Nothing is absolute. There are only two horses in the competition, especially in England, which is where Tories win elections. There is no conviction whatsoever that Labour is either more competent, would have done it better, or are a suitable government for post Covid or post Brexit. Tories are ahead (You Gov) in every socio economic group, and doing even better with C2DE than with ABC1- which is a huge culture shift.
Boris is a genius and wins things. Labour has not yet found one to match. Against some absolute standard the Tories are of course awful, it makes no difference. It's only Labour they need to beat.
Interestingly, looking up another reference, I found that, even though most here would admit that Red Ken wasn't the best candidate, he did better against Boris second time round.
If Fox got 25% of the vote that would be the highest share for a third party candidate in a London Mayoral election and could even get him to the runoff, though Khan would still likely win.
Otherwise some voters will vote Fox in round 1 then for Bailey in the runoff.
If Fox stands for the Assembly he could get in on the list, especially in somewhere like Bexley and Bromley or Havering and Redbridge
Fox won't get 25%. Indeed he won't get 2.5%. He may get 0.25% though.
The reason is that he is a tosser with no electoral base or policies.
I stopped reading that post at ‘If Fox got 25%’. ‘If I slept with Megan Fox ...’ We’re basically dealing with same magnitude of probability.
Anyway politics off the agenda for the media today as they go way over the top with the Sussex's interview
Really who cares?
Considering our media won't stop banging on about it, you brought it up and considering our disgraceful Royal Family thinks it's appropriate to troll the Sussex's about "allegations" supposedly made years ago when they're no longer in the role already but don't have squat to say about the potentially criminal actions of Prince Andrew then it seems far too many people really care.
Fox is a ghastly guy. He will be eviscerated but will be too thick skinned (or ACT too thick skinned) to care.
The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are repositories of moaners, a British pastime. I was at a vaccination centre the other day and some lady was moaning away loudly in front of everyone about having to wait 15 minutes after she'd received her jab.
Some years ago I had a cataract operation. There were four or five of us in the waiting room, and after the operation we had to wait for a while; clerical and transport issues. After being 'done' most of us commented on how well we could now see, except one lady who moaned about the dreadful pain, and how she couldn't imaging during that again.
LOL. Proof reading interrupted again! 'imagine' of course.
I was just enjoying the idea of somebody not imaging an operation on their sight.
More to the point I’m not sure anyone needs cataract surgery more than twice (once in each eye) given how it is done.
Glad I'm contributing to the gaiety of nations, even if it's only a couple of them!
One doesn't, of course need more than one cataract operation per eye, AFAIK, but this woman, having had one on her right eye was, apparently, going to need one on her left in the not-too-distant. If I do get a problem in my right eye, the improvement in my left, the one I had done, would ensure I was back to the operating theatre PDQ!
To be fair even routine surgery has a complication rate. She may not be a whinger so much as the one who got the short straw.
As you rightly say, fair point. She had been complaining about everything before she went in, so I must admit, we all took pinches of salt.
And yes, there can be complications with even apparently straightforward procedures; the sepsis I experienced after a prostate cancer examination bears witness to that.
Fox is a ghastly guy. He will be eviscerated but will be too thick skinned (or ACT too thick skinned) to care.
The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are repositories of moaners, a British pastime. I was at a vaccination centre the other day and some lady was moaning away loudly in front of everyone about having to wait 15 minutes after she'd received her jab.
If Fox got 25% of the vote that would be the highest share for a third party candidate in a London Mayoral election and could even get him to the runoff, though Khan would still likely win.
Otherwise some voters will vote Fox in round 1 then for Bailey in the runoff.
If Fox stands for the Assembly he could get in on the list, especially in somewhere like Bexley and Bromley or Havering and Redbridge
Fox won't get 25%. Indeed he won't get 2.5%. He may get 0.25% though.
The reason is that he is a tosser with no electoral base or policies.
25% of Londoners want lockdown ended by the end of this month, 25% think Khan too woke as the figures in TSE's thread header show.
They would be his target base
Yes but that election is not until May, when lockdown will be over.
The only interesting market would be an over/under market for him. I would suggest 1% of first preferences.
Restrictions will not be over on election day on May 6th.
Pubs and restaurants will still not be open for indoor drinking and dining, 6 people can still not meet inside only outside, weddings will still be restricted to 15 people, hotels, theatres and cinemas and museums will still be shut and large events will not be back on even with restricted capacity until 17th May
The most likely outcome of this is surely splitting up the role of the Lord Advocate? It makes it far too easy to see problems even if there were none with it's current setup.
The proper data is published this month. Those not noticing lack of shortages in our supermarkets perhaps ought to note that far from taking back control of our borders, we are not enforcing import checks. Once we do enforce the paperwork similar issues for EU exporters will apply as those our shellfish exporters are suffering.
At present it is mostly transport costs going up, due to returning Lorries going empty and hauliers declining the work at historic prices because of the hassle factor. It is parcels rather than bulk shipments that are getting customs duties now.
Incidentally, I got a parcel this week from Canada of some clothing, costing £50 but a customs sticker saying £3.54. Dodgy, but not unusual, I bought some medical equipment last year from India, which also had a ridiculously low declaration. Presumably this is common practice.
Anyway politics off the agenda for the media today as they go way over the top with the Sussex's interview
Really who cares?
People always ask that but it sells papers and gets enough attention that media feel they need to do it. The answer is lots of people.
I wont bother to watch, but after such build up there better be something juicy out of it.
I won't be watching it either but I feel sorry for them.
The way they're being treated is like people who leave a cult getting shunned and ostracised by their own family.
Except both sides are leaking petty nonsense about the other, so the very presentation of either as victimised by the other is problematic. Family relationships break down, it happens, and sometimes its justified and sometimes it's not but that it happens is not itself an issue.
They're playing games, each undermining the other and pretending not to be playing a game (if it weren't a game there wouldn't be leaks and stage managed interviews, there be just statements and accusations made straight up and officially).
If Fox got 25% of the vote that would be the highest share for a third party candidate in a London Mayoral election and could even get him to the runoff, though Khan would still likely win.
Otherwise some voters will vote Fox in round 1 then for Bailey in the runoff.
If Fox stands for the Assembly he could get in on the list, especially in somewhere like Bexley and Bromley or Havering and Redbridge
Fox won't get 25%. Indeed he won't get 2.5%. He may get 0.25% though.
The reason is that he is a tosser with no electoral base or policies.
25% of Londoners want lockdown ended by the end of this month, 25% think Khan too woke as the figures in TSE's thread header show.
They would be his target base
Yes but that election is not until May, when lockdown will be over.
The only interesting market would be an over/under market for him. I would suggest 1% of first preferences.
Restrictions will not be over on election day on May 6th.
Pubs and restaurants will still not be open for indoor drinking and dining, 6 people can still not meet inside only outside, weddings will still be restricted to 15 people, hotels, theatres and cinemas and museums will still be shut and large events will not be back on even restricted capacity until 17th May
And you think that with a fixed date already in the diary approaching a quarter of the population is going to vote based on restrictions that end at the end of the next week already?
Don't be absurd. A quarter of the population saying that is the "ask a silly question, get a silly answer" rule of polling. It doesn't mean that's the issue they will vote upon.
Angus Robertson ... is relatively untainted by the current scandal given he’s currently outside politics and government.
Apart from the fact he already admitted he knew about Eck's "behaviour" years ago and did nothing
If Sturgeon had ‘done nothing’ she would have been fine. It’s the interference in legal process that’s killing her credibility.
I agree it doesn’t speak well for Robertson’s personal integrity - but equally Ruth Davidson seems to have known about these allegations and she never raised it.
That is because as we saw in the court case , they were absolutely nothing and far far away from crimes. Any that did happen were by and with consenting adults. It is all just a few people did not like the boss being a hard barsteward. You still are far short on Robertson.
It is real bollox, given their were eye witnesses who flatly contradicted the stories of these women and the worst case, the one they refer to , she was not even there. It was a flat out stitch up and they better hope the names stay secret as they are supposedly very damning re Sturgeon.
If Fox got 25% of the vote that would be the highest share for a third party candidate in a London Mayoral election and could even get him to the runoff, though Khan would still likely win.
Otherwise some voters will vote Fox in round 1 then for Bailey in the runoff.
If Fox stands for the Assembly he could get in on the list, especially in somewhere like Bexley and Bromley or Havering and Redbridge
Fox won't get 25%. Indeed he won't get 2.5%. He may get 0.25% though.
The reason is that he is a tosser with no electoral base or policies.
25% of Londoners want lockdown ended by the end of this month, 25% think Khan too woke as the figures in TSE's thread header show.
They would be his target base
Yes but that election is not until May, when lockdown will be over.
The only interesting market would be an over/under market for him. I would suggest 1% of first preferences.
Restrictions will not be over on election day on May 6th.
Pubs and restaurants will still not be open for indoor drinking and dining, 6 people can still not meet inside only outside, weddings will still be restricted to 15 people, hotels, theatres and cinemas and museums will still be shut and large events will not be back on even restricted capacity until 17th May
Yeah, but not much of a manifesto as they will be open weeks later.
I am sure that there is a market for boorish ignorance, after all Britain First, BNP etc always get some votes. About 1% of first choices sounds about right for Fox.
So the government’s data seeking to refute claims of a collapse in export volumes - recited on here with glee by the fanboi club - turns out to be fake news?
The Cabinet Office run by Michael Gove has been officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports.
We're having some fencing work done...... the barrier sort, not the sword type ...... and one chap who came to give a quote was complaining about the supply problems, due, he said the Brexit.
You mean he’d clocked the EU flag in your window and added 30% to the price “because of Brexit”?
We are currently waiting for 3 different tradesmen to source parts. There are random stock issues with lots of things at the moment which isn’t a problem if you can substitute items, it is a problem if you can’t
I find it hard to believe that anyone who spends much time online shopping won't have noticed problems with Brexit.
I’ve had no problem whatsoever with one exception. Knorr Chicken Stock Pots. Beef, fish, lamb etc... all fine. Just chicken. Other brands of chicken? Also fine. It’s a puzzle.
Tesco have not had organic chicken for weeks , organic beef is similar. Though I just buy direct from the farm most of the time.
During the pandemic we’ve seen an intense focus on cost of food. As a result there has been a switch away from RWA and organic production
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
Is it normal for a Committee of this nature to be quite so selective about the evidence they publish?
Genuine question - I had always assumed that they were very partisan in the report but not necessary in the selection of the facts they disclose
If they do not publish it then they cannot use it in their report. Hence why Sturgeon has been so confident, anything incriminating has not been published.
I know - hence my question.
Usually (AIUI) committees publish everything and then selectively use what they want. There have been several examples of the committee excluding evidence but I’ve not dug beyond the headlines
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
Labour got in because SCon voters second preferenced them. There is clearly an "anti-SNP" vote - how big, time will tell.
Angus Robertson ... is relatively untainted by the current scandal given he’s currently outside politics and government.
Apart from the fact he already admitted he knew about Eck's "behaviour" years ago and did nothing
If Sturgeon had ‘done nothing’ she would have been fine. It’s the interference in legal process that’s killing her credibility.
I agree it doesn’t speak well for Robertson’s personal integrity - but equally Ruth Davidson seems to have known about these allegations and she never raised it.
That is because as we saw in the court case , they were absolutely nothing and far far away from crimes. Any that did happen were by and with consenting adults. It is all just a few people did not like the boss being a hard barsteward. You still are far short on Robertson.
Morning Malc, hope those turnips are all ready to throw at the Sturgeonites.
Morning ydoether, reading Macbeth at present.
What’s been done’s inane.
But I don’t quite see Robertson as a Caesar. Even if you think he is duff.
Robertson? Not a ghost of a chance.
I don’t know. Witches worse, him or one of the current nonentities in the executive? They’re all a bit drab...
When are you going to stop the Macbeth references? Tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow?
When in a hole, ydoether....
"Is this a digger I see before me?"
I think we’re done, can we move on?!
Always wanting to get the last syllable in, @ydoethur .
Angus Robertson ... is relatively untainted by the current scandal given he’s currently outside politics and government.
Apart from the fact he already admitted he knew about Eck's "behaviour" years ago and did nothing
If Sturgeon had ‘done nothing’ she would have been fine. It’s the interference in legal process that’s killing her credibility.
I agree it doesn’t speak well for Robertson’s personal integrity - but equally Ruth Davidson seems to have known about these allegations and she never raised it.
That is because as we saw in the court case , they were absolutely nothing and far far away from crimes. Any that did happen were by and with consenting adults. It is all just a few people did not like the boss being a hard barsteward. You still are far short on Robertson.
Morning Malc, hope those turnips are all ready to throw at the Sturgeonites.
Morning ydoether, reading Macbeth at present.
What’s been done’s inane.
But I don’t quite see Robertson as a Caesar. Even if you think he is duff.
Robertson? Not a ghost of a chance.
I don’t know. Witches worse, him or one of the current nonentities in the executive? They’re all a bit drab...
When are you going to stop the Macbeth references? Tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow?
When in a hole, ydoether....
"Is this a digger I see before me?"
I think we’re done, can we move on?!
Always wanting to get the last syllable in, @ydoethur .
Fox is a ghastly guy. He will be eviscerated but will be too thick skinned (or ACT too thick skinned) to care.
The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are repositories of moaners, a British pastime. I was at a vaccination centre the other day and some lady was moaning away loudly in front of everyone about having to wait 15 minutes after she'd received her jab.
You missed the point... she was bragging she had the Pfizer vaccine...
Angus Robertson ... is relatively untainted by the current scandal given he’s currently outside politics and government.
Apart from the fact he already admitted he knew about Eck's "behaviour" years ago and did nothing
If Sturgeon had ‘done nothing’ she would have been fine. It’s the interference in legal process that’s killing her credibility.
I agree it doesn’t speak well for Robertson’s personal integrity - but equally Ruth Davidson seems to have known about these allegations and she never raised it.
That is because as we saw in the court case , they were absolutely nothing and far far away from crimes. Any that did happen were by and with consenting adults. It is all just a few people did not like the boss being a hard barsteward. You still are far short on Robertson.
Morning Malc, hope those turnips are all ready to throw at the Sturgeonites.
Morning ydoether, reading Macbeth at present.
What’s been done’s inane.
But I don’t quite see Robertson as a Caesar. Even if you think he is duff.
Robertson? Not a ghost of a chance.
I don’t know. Witches worse, him or one of the current nonentities in the executive? They’re all a bit drab...
When are you going to stop the Macbeth references? Tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow?
When in a hole, ydoether....
"Is this a digger I see before me?"
I think we’re done, can we move on?!
Always wanting to get the last syllable in, @ydoethur .
The most likely outcome of this is surely splitting up the role of the Lord Advocate? It makes it far too easy to see problems even if there were none with it's current setup.
Likely outcome , depending on James Hamilton position, is that Evans will get monster payout and early retirement on huge pension , whether she will sack her husband (sic) is debateable and she will need to be crowbarred out herself.
So the government’s data seeking to refute claims of a collapse in export volumes - recited on here with glee by the fanboi club - turns out to be fake news?
The Cabinet Office run by Michael Gove has been officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports.
We're having some fencing work done...... the barrier sort, not the sword type ...... and one chap who came to give a quote was complaining about the supply problems, due, he said the Brexit.
You mean he’d clocked the EU flag in your window and added 30% to the price “because of Brexit”?
We are currently waiting for 3 different tradesmen to source parts. There are random stock issues with lots of things at the moment which isn’t a problem if you can substitute items, it is a problem if you can’t
I find it hard to believe that anyone who spends much time online shopping won't have noticed problems with Brexit.
We have a weekly order from Asda and have not experienced any shortage problems and every Amazon order has been fulfilled
I am sure there are some supply problems but I have not been inconvenienced by them
Well that's alright then!
And I do not know anyone who has
Brie can be a problem. We have to make do with Perl Wen in these parts.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
Golly. How thick are you? Bye bye Union.
Regardless of whether or not he thinks the Union is any use, he might as well do as he sees fit. Unionist tactical voting is pointless, because the absolute floor of support for the SNP is now 45%, or somewhere very close to it (some of that will bleed away to the Greens on the list vote in May, but only because they are also very pro-independence and can be relied upon never in a million years to prop up the Tories.)
Scotland will elect an endless series of Nationalist Governments until independence occurs. The direction of travel is set. It's just a matter of how long it takes to get there.
That's just dumb. I think they'll go indy but views are not set forever like laws of nature, the floor of SNP support is not guaranteed to be that level forever.
40 years ago you'd claim on the same logic that the level of SNP support meant independence was impossible and they should give up Well what do you know, things changed!
I dont think it will, and I think a vote will come too soon for a change, but the idea they will always vote X is ridiculous.
The hope that the Union can be salvaged is surely rooted in the notion that enough pro-independence voters in Scotland can be convinced that this Britain thing is a really good idea after all? In which case, how does this happen?
Northern Ireland's Nationalist community wants out and has demographic trends on its side. So does Scotland's. The concept of either of those groups deciding to pack away their tricolours or their saltires and start enthusiastically waving the union jack instead is risible.
In the long run the only thing that's holding the Union together is money: there are enough floating voters left in the middle who are worried that secession will hit them hard in their wallets. If, in 2014, the Scottish Government had been able to convince voters that they'd be £1 per year better off by getting rid of the Union then it would've won that referendum by a 2:1 margin. But the hard pro-Union vote is shrinking by the year, as is British identity, and as we saw from the Brexit vote even the tried and tested tactic of scaring people with visions of economic Armageddon has its limits.
Great Britain is just the latest in a long list of rickety multi-national federations that is doomed to fail. Such entities - Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, the UK - last precisely as long as the sense of common purpose, and the strength of the centre to hold the country together, are sufficient to counter the political forces pulling its constituent elements apart. Britain lacks a common political culture, any project to which all of its elements can buy into to unite it, the fraction of the population that cares about its continued existence and can be bothered to mount a defence of it shrinks with every passing year, and its remaining supporters have no good ideas for how any of this can be thrown into reverse. Neither continued reliance on hosing down the Celtic fringe with more and more autonomy and more and more cash, nor eternally denying the right of secession and threatening to send in the tanks if it is attempted, counts as a viable long-term strategy.
The proper data is published this month. Those not noticing lack of shortages in our supermarkets perhaps ought to note that far from taking back control of our borders, we are not enforcing import checks. Once we do enforce the paperwork similar issues for EU exporters will apply as those our shellfish exporters are suffering.
At present it is mostly transport costs going up, due to returning Lorries going empty and hauliers declining the work at historic prices because of the hassle factor. It is parcels rather than bulk shipments that are getting customs duties now.
Incidentally, I got a parcel this week from Canada of some clothing, costing £50 but a customs sticker saying £3.54. Dodgy, but not unusual, I bought some medical equipment last year from India, which also had a ridiculously low declaration. Presumably this is common practice.
Completely off topic, but I'd like to credit a Tory MP for showing a moral compass. Shaun Bailey (a different one) gained West Bromwich West for the Tories in 2019. He's come out strongly against the cuts to foreign aid, and in particular to Yemen, and has been brave enough to condemn his own party on Conservative Home:
I guess he won't get much support for his views in West Bromwich, so good on him. Those who were wondering why Starmer focused on Yemen in PMQs last week may find the answer in Bailey's article.
Angus Robertson ... is relatively untainted by the current scandal given he’s currently outside politics and government.
Apart from the fact he already admitted he knew about Eck's "behaviour" years ago and did nothing
If Sturgeon had ‘done nothing’ she would have been fine. It’s the interference in legal process that’s killing her credibility.
I agree it doesn’t speak well for Robertson’s personal integrity - but equally Ruth Davidson seems to have known about these allegations and she never raised it.
That is because as we saw in the court case , they were absolutely nothing and far far away from crimes. Any that did happen were by and with consenting adults. It is all just a few people did not like the boss being a hard barsteward. You still are far short on Robertson.
Morning Malc, hope those turnips are all ready to throw at the Sturgeonites.
Morning ydoether, reading Macbeth at present.
What’s been done’s inane.
But I don’t quite see Robertson as a Caesar. Even if you think he is duff.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
Labour got in because SCon voters second preferenced them. There is clearly an "anti-SNP" vote - how big, time will tell.
Will still be a very long time before the opposition ever get anywhere. They need to stop being London parties and start getting Scottish policies.
Khan is going to win, there is no doubt about that.
That's why no serious Tory is even running and they're running Bailey instead. Because they don't have a proper candidate like Boris as they all know they'd be humiliated.
I have long thought @Philip_Thompson was a Russian propoganda machine operated by several Kremlin aparatchiks. We have the comedian of the bunch posting this morning. "Because they don't have a proper candidate like Boris as they all know they'd be humiliated". That's a cracker!
I'm no fan of Boris Johnson, but he clearly has (and, more to the point, had) an appeal with cosmopolitan Londoners which allowed him to win in a generally Labour-leaning city. And it's clearly true, imho, that the Tories struggled to get better candidates than Bailey to run because those people thought they'd lose heavily.
Yes, but that was when Johnson was pro EU and pro immigration.
He wouldn't be allowed to stand on that platform as a Tory candidate now.
I guess that at some time in the future there will start to be an Internationalist strand in the Tory party rather than have 'EU' front and center in mind.
Although not running as a Tory it's a shame Rory Stewart pulled out.
I'm a touch disappointed that Piers Corbyn's supporters seem to done nothing so far. I'd expected at least some lunatic stunt or two targeted against Khan. Still - there's a way to go.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Completely off topic, but I'd like to credit a Tory MP for showing a moral compass. Shaun Bailey (a different one) gained West Bromwich West for the Tories in 2019. He's come out strongly against the cuts to foreign aid, and in particular to Yemen, and has been brave enough to condemn his own party on Conservative Home:
I guess he won't get much support for his views in West Bromwich, so good on him. Those who were wondering why Starmer focused on Yemen in PMQs last week may find the answer in Bailey's article.
Totally O/t but I've just been scanning BBC and today is the day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is due to be released from detention and allowed to fly home.
A detention exacerbated by the incompetence of the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, claiming that she was 'training journalists'. It would have gone better for her, to, if the UK had paid it's debts.
Completely off topic, but I'd like to credit a Tory MP for showing a moral compass. Shaun Bailey (a different one) gained West Bromwich West for the Tories in 2019. He's come out strongly against the cuts to foreign aid, and in particular to Yemen, and has been brave enough to condemn his own party on Conservative Home:
I guess he won't get much support for his views in West Bromwich, so good on him. Those who were wondering why Starmer focused on Yemen in PMQs last week may find the answer in Bailey's article.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
Golly. How thick are you? Bye bye Union.
If you are so set on the Union, your answer should surely be to stand down Conservative candidates everywhere.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Totally O/t but I've just been scanning BBC and today is the day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is due to be released from detention and allowed to fly home.
A detention exacerbated by the incompetence of the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, claiming that she was 'training journalists'. It would have gone better for her, to, if the UK had paid it's debts.
Hopefully, with an eye on the new regime in the US, Iran might come to the conclusion that it would be in their best interests to release her.
What is the interpretation of his stupid comments? Clearly he doesn't actually want them to stop sulking, as nobody who was sulking has ever been stopped from sulking by the person representing the thing they're sulking about saying 'Stop sulking'. I am obviously all for Britain but it's hard to defend childish behaviour.
I was always pretty pro monarchy without ever really thinking about it. But it’s a bit like Father Christmas. One day you wake up and just realise that you don’t believe any more. Life remains more fun when you go along with the Father Christmas charade and all its silliness. And that’s pretty much what we do as a nation with the royals.
There’s no point to them but in the list of constitutional aberrations to debate and amend, they’re well below EU membership, the purpose and makeup of the House of Lords, the bodge job of the Supreme Court implementation, regional devolution, and of course the very union itself. And outside about half of Scots and the small band of Lib Dems, no one can be arsed with any of that stuff either.
Doesn’t mean the royals should get complacent mind. Unlike the rest, there’s an easy answer to “what do we replace them with?”. Nothing. I’d stretch to a Lords clerk to literally rubber stamp acts of Parliament in place of royal assent but we must have plenty of them already.
Will it happen? I doubt it. Do I care? Not one way or the other. One does hear shall we say, unflattering rumours about the direct male heirs from time to time, so it can’t be entirely ruled out I suppose.
The way law and legal change works in the modern world means that it would require a revolution. It takes reams of legal nonsense to make quite simple admin changes now, and examples abound in Statutory Instruments every day. Abolition of the monarchy would tie up government, parliament and admin for 10 years, ending with at least one new party, probably more (Lozza v Farage for PM anyone?) committed to the reintroduction of the monarchy.
No foreseeable government is going to touch an issue which is at one massively complex, long term, 10 times more divisive than Brexit and the GFA combined, is electoral suicide with no dividend in the popular mind. Notice that even Jezza killed the issue dead immediately and rapidly when he was asked. Salmond and Sturgeon won't touch it. No-one will.
Parliament can, has and would legislate for change within the system - abolition of male priority for example. That is fairly simple. Abolition is a nightmare.
Constitutional inertia. The British monarchy will most likely survive until our first probe to Alpha Centauri B confirms the existence of the lizard people and the tight uncomfortable human costumes can then be finally slipped off at the Palace.
Cool. Hadn’t realised we’d broken cover over at AC. When did that happen?
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
Given the sort of ratings most of them get, and who is doing the rating, it really is startling just how poorly Williamson is rated even with his incompetence. Teachers will presumably forego a pay rise in joy at his sacking (or more likely being moved elsewhere).
Completely off topic, but I'd like to credit a Tory MP for showing a moral compass. Shaun Bailey (a different one) gained West Bromwich West for the Tories in 2019. He's come out strongly against the cuts to foreign aid, and in particular to Yemen, and has been brave enough to condemn his own party on Conservative Home:
I guess he won't get much support for his views in West Bromwich, so good on him. Those who were wondering why Starmer focused on Yemen in PMQs last week may find the answer in Bailey's article.
There's aid spending which is probably not needed. Even if some of it were wasted, Yemen is not one of places where the aid is not needed. Poor decision.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Just for you HYFUD, given the numbers quoted are unweighted, here are the real numbers that will surely be confirmed soon. I wonder why they released unweighted numbers, very odd indeed.
I had a look at the Twitter accounts of the more right-wing candidates who are trying to stand for Mayor. Fox is way out in front on followers.
Laurence Fox 265,000 on Twitter, The Reclaim Party 44,100 Shaun Bailey 76,600, Conservatives 511,600 David Kurten, 62,800, Heritage Party 5262 Brian Rose 19,700, @brianrose4mayor 1460, @LondonRealTV 166,000 Peter Gammons 807, UKIP 202,500, @UKIPLondon 404 Charlie Mullins 260
Reform UK are on 220,100 follows as a party and have indicated they will stand a candidate, but haven't picked someone yet.
I think all of them are lays on the current betting! Were there a bet possible on Fox vs. Rose vs. Kurten vs. Gammons, that might be interesting.
This country is likely to boom over the next decade. Bet accordingly.
You this country, mean Little England?
BoZo is fuelling Irish reunification, Scottish independence, and even the Welsh are stirring
Missed yesterday's polls?
Early days, cant speak to a trend yet. But we can hope.
Have a look at Andrew Rawnsley in todays Guardian 'Why Boris Johnson, the greased piglet, is eluding the grasp of Keir Starmer.'
Interesting as always from Rawnsley but he is completely blind to a central fact in trying to account for Boris 'getting away with it'.
In politics all things are relative. Nothing is absolute. There are only two horses in the competition, especially in England, which is where Tories win elections. There is no conviction whatsoever that Labour is either more competent, would have done it better, or are a suitable government for post Covid or post Brexit. Tories are ahead (You Gov) in every socio economic group, and doing even better with C2DE than with ABC1- which is a huge culture shift.
Boris is a genius and wins things. Labour has not yet found one to match. Against some absolute standard the Tories are of course awful, it makes no difference. It's only Labour they need to beat.
Precisely. And two more considerations:
1. Perhaps Starmer is as good as it gets for Labour, and they don't have a better alternative who can promote a more electable image and policy platform without pulling the party apart?
2. Related to the first point, the problem with Starmer is arguably more to do with the party he has to try to sell to people than the man himself. Labour is too narrow-based - crudely put, you can't win an election based on the votes of public sector workers, the under 30s, metropolitan liberals and ethnic minorities - and lacks the appeal or the willpower to reach out beyond what's left of its base. How, for example, can Starmer plausible evoke patriotism when his core supporters think that it's the most evil thing ever?
Labour has no message to sell to its lost voters in the Midlands and North except "we will spend even more money than the Tories," and even that is undermined when it actually opposes a Tory tax rise. And yes, you can argue that he may be correct that it's not the right time, but that prompts the question of where the money comes from to give nurses the big pay rise that they want and which he presumably backs, whilst at the same time enraging all those Labour supporters for whom taxing the crap out of corporations is something they expect from their party under all circumstances.
It's only plan is therefore to hope that the Conservatives make such a hopeless mess of governing that voters prove willing to turn to Labour again out of sheer bloody desperation, or that the public decides to have a change of Government out of boredom (which only occurs if the capacity for resetting the clock to zero displayed by Boris Johnson deserts his successors.) That might yet work, but it's surely no substitute for the revolution that's needed to turn Labour into a vehicle that can realistically aspire to majority Government again - if such a thing is even possible?
More than 120,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the UK, twice the death toll of the blitz, and government advisers are on the record saying that some of those fatalities were avoidable. The government has got a thoroughly deserved name for incompetence and its leader an absolutely merited reputation for slow and bad decision-making in handling several critical aspects of the crisis.
In the past few days, various things have happened that wouldn’t normally endear any government to the electorate. The chancellor has produced a budget which, when stripped of all the marketing, is the harbinger of both a spending squeeze and higher taxes across the board. Health workers are insulted and infuriated that ministers want to give them a miserly 1% increase – a cut after inflation – to their salaries. Taxpayers are forking out £340,000 plus legal costs to avoid a public airing at an employment tribunal of the accusations of bullying against Priti Patel.
The aroma of cronyism and pork-barrelling radiated by this government grows more pungent.
Then there’s the baleful economic consequences of Brexit and the destabilisation it is causing to the brittle politics of Northern Ireland. How does a government become more popular in these circumstances? Pollsters report that the only topic really animating their focus groups is the vaccination programme and how impressive it has been.
The vaccine programme arrived just in time to rescue Mr Johnson from an increasingly alienated public and mutinous Tory party. It has gifted him the opportunity to refresh his story and construct a triumph-out-of-adversity narrative. There is evidently an audience for it.
What is the interpretation of his stupid comments? Clearly he doesn't actually want them to stop sulking, as nobody who was sulking has ever been stopped from sulking by the person representing the thing they're sulking about saying 'Stop sulking'. I am obviously all for Britain but it's hard to defend childish behaviour.
The stupid comments (and we do seem make more, though are not alone in it) is what the sides do to please their bosses inbetween meetings which they can then describe as constructive.
Totally O/t but I've just been scanning BBC and today is the day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is due to be released from detention and allowed to fly home.
A detention exacerbated by the incompetence of the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, claiming that she was 'training journalists'. It would have gone better for her, to, if the UK had paid it's debts.
This was one of the many examples of Bozo's crass stupidity and incompetence. Sadly many Conservative members thought it appropriate to make such a person leader of their party nonetheless
More than 120,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the UK, twice the death toll of the blitz, and government advisers are on the record saying that some of those fatalities were avoidable. The government has got a thoroughly deserved name for incompetence and its leader an absolutely merited reputation for slow and bad decision-making in handling several critical aspects of the crisis.
In the past few days, various things have happened that wouldn’t normally endear any government to the electorate. The chancellor has produced a budget which, when stripped of all the marketing, is the harbinger of both a spending squeeze and higher taxes across the board. Health workers are insulted and infuriated that ministers want to give them a miserly 1% increase – a cut after inflation – to their salaries. Taxpayers are forking out £340,000 plus legal costs to avoid a public airing at an employment tribunal of the accusations of bullying against Priti Patel.
The aroma of cronyism and pork-barrelling radiated by this government grows more pungent.
Then there’s the baleful economic consequences of Brexit and the destabilisation it is causing to the brittle politics of Northern Ireland. How does a government become more popular in these circumstances? Pollsters report that the only topic really animating their focus groups is the vaccination programme and how impressive it has been.
The vaccine programme arrived just in time to rescue Mr Johnson from an increasingly alienated public and mutinous Tory party. It has gifted him the opportunity to refresh his story and construct a triumph-out-of-adversity narrative. There is evidently an audience for it.
There's some truth to that, but the tone of the conclusion is just a hair's breath too close to 'how can the public be this dumb?' for my liking.
I had a look at the Twitter accounts of the more right-wing candidates who are trying to stand for Mayor. Fox is way out in front on followers.
Laurence Fox 265,000 on Twitter, The Reclaim Party 44,100 Shaun Bailey 76,600, Conservatives 511,600 David Kurten, 62,800, Heritage Party 5262 Brian Rose 19,700, @brianrose4mayor 1460, @LondonRealTV 166,000 Peter Gammons 807, UKIP 202,500, @UKIPLondon 404 Charlie Mullins 260
Reform UK are on 220,100 follows as a party and have indicated they will stand a candidate, but haven't picked someone yet.
I think all of them are lays on the current betting! Were there a bet possible on Fox vs. Rose vs. Kurten vs. Gammons, that might be interesting.
Twitter follower numbers mean nothing after about a year.
I used to be in Iain Dale's Top 100 on Twitter, based on follower count.
When I stopped entirely blogging and tweeting I was still in the list for the next 2-3 years.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Just for you HYFUD, given the numbers quoted are unweighted, here are the real numbers that will surely be confirmed soon. I wonder why they released unweighted numbers, very odd indeed.
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
Wow, Bozo's doing well there isn't he? !!
I can’t remember a time it was so obvious a minister was going to be sacked in the reshuffle as it is with Williamson. He must be a complete lame duck when he meets people.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Just for you HYFUD, given the numbers quoted are unweighted, here are the real numbers that will surely be confirmed soon. I wonder why they released unweighted numbers, very odd indeed.
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
Wow, Bozo's doing well there isn't he? !!
I can’t remember a time it was so obvious a minister was going to be sacked in the reshuffle as it is with Williamson. He must be a complete lame duck when he meets people.
He might hang on. He's so bad at the moment that you know he can only improve. Ditching him now would probably end forever any aspirations he has, and if Boris lets him continue then he'll owe him pretty much undying loyalty. Given he was chief whip he's clearly going to have some influence.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Just for you HYFUD, given the numbers quoted are unweighted, here are the real numbers that will surely be confirmed soon. I wonder why they released unweighted numbers, very odd indeed.
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
Wow, Bozo's doing well there isn't he? !!
I can’t remember a time it was so obvious a minister was going to be sacked in the reshuffle as it is with Williamson. He must be a complete lame duck when he meets people.
Listening to him on Marr I wondered whether he was a prototype AI politician?
Mainly acknowledging reality and filling the £13 billion shortfall in already committed programs. There's a bit left over for a token effort in space and cyber.
I had a look at the Twitter accounts of the more right-wing candidates who are trying to stand for Mayor. Fox is way out in front on followers.
Laurence Fox 265,000 on Twitter, The Reclaim Party 44,100 Shaun Bailey 76,600, Conservatives 511,600 David Kurten, 62,800, Heritage Party 5262 Brian Rose 19,700, @brianrose4mayor 1460, @LondonRealTV 166,000 Peter Gammons 807, UKIP 202,500, @UKIPLondon 404 Charlie Mullins 260
Reform UK are on 220,100 follows as a party and have indicated they will stand a candidate, but haven't picked someone yet.
I think all of them are lays on the current betting! Were there a bet possible on Fox vs. Rose vs. Kurten vs. Gammons, that might be interesting.
This pol and the other one yesterday offer a great opportunity for Unionist parties to fight effectively agsinst the SNP. However, I doubt whether either the LDs or Labour have it in them to play their part of the bargain and vote Tory where they are the challengers. In failing they could well bring the Union down.
Works both ways of course, in many places.
That is my point - the Tories have shown willing at both party and voter level. Not so the other two.
Of course. You have misunderstood the situation. We have it on the authority of HY no less, that the top priority for Conservatives is to defeat the SNP. It follows that Conservatives will vote for Lib Dem or Labour candidates if they have a good chance of defeating an SNP candidate.
On the other hand, most normal Labour and Lib Dem voters strongly dislike the Tories, and even more so under the leadership of the present shower. There is nothing I want to see as much as Conservative candidates defeated. I could even be persuaded to consider voting SNP (were the conditions right), so much do I detest and despise the present government.
That is really stretching it , if the Tories great hopes are based on these two insignificant wards in Lanarkshire , where we saw a swing to SNP in reality.
On today's Panelbase poll there is a 0.25% swing from SNP to Scottish Conservative on the constituency vote since 2016
Much less than MOE then , that will surely make all the difference
SNP seats like Edinburgh Pentlands, Perthshire South and Kinrossshire and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine had an SNP vote under 40% in 2016 and would fall with that swing and even the smallest Labour and LD tactical voting for the Conservatives
Just for you HYFUD, given the numbers quoted are unweighted, here are the real numbers that will surely be confirmed soon. I wonder why they released unweighted numbers, very odd indeed.
Anyway politics off the agenda for the media today as they go way over the top with the Sussex's interview
Really who cares?
People always ask that but it sells papers and gets enough attention that media feel they need to do it. The answer is lots of people.
I wont bother to watch, but after such build up there better be something juicy out of it.
I won't be watching it either but I feel sorry for them.
The way they're being treated is like people who leave a cult getting shunned and ostracised by their own family.
They are the ones behaving appallingly. I just hope they stay in America, period. They are a busted flush on the UK.
Marrying an American never works.. there is history...
Confirmation bias does an awful lot of work here: those who are already republican or unsympathetic to the royal family are inclined to take Harry and Meghan's side, and vice-versa.
I've seen enough evidence to be fairly certain that (a) Meghan found it hard and wasn't prepared for the constraints and criticism that come with being a royal (b) she behaved with an exceptional sense of entitlement and treated many of her staff like a Hollywood diva, and her side doesn't deny that allegations of complaints exist (c) HMQ tried her best to find a solution that squared the circle, although she couldn't let them have their cake and eat it as that's not what being an active royal means or can mean (d) Harry has been torn and conflicted throughout but has sided with her as he genuinely loves her and much of the above played into his pre-existing fears and anxieties.
It seems to be they should have taken the middle ground solution, respecting Harry's difficult position, his friends and family in the UK, the impact on the wider institution, the need to give Meghan the flexibility and profile she wanted, and the Royals should have done their best to close down nasty snides and attacks from parts of the media at the same time, but it all fell apart and they seem to have gone nuclear instead.
Personally? I think Meghan has far more of her Dad in her than she'd care to admit.
Mainly acknowledging reality and filling the £13 billion shortfall in already committed programs. There's a bit left over for a token effort in space and cyber.
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
Wow, Bozo's doing well there isn't he? !!
I can’t remember a time it was so obvious a minister was going to be sacked in the reshuffle as it is with Williamson. He must be a complete lame duck when he meets people.
He might hang on. He's so bad at the moment that you know he can only improve. Ditching him now would probably end forever any aspirations he has, and if Boris lets him continue then he'll owe him pretty much undying loyalty. Given he was chief whip he's clearly going to have some influence.
So I think he's likely to go, but not certain.
'Given he was chief whip he's clearly going to have some influence. ' Or ability to blackmail?
Given our PM's ability to wriggle out of sticky situations he must have something pretty big on him!
Anyway politics off the agenda for the media today as they go way over the top with the Sussex's interview
Really who cares?
People always ask that but it sells papers and gets enough attention that media feel they need to do it. The answer is lots of people.
I wont bother to watch, but after such build up there better be something juicy out of it.
I won't be watching it either but I feel sorry for them.
The way they're being treated is like people who leave a cult getting shunned and ostracised by their own family.
They are the ones behaving appallingly. I just hope they stay in America, period. They are a busted flush on the UK.
Marrying an American never works.. there is history...
Confirmation bias does an awful lot of work here: those who are already republican or unsympathetic to the royal family are inclined to take Harry and Meghan's side, and vice-versa.
I've seen enough evidence to be fairly certain that (a) Meghan found it hard and wasn't prepared for the constraints and criticism that come with being a royal (b) she behaved with an exceptional sense of entitlement and treated many of her staff like a Hollywood diva, and her side doesn't deny that allegations of complaints exist (c) HMQ tried her best to find a solution that squared the circle, although she couldn't let them have their cake and eat it as that's not what being an active royal means or can mean (d) Harry has been torn and conflicted throughout but has sided with her as he genuinely loves her and much of the above played into his pre-existing fears and anxieties.
It seems to be they should have taken the middle ground solution, respecting Harry's difficult position, his friends and family in the UK, the impact on the wider institution, the need to give Meghan the flexibility and profile she wanted, and the Royals should have done their best to close down nasty snides and attacks from parts of the media at the same time, but it all fell apart and they seem to have gone nuclear instead.
Personally? I think Meghan has far more of her Dad in her than she'd care to admit.
Comments
I wont bother to watch, but after such build up there better be something juicy out of it.
And yes, there can be complications with even apparently straightforward procedures; the sepsis I experienced after a prostate cancer examination bears witness to that.
The way they're being treated is like people who leave a cult getting shunned and ostracised by their own family.
Pubs and restaurants will still not be open for indoor drinking and dining, 6 people can still not meet inside only outside, weddings will still be restricted to 15 people, hotels, theatres and cinemas and museums will still be shut and large events will not be back on even with restricted capacity until 17th May
At present it is mostly transport costs going up, due to returning Lorries going empty and hauliers declining the work at historic prices because of the hassle factor. It is parcels rather than bulk shipments that are getting customs duties now.
Incidentally, I got a parcel this week from Canada of some clothing, costing £50 but a customs sticker saying £3.54. Dodgy, but not unusual, I bought some medical equipment last year from India, which also had a ridiculously low declaration. Presumably this is common practice.
Marrying an American never works.. there is history...
They're playing games, each undermining the other and pretending not to be playing a game (if it weren't a game there wouldn't be leaks and stage managed interviews, there be just statements and accusations made straight up and officially).
Don't be absurd. A quarter of the population saying that is the "ask a silly question, get a silly answer" rule of polling. It doesn't mean that's the issue they will vote upon.
Are you incapable of comprehending such concepts? You're only betraying your own ignorance.
I am sure that there is a market for boorish ignorance, after all Britain First, BNP etc always get some votes. About 1% of first choices sounds about right for Fox.
Usually (AIUI) committees publish everything and then selectively use what they want. There have been several examples of the committee excluding evidence but I’ve not dug beyond the headlines
It will make the Daily Mail as mad as hell. For that I would like to give the happy couple credit.
On second thoughts.......
Northern Ireland's Nationalist community wants out and has demographic trends on its side. So does Scotland's. The concept of either of those groups deciding to pack away their tricolours or their saltires and start enthusiastically waving the union jack instead is risible.
In the long run the only thing that's holding the Union together is money: there are enough floating voters left in the middle who are worried that secession will hit them hard in their wallets. If, in 2014, the Scottish Government had been able to convince voters that they'd be £1 per year better off by getting rid of the Union then it would've won that referendum by a 2:1 margin. But the hard pro-Union vote is shrinking by the year, as is British identity, and as we saw from the Brexit vote even the tried and tested tactic of scaring people with visions of economic Armageddon has its limits.
Great Britain is just the latest in a long list of rickety multi-national federations that is doomed to fail. Such entities - Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, the UK - last precisely as long as the sense of common purpose, and the strength of the centre to hold the country together, are sufficient to counter the political forces pulling its constituent elements apart. Britain lacks a common political culture, any project to which all of its elements can buy into to unite it, the fraction of the population that cares about its continued existence and can be bothered to mount a defence of it shrinks with every passing year, and its remaining supporters have no good ideas for how any of this can be thrown into reverse. Neither continued reliance on hosing down the Celtic fringe with more and more autonomy and more and more cash, nor eternally denying the right of secession and threatening to send in the tanks if it is attempted, counts as a viable long-term strategy.
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/03/shaun-bailey-the-pandemic-is-no-excuse-to-break-our-election-promise-and-reduce-aid-to-yemen.html
I guess he won't get much support for his views in West Bromwich, so good on him. Those who were wondering why Starmer focused on Yemen in PMQs last week may find the answer in Bailey's article.
Plently more to come, and I think Dunt owns the prominent-ish platform he writes for, so is not going anywhere.
Perhaps he'll emigrate to 'Europe' .
Although not running as a Tory it's a shame Rory Stewart pulled out.
I'm a touch disappointed that Piers Corbyn's supporters seem to done nothing so far. I'd expected at least some lunatic stunt or two targeted against Khan. Still - there's a way to go.
Would anyone object to Williamson being bottom? ydoethur?
A detention exacerbated by the incompetence of the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, claiming that she was 'training journalists'.
It would have gone better for her, to, if the UK had paid it's debts.
Perl Wen is absolutely delicious -- much, much nicer than Brie.
It is sold at an enormous premium in fancy delicatessens in the East of England.
Also, I'm very happy to shout out for Perl Las and Cenarth Brie. And Caws Cerwyn.
There is absolutely no need to eat anything other than Welsh cheese.
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1368391559163473923
https://twitter.com/govricketts/status/1367939458784452610?s=21
That is probably the actual plan.
47% Yes
42% No
(Inc DK)
53% Yes
47% No
(Excl DK)
Laurence Fox 265,000 on Twitter, The Reclaim Party 44,100
Shaun Bailey 76,600, Conservatives 511,600
David Kurten, 62,800, Heritage Party 5262
Brian Rose 19,700, @brianrose4mayor 1460, @LondonRealTV 166,000
Peter Gammons 807, UKIP 202,500, @UKIPLondon 404
Charlie Mullins 260
Reform UK are on 220,100 follows as a party and have indicated they will stand a candidate, but haven't picked someone yet.
I think all of them are lays on the current betting! Were there a bet possible on Fox vs. Rose vs. Kurten vs. Gammons, that might be interesting.
1. Perhaps Starmer is as good as it gets for Labour, and they don't have a better alternative who can promote a more electable image and policy platform without pulling the party apart?
2. Related to the first point, the problem with Starmer is arguably more to do with the party he has to try to sell to people than the man himself. Labour is too narrow-based - crudely put, you can't win an election based on the votes of public sector workers, the under 30s, metropolitan liberals and ethnic minorities - and lacks the appeal or the willpower to reach out beyond what's left of its base. How, for example, can Starmer plausible evoke patriotism when his core supporters think that it's the most evil thing ever?
Labour has no message to sell to its lost voters in the Midlands and North except "we will spend even more money than the Tories," and even that is undermined when it actually opposes a Tory tax rise. And yes, you can argue that he may be correct that it's not the right time, but that prompts the question of where the money comes from to give nurses the big pay rise that they want and which he presumably backs, whilst at the same time enraging all those Labour supporters for whom taxing the crap out of corporations is something they expect from their party under all circumstances.
It's only plan is therefore to hope that the Conservatives make such a hopeless mess of governing that voters prove willing to turn to Labour again out of sheer bloody desperation, or that the public decides to have a change of Government out of boredom (which only occurs if the capacity for resetting the clock to zero displayed by Boris Johnson deserts his successors.) That might yet work, but it's surely no substitute for the revolution that's needed to turn Labour into a vehicle that can realistically aspire to majority Government again - if such a thing is even possible?
More than 120,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the UK, twice the death toll of the blitz, and government advisers are on the record saying that some of those fatalities were avoidable. The government has got a thoroughly deserved name for incompetence and its leader an absolutely merited reputation for slow and bad decision-making in handling several critical aspects of the crisis.
In the past few days, various things have happened that wouldn’t normally endear any government to the electorate. The chancellor has produced a budget which, when stripped of all the marketing, is the harbinger of both a spending squeeze and higher taxes across the board. Health workers are insulted and infuriated that ministers want to give them a miserly 1% increase – a cut after inflation – to their salaries. Taxpayers are forking out £340,000 plus legal costs to avoid a public airing at an employment tribunal of the accusations of bullying against Priti Patel.
The aroma of cronyism and pork-barrelling radiated by this government grows more pungent.
Then there’s the baleful economic consequences of Brexit and the destabilisation it is causing to the brittle politics of Northern Ireland. How does a government become more popular in these circumstances? Pollsters report that the only topic really animating their focus groups is the vaccination programme and how impressive it has been.
The vaccine programme arrived just in time to rescue Mr Johnson from an increasingly alienated public and mutinous Tory party. It has gifted him the opportunity to refresh his story and construct a triumph-out-of-adversity narrative. There is evidently an audience for it.
Where is all the new extra money going ?
They have lost all reason and sense and join the Express as a non serious gossip rag
Also I understand they have to publish a front page apology but no sign today
I used to be in Iain Dale's Top 100 on Twitter, based on follower count.
When I stopped entirely blogging and tweeting I was still in the list for the next 2-3 years.
I mean, in what world does Rawnsley live? In what world is Boris a "greased pigLET"?
He's enormous.
He's like a greased giant hog, swaggering through the farm and eating everything.
Innit.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1368357470159187972?s=20
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1368355742697353216?s=20
And are any of them not running for Mayor?
So I think he's likely to go, but not certain.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1368521997957922817?s=21
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1368521999191056387?s=21
Old faithful.
https://twitter.com/hyufd1/status/1368522446106734592?s=21
With the emphasis most definitely on the A
I await the Sun's outrage about this, of course they will treat a Labour MP and Tory MP with balance
I've seen enough evidence to be fairly certain that (a) Meghan found it hard and wasn't prepared for the constraints and criticism that come with being a royal (b) she behaved with an exceptional sense of entitlement and treated many of her staff like a Hollywood diva, and her side doesn't deny that allegations of complaints exist (c) HMQ tried her best to find a solution that squared the circle, although she couldn't let them have their cake and eat it as that's not what being an active royal means or can mean (d) Harry has been torn and conflicted throughout but has sided with her as he genuinely loves her and much of the above played into his pre-existing fears and anxieties.
It seems to be they should have taken the middle ground solution, respecting Harry's difficult position, his friends and family in the UK, the impact on the wider institution, the need to give Meghan the flexibility and profile she wanted, and the Royals should have done their best to close down nasty snides and attacks from parts of the media at the same time, but it all fell apart and they seem to have gone nuclear instead.
Personally? I think Meghan has far more of her Dad in her than she'd care to admit.
And then a new massive black hole emerges.
We won't have anything left in 20 years.
SNP -> Lab swing 3.5% on list, 4% on Constituency in the past 6 weeks.
Or ability to blackmail?
Given our PM's ability to wriggle out of sticky situations he must have something pretty big on him!