Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
In a revised EU though would we not have just had what happened in 2010(?) when Cameron refused to agree to some treaty changes around the single currency, and the council of ministers just went around him, set up a parallel institution and done it anyway?
Conceptually should a hardcore of “Europia” done that, it would be better than now. Half a dozen closely aligned members of the single currency only and separating the identity element and QMV out of the Single Market.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
Mrs Thatcher, of course, was critical of the idea that the brightest and best from, inter alia, Oxbridge should look for jobs in public service, but should go into the City. Are we now reaping the reward of that view?
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I wasn’t even an amateur political commentator in 1991 yet alone a paid one. But how does saying “we’re keeping our own currency thanks” a negotiation? Sounds like it was just the Tory press talking up a Tory government before an election.
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
In a revised EU though would we not have just had what happened in 2010(?) when Cameron refused to agree to some treaty changes around the single currency, and the council of ministers just went around him, set up a parallel institution and done it anyway?
Possibly but they would have done so without the EEC's infrastructure which we would still have been a part of.
The EEC may have ultimately become unstable like our EU membership did or it might have provided a happy medium, impossible to tell.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
There's quite a few 'brown envelope' estates round here, and they stick out a mile. Planning constraints conveniently forgotten. Some people did go to jail but not necessarily over that.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
I'm always suspicious of the "in the goode olde days.."
Given, for example, some of the errrr... interesting decisions made by government regarding the aircraft industry from the 1930s onwards, it is quite clear that people in government were being "helpful" back then....
Usual caveats about black swans aside, I would expect the tories to win a majority next election without too much issue. I think Boris is a huge asset to the tory party, and he knows exactly how to position himself to remain that way. There's been a huge change in tone from him since he jettisoned Cummings and abandoned the trump lite path, which served him well getting elected but had become a burden since. He's much more in the mold of his time as Mayor now. I think the hatred he inspires in some remainers will fade over time, most people just want to put the whole brexit drama behind them now. The vaccine performance has redeemed his performance in the covid crisis too. More importantly, he has an optimistic and positive persona, which I think is exactly what people will be looking for in the years to come after 18 months of shit.
Starmer feels exactly like Ed Miliband 2.0 to me. He's better than Corbyn and indeed was probably Labour's best bet in the leadership contest, but he's boring, doesn't inspire much of anything and is starting from a very bad position.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
Keep a diary and a list; one day you might feel able to do the right thing.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
Mrs Thatcher, of course, was critical of the idea that the brightest and best from, inter alia, Oxbridge should look for jobs in public service, but should go into the City. Are we now reaping the reward of that view?
That was more a reflection of the culture of the 1980s, both here and in the USA.
Now I would say our best and brightest want to work for tech companies
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
There's quite a few 'brown envelope' estates round here, and they stick out a mile. Planning constraints conveniently forgotten. Some people did go to jail but not necessarily over that.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
This kind of thing is not that common. Those areas where people can be influenced are known by developers. But this is not normal in local government.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
I have had considerable business contact with private sector and public sector employees. The idea that the latter have better ethics than the former is not born out by my experience. Indeed it is largely the opposite.
Deeply unimpressive yet there is a certain irony given the Scottish Government's planting the Saltire everywhere. We deserve more than a battle of the flags.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
I'm not sure the Cameron allegations will hurt the government because it is quite hard for the voter on the Clapham omnibus to understand quite what Greensill was up to. Starmer's task is to link it to allegations of cronyism in procurement and planning. Major's government did not fall because the Hamiltons stayed at the Ritz for free, or cash for questions, or Aitken's rusty sword of truth; rather it was the drip drip effect of many cases, none fatal in themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-questions_affair
I think you are right, the Greensill farrago is too complicated for voters to understand, and anyway it is being blamed on Cameron, who is not even yesterday's man, he's the day-before-yesterday's man.
The fact of the matter is that scandals generally have very little or no effect on voting intention. Often none at all: for example Bernie Ecclestone, cash-for-honours, the Capita donations to the Labour Party, the various Mandelson resignations, Cameron's cosy equestrian afternoons with Rebekah, Andy Coulson, Phil Woolas, the various SNP scandals, etc etc etc. (The same is true in other countries.)
There are a few big exceptions to this general rule. The MPs' expenses scandal made a huge impression on voters, but because it was across all parties it didn't in the end affect any of them directly: even ex-Labour MPs going to jail had zero impact. The main effect it had was to corrode trust in general, perhaps contributing to the Brexit self-harm vote.
The other exception was as you said the 1990s 'Tory sleaze' story. Objectively, the 'sleaze' wasn't necessarily anything worse than the other examples I've just cited, but Alastair Campbell did a quite brilliant job of weaponising it into an electoral asset for Labour, helped by the fact that it played into the existing dissatisfaction with the long period of Tory government. I don't think Starmer and his weak team are anywhere near capable of repeating the trick.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
Keep a diary and a list; one day you might feel able to do the right thing.
Whats the right thing? Not do LA work ?
The most extreme example I can give is the rewiring of a Council Head Office. When the job came out to tender we were informed through the grapevine that Company A were going to win it and the tender exercise was just a front. Despite this we still decided to tender it.
One morning we received via email from the LA Procurement Department a congratulations letter that we had won the job.
Within an hour this award letter was withdrawn as a "mistake" had been made in the Procurement process.
What had actually happened was that a junior person in the Procurement Department was not in on the fix. On hearing the news that they had not won the job Company A called their man in the Procurement Department and the changes were made.
Even if Labour recover seats at the next GE, we would still expect some Labour marginals to buck the trend and fall (e.g. Putney still fell to Labour in 2019).
Which ones are the likely fallers? The Coventry seats? Warwick & Leamington? Dagenham & Rainham?
The most marginal, Bedford, seems to me to be demographically trending Labour. I would also disregard the Welsh seats as they will be dramatically re-drawn, but my guess is the successor to Alyn & Deeside could be rather safer for Labour.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
I have had considerable business contact with private sector and public sector employees. The idea that the latter have better ethics than the former is not born out by my experience. Indeed it is largely the opposite.
I think it plays out differently. I used to manage expenses policy for a nationalised company at the time when we had a considerable influx of managers from the private sector. Previously expenses fraud had been relatively rare, largely because fiddling expenses was seen as a sacking offence, to the point where if someone was incompetent I would often be asked to review all their expenses claims as it was a cleaner way to get rid of them. Whereas very many of the new private sector senior people had a very different attitude, seeing the expenses form as a test of their creativity. We had a few outrageous fraud cases but mainly a tidal wave of petty stuff with people trying to claim for all sorts of spurious personal stuff as business expenses that no-one who had come through the public sector ethos would even consider trying.
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I wasn’t even an amateur political commentator in 1991 yet alone a paid one. But how does saying “we’re keeping our own currency thanks” a negotiation? Sounds like it was just the Tory press talking up a Tory government before an election.
Perhaps in the same way as the Tory Press have talked up Brexit (and for that matter the massively flawed Boris Johnson)?
Deeply unimpressive yet there is a certain irony given the Scottish Government's planting the Saltire everywhere. We deserve more than a battle of the flags.
To my knowledge the Scottish government isn't recommending a torch lit parade with flags projected on buildings, which has no negative connotations of course. Insofar as there is a battle of the flags, the Union version in Glasgow is associated with bigotry, racism, a rampant mob smashing up the city centre and a recent sectarian murder, the Saltire (nor the EU flag for that matter) not so much. I think that was the point that the tweeter was making.
Good news everyone. I’ve been offered, and have accepted, a role as a paralegal at a fairly prestigious commercial law firm in the North of England in their engineering and construction team.
The salary is pants but it’s a great opportunity and the team seems lovely — I hope it pays off.
Lord Pickles (of ACOBA) tells the committee we may be looking at things from the wrong end.
Lord Pickles says the focus should be less on "civil servants going out to get experience" but on outsiders coming in.
He tells MPs that the "kind of constraints we put on them" should be looked at "really carefully".
He adds: "Every government for the past 20-25 years – it's true of Lady Thatcher, true of Major, certainly true of Tony Blair and Brown – were all seeking to get people into civil service with business experience.
"So I understand how we got to this circumstances, but I don't think it excuses the final result."
But "part of the problem we have got is that it has not been clear where the boundaries lay – in fact, I hope this doesn't seem rude – there doesn't seem to have been any boundaries at all."
Usual caveats about black swans aside, I would expect the tories to win a majority next election without too much issue. I think Boris is a huge asset to the tory party, and he knows exactly how to position himself to remain that way. There's been a huge change in tone from him since he jettisoned Cummings and abandoned the trump lite path, which served him well getting elected but had become a burden since. He's much more in the mold of his time as Mayor now. I think the hatred he inspires in some remainers will fade over time, most people just want to put the whole brexit drama behind them now. The vaccine performance has redeemed his performance in the covid crisis too. More importantly, he has an optimistic and positive persona, which I think is exactly what people will be looking for in the years to come after 18 months of shit.
Starmer feels exactly like Ed Miliband 2.0 to me. He's better than Corbyn and indeed was probably Labour's best bet in the leadership contest, but he's boring, doesn't inspire much of anything and is starting from a very bad position.
Much I agree with here but I think it's too early to make a call on Starmer. And what happens on May 6th won't change that for me. It's been a very strange year since he got the job. Let's see how things look in a few months.
Deeply unimpressive yet there is a certain irony given the Scottish Government's planting the Saltire everywhere. We deserve more than a battle of the flags.
To my knowledge the Scottish government isn't recommending a torch lit parade with flags projected on buildings, which has no negative connotations of course. Insofar as there is a battle of the flags, the Union version in Glasgow is associated with bigotry, racism, a rampant mob smashing up the city centre and a recent sectarian murder, the Saltire (nor the EU flag for that matter) not so much. I think that was the point that the tweeter was making.
Scottish commanders from the Battle of Otterburn on were perfectly happy to see their forces kill English troops in battle under the Saltire
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
I have had considerable business contact with private sector and public sector employees. The idea that the latter have better ethics than the former is not born out by my experience. Indeed it is largely the opposite.
I think it plays out differently. I used to manage expenses policy for a nationalised company at the time when we had a considerable influx of managers from the private sector. Previously expenses fraud had been relatively rare, largely because fiddling expenses was seen as a sacking offence, to the point where if someone was incompetent I would often be asked to review all their expenses claims as it was a cleaner way to get rid of them. Whereas very many of the new private sector senior people had a very different attitude, seeing the expenses form as a test of their creativity. We had a few outrageous fraud cases but mainly a tidal wave of petty stuff with people trying to claim for all sorts of spurious personal stuff as business expenses that no-one who had come through the public sector ethos would even consider trying.
Well I guess it is always the risk of dealing in personal anecdote.
All the companies I have worked for, or worked with since I set up my own, would sack someone for gross misconduct if they fiddled expenses. I fired someone once who was in their probationary period for stating to a colleague in my earshot that they thought dishonesty was fine provided you got away with it. The fundamental for any organisation, whether public or private, is its values. I will not work with any organisation that compromises on that area. It is also the reason why I resigned from the Conservative Party because they thought it OK to promote someone to the top job who was fundamentally and demonstrably dishonest.
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
There's quite a few 'brown envelope' estates round here, and they stick out a mile. Planning constraints conveniently forgotten. Some people did go to jail but not necessarily over that.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
This kind of thing is not that common. Those areas where people can be influenced are known by developers. But this is not normal in local government.
Maybe not. Most councils aren't a one party state.
I worry Scotland might be showing the same signs, though. If you want to get 'involved' in politics in Scotland, why join a party that won't get elected? I think that's what is killing Labour more than anything.
Even if Labour recover seats at the next GE, we would still expect some Labour marginals to buck the trend and fall (e.g. Putney still fell to Labour in 2019).
Which ones are the likely fallers? The Coventry seats? Warwick & Leamington? Dagenham & Rainham?
The most marginal, Bedford, seems to me to be demographically trending Labour. I would also disregard the Welsh seats as they will be dramatically re-drawn, but my guess is the successor to Alyn & Deeside could be rather safer for Labour.
Coventry and Dagenham would be the ones I suspect could trend Tory.
Warwick may have enough wealth that it remains Labour (and boy is that a weird sentence to write)
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I think you might be bending the analogy there a little. I am not sure Johnson's deal looked that brilliant to anyone except his fanbois base
Is his "fanbois base" in your eyes the 47.2% of English voters that voted for his party? 🤔
That you're incapable of seeing any positives from Brexit doesn't mean the rest of the nation are as blinded by ignorance as you are.
A shame you are revealing yourself as a pillock again Philip. Go and get some real experience of life and then you can come back on here and criticise those of us who have.
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I think you might be bending the analogy there a little. I am not sure Johnson's deal looked that brilliant to anyone except his fanbois base
Fair point- though the coalition of True Believers, Glory Hunters and Vicars of Bray is pretty numerous right now.
And BoJo did learn one important lesson from Maastricht- announce the deal on Christmas Eve, get the whole thing through Parliament with one day of debate and out of the way in time for Saint Sylvester's Day.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
Keep a diary and a list; one day you might feel able to do the right thing.
Free legal advice. Don't keep a diary or a list. Any such payments can cause you at least as much trouble as the recipient.
Deeply unimpressive yet there is a certain irony given the Scottish Government's planting the Saltire everywhere. We deserve more than a battle of the flags.
To my knowledge the Scottish government isn't recommending a torch lit parade with flags projected on buildings, which has no negative connotations of course. Insofar as there is a battle of the flags, the Union version in Glasgow is associated with bigotry, racism, a rampant mob smashing up the city centre and a recent sectarian murder, the Saltire (nor the EU flag for that matter) not so much. I think that was the point that the tweeter was making.
Scottish commanders from the Battle of Otterburn on were perfectly happy to see their forces kill English troops in battle under the Saltire
Lol, the 14th century for when the 17th century is just a bit too new fangled for you.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
Keep a diary and a list; one day you might feel able to do the right thing.
Free legal advice. Don't keep a diary or a list. Any such payments can cause you at least as much trouble as the recipient.
Keep a diary and a list - if you aren't paying them anything beyond coffee.
If you are paying anything expect a world of pain when things come out - it's an area HMRC are looking at regardless of anyone else..
It appears French medical authorities (I assume the Academy of Medicine has an official role there, but will admit to a lack of expertise) are now recommending a 6 month dose interval for non-vulnerable under 55s.
It may well be sensible, they certainly know better than I do, but I'll confess even as a bit of a remoaner to a touch of amusement after all the criticism thrown at the UK for a 12 week interval.
What was it @Cicero was saying about the UK being in a separate information space and the massive anger at the UK's risky policy of extending the interval between doses?
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I think you might be bending the analogy there a little. I am not sure Johnson's deal looked that brilliant to anyone except his fanbois base
Is his "fanbois base" in your eyes the 47.2% of English voters that voted for his party? 🤔
That you're incapable of seeing any positives from Brexit doesn't mean the rest of the nation are as blinded by ignorance as you are.
A shame you are revealing yourself as a pillock again Philip. Go and get some real experience of life and then you can come back on here and criticise those of us who have.
Playing the man again as you've lost the argument.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Corruption seems to infest the UK at all levels now. I lived in Russia for almost a decade so I am a suave and confident briber. Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say. That's why vaccine passports don't concern me. I am fairly sure that functionary charged with injecting me can be enticed into firing the syringe into the bin and stamping my papers anyway.
Well, six months on from the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the advisor on Ministerial standards, Boris hasn't bothered to replace him. So why should anyone else bother about standards.....?
Just "Boris being Boris" isn't the end of it with the moneygrubbing and lying. It leads to everyone being Boris.
More revelations today about civil servants with multiple jobs. Worth noting that many of these were brought in from outside and seem to have been very reluctant to give up their private sector perks and jobs. Rather than import private sector expertise and efficiency the public sector seems to have imported its lack of ethics.
I have had considerable business contact with private sector and public sector employees. The idea that the latter have better ethics than the former is not born out by my experience. Indeed it is largely the opposite.
It's the interface between public and private that seems to bring out the devil in some people.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
Historically if you take the 4 general elections since WW2 after one party had been in power for 10 years or more, as will be the case in 2024, the odds favour a change in government.
That was the case in 1964, 1997 and 2010, the only exception being in 1992 where Major's Tories held on despite some losses to Kinnock's Labour.
The question then is whether Starmer is Wilson 1964 or Cameron 2010 and becomes PM or Kinnock 1992 and he narrowly fails to, unless this government performs disastrously he is unlikely to be Blair 1997, more likely he will win narrowly as Wilson did in 1964 or more likely still become PM after a hung parliament as Cameron did in 2010
The other question is whether the change of governing party has already occurred. Does the voting public regard HMG as a Conservative government since 2010 or has the change from Cameron to May to Boris satisfied any putative demand for change?
It might be that in co-opting the popular parts of Jeremy Corbyn's platform and running against Cameron and May-style Conservatism, Boris already is the change prime minister. I'd not be wagering on 2024 based on historical parallels.
ETA I now see @moonshine has made much the same point in the last few minutes.
Boris is certainly much less of a fiscally conservative PM than Cameron was and is arguably now governing even as a social democrat, he has also delivered Brexit obviously which Cameron opposed and a harder Brexit than May wanted too.
So yes there is something in your point that a change of government has occurred already to some extent
If one really wants to be mischievous, what about Johnson as Major redux? Not (so far) the exhausted Major of 1997, but the triumphant Major of May 1992.
Both took over as PM after the Conservatives had been office for a long time and were struggling.
Both ditched the baggage holding the party down (Poll Tax, Brexit faff).
Both were seen as reaching out in a way that other Tories couldn't. If you weren't around at the time, you might not believe it, but the soapbox thing worked.
Both pulled off remarkable victories against an opposition that wasn't really ready for office. Remember, Major's 14.1 million votes still hasn't been beaten.
Both were, in different ways, masters of the art of persuading people that they were on their side.
There are differences of course. Johnson has been much more ruthless at getting rid of potential bastards before they can cause him trouble.
But in 1992, people were saying the same things that they're saying now; that Britain will become like Japan with a single natural party of government. Ten more glorious Conservative years.
But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder.
For those of us that have followed politics for a long time (and indeed have had an interest in history) your last para is quite powerful:
"But then things happened, and Major's strengths that had helped him defy gravity became weaknesses that made the crash all the harder."
As you say, people forget the John Major of 1992, and for that matter the John Major of Gulf war 1. Johnson apologists should take note.
By the way, I once met Major, and to my surprise he was genuinely charismatic, and came across as a genuinely nice chap. It was also, mercifully before the news regarding Edwina came out!
Yes, Major was a much underrated PM. He is also the only party leader since universal suffrage in 1918 to win a general election after more than 10 consecutive years of his party in power.
Boris would need to match that to be re elected in 2024
Personally I think the signing of the Maastricht Treaty was as calamitous a decision as any taken by a British Prime Minister.
In hindsight, yes. It was the beginning of the end and took decades to put right.
In hindsight Brexit was the almost inevitable result of Maastricht leading to a very asymmetric EU, just as Scottish Independence is now the almost inevitable result of asymmetric devolution.
I don’t know what you mean by “in hindsight”. It was obvious at the time, as the “bastards” always said.
Though even that was a bit more complex at the time. In December 1991, it was seen as a triumph of British negotiation, given that John Major had secured opt-outs from the objectionable bits and a much less unitary structure than was originally desired by some. A Telegraph hack called Boris Johnson described it as a "copybook triumph";
So there's another parallel- JM and BJ both got Eurodeals that looked brilliant on first inspection...
I think you might be bending the analogy there a little. I am not sure Johnson's deal looked that brilliant to anyone except his fanbois base
Is his "fanbois base" in your eyes the 47.2% of English voters that voted for his party? 🤔
That you're incapable of seeing any positives from Brexit doesn't mean the rest of the nation are as blinded by ignorance as you are.
A shame you are revealing yourself as a pillock again Philip. Go and get some real experience of life and then you can come back on here and criticise those of us who have.
Playing the man again as you've lost the argument.
No change there.
To adapt an old political phrase, arguing with you is as pointless as arguing with a dead sheep, though said sheep can at least claim that while it did not have anything articulate to say, it had enjoyed the outdoors for some considerable time. Get some experience and fresh air Philip, it might even make you a less predictable adversary when you are here. Just try being here less.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
I must say that the complicated architecture that came out of Maastricht seemed to me at the time and indeed since a solution to the varying degrees of integration wanted by members of the EU.
There were 2 major problems (no pun intended). Firstly, the EU never really believed in subsidiarity as a concept. It remained a one way street. Secondly, and relatedly, the Euro fanatics hated it. So far as they were concerned all that had been agreed was that countries like the UK were to lag behind on the same journey as everyone else but they would, indeed must, catch up eventually.
Which is a shame because had that structure been progressed in good faith I have little doubt that the UK would be a signed up member of the EU with a high degree of autonomy working together on common interests and going their own way on others.
I can understand the temptation to claim that the bastards were, roundhead style, right but repulsive but in my view they were merely the latter.
What is the betting that the unlocking is stopped or reversed due to the South African variant, as a variant buster vaccine will be coming out in the autumn?
Lockdowns are like a crutch to get the government through the COVID crisis. Can the government "walk" without its crutch? The plan seems to be to use vaccine passports as a walking stick.
It looks like there is still a very long way to go.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
When do new slots become available? It might just be a case of hitting refresh at the right time (like booking a supermarket delivery).
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
I must say that the complicated architecture that came out of Maastricht seemed to me at the time and indeed since a solution to the varying degrees of integration wanted by members of the EU.
There were 2 major problems (no pun intended). Firstly, the EU never really believed in subsidiarity as a concept. It remained a one way street. Secondly, and relatedly, the Euro fanatics hated it. So far as they were concerned all that had been agreed was that countries like the UK were to lag behind on the same journey as everyone else but they would, indeed must, catch up eventually.
Which is a shame because had that structure been progressed in good faith I have little doubt that the UK would be a signed up member of the EU with a high degree of autonomy working together on common interests and going their own way on others.
I can understand the temptation to claim that the bastards were, roundhead style, right but repulsive but in my view they were merely the latter.
I agree, but in hindsight there was little reason or evidence to say that it would be progressed in good faith - so in hindsight they were right to say it wouldn't be.
I didn't like the bastards, I still don't like most of them. But unfortunately they were right.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
No doubt but not much we can do about that, though probably most of them say they are Possible or Undecided rather than Conservatives so you just focus on getting the committed Conservative vote out on local election days.
That is what we did in 2018 when in the ward on the other side of Epping clearly some Possibles we had on the canvass data voted LD on the day but we held the seat with a majority of just 33 by getting the confirmed Conservative vote out
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
There are clearly capacity problems right now. I am typing this sitting in Barts where I am all day for my annual round of blood tests, and there are big notices up saying that this hospital is no longer doing any first doses at all, and telling people due for a first dose to book elsewhere.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
My favourite election was the one where out of ten people who’d signed the Tory candidate’s nomination form, I knew that five of them were voting for me and I got two of them to put LibDem window posters up. I reckon that’s a record that would be exceptionally hard to beat. The mistake he had made was to go round getting his friends and neighbours to sign, rather than relying on party members as most do.
I can only hope that seeing my posters in his neighbours’ windows offered feedback of sorts.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
When we had a nightmare with the track and trace online system we were recommended to try using a different email, or different computer with different IP address. Not sure this will help but maybe worth a try.
What is the betting that the unlocking is stopped or reversed due to the South African variant, as a variant buster vaccine will be coming out in the autumn?
Lockdowns are like a crutch to get the government through the COVID crisis. Can the government "walk" without its crutch? The plan seems to be to use vaccine passports as a walking stick.
It looks like there is still a very long way to go.
There's lots of tools outside of lockdown that could extend and aid the current vaccination situation outwith lockdowns and even vaccine passports:
Continue rollout (Of course) Paediatric approval (Quite a big one in terms of herd immunity) Boosters, mix and match (Coming in Autumn) Outreach to hesitant groups (Happening) Potentially widen pregnancy recommendation (Will probably come more into focus once we hit 20s and 30s age groups en masse)
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
No doubt but not much we can do about that, though probably most of them say they are Possible or Undecided rather than Conservatives so you just focus on getting the committed Conservative vote out on local election days.
That is what we did in 2018 when in the ward on the other side of Epping clearly some Possibles we had on the canvass data voted LD on the day but we held the seat with a majority of just 33 by getting the confirmed Conservative vote out
The local Tories in Richmond Park won the seat back in 2017 with a majority of just 45 over the LDs having lost it in the 2016 by election by doing the same thing and getting Cs out apparently.
The LDs gained the neighbouring seats of Twickenham and Kingston on Thames meanwhile at the same election
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
When do new slots become available? It might just be a case of hitting refresh at the right time (like booking a supermarket delivery).
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
There's quite a few 'brown envelope' estates round here, and they stick out a mile. Planning constraints conveniently forgotten. Some people did go to jail but not necessarily over that.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
This kind of thing is not that common. Those areas where people can be influenced are known by developers. But this is not normal in local government.
There are too many people who would have to be involved to get away with it, it's just implausible as it would both be too risky to attempt and cost too much to be worth it. That's why it is so shocking when genuinely corrupt councils are revealed. DavidL's scenarios are much more plausible.
Not that it stops people very casually suggesting rampant brown envelope corruption of Members and officials as if it is the mmost natural thing in the world. Even on this thread we've a cast iron comment about how many are so amenable, then watered down when pressed about it to how there may not be any 'signposts' or thoughts about asking for a bribe until offered.
That is, going from 'many are amenable' to 'even if they don't ask for one, just assume they would take one'.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
My favourite election was the one where out of ten people who’d signed the Tory candidate’s nomination form, I knew that five of them were voting for me and I got two of them to put LibDem window posters up. I reckon that’s a record that would be exceptionally hard to beat. The mistake he had made was to go round getting his friends and neighbours to sign, rather than relying on party members as most do.
I can only hope that seeing my posters in his neighbours’ windows offered feedback of sorts.
I knew a councillor for a party who privately admitted he was not even a voter for that party. It's just you couldn't get elected if standing for the party he voted for.
What is the betting that the unlocking is stopped or reversed due to the South African variant, as a variant buster vaccine will be coming out in the autumn?
Lockdowns are like a crutch to get the government through the COVID crisis. Can the government "walk" without its crutch? The plan seems to be to use vaccine passports as a walking stick.
It looks like there is still a very long way to go.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
It is odd that so many countries have been sticklers for following the schedule from the trials, but we almost immediately decided to follow prior medical experience with other vaccines and lengthen the intervals to increase the rate at which people are vaccinated. There was no good reason to think the UK was doing something wrong, are other countries much more risk-averse or hidebound?
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you got your first dose from a GP, they are supposed to arrange the second dose themselves, and you are blocked from the national NHs booking system. My mother was in the same position and she had to wait for a GP slot, and was done last week. At 89 I am sure she’s higher up the queue than you.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
If you are a really effective local councillor you can win even on a poor night for your party nationally but such a personal vote takes time to win.
More common is voters who vote LD locally to supposedly mend the potholes etc but Tory or Labour nationally.
For example in the 2017 local elections the LDs got 18%, the Tories got 38% and Labour got 27% but at the general election that year the Tories got 42%, Labour got 40% and the LDs only got 7%.
Similarly at the 2019 local elections the LDs got 19% and the Tories and Labour got 28% each but at the 2019 general election the Tories got 44%, Labour got 32% and the LDs only got 12%
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
When I booked a slot - for fist and second jabs - earlier this week I was offered any location in the country. I just had to put in a postcode - not necessarily my own - and I was given pages and pages of locations. But if I (accidentally) put in an erroneous postcode I was offered all of them. Perhaps it's different for just booking second jabs?
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
If you are a really effective local councillor you can win even on a poor night for your party nationally but such a personal vote takes time to win.
More common is voters who vote LD locally to supposedly mend the potholes etc but Tory or Labour nationally.
For example in the 2017 local elections the LDs got 18%, the Tories got 38% and Labour got 27% but at the general election that year the Tories got 42%, Labour got 40% and the LDs only got 7%.
Similarly at the 2019 local elections the LDs got 19% and the Tories and Labour got 28% each but at the 2019 general election the Tories got 44%, Labour got 32% and the LDs only got 12%
That’s a mix of greater ability to win votes on local issues and the difficulty of hanging onto votes in national elections when the tactical squeeze from the voting system is so powerful.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you have the booking link from your other GP use that and change your location, you might need to drive quite some distance to get one though. Or see if your GP can approve a local AZ dose if Pfizer isn't available within 50 miles. Pfizer first then AZ looks like the best combination fwiw as they both have slight variations in the spike protein they show the immune system so you get loads of antibody generation each time and you get very strong t-cell immunity. I half expext that regimen to become recommended.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
As much as the EU/Macron succeeded in trashing the AZ reputation in the eyes of the French, I don’t think the attempts at shitting on the UK’s one dose strategy as risky ever really convinced people here - the UK is just seen as having handled it’s programme well like Israel. I’ve never had any comments from people criticising the UK and vaccines, compared to last spring when people were incredulous about the UK’s herd immunity approach in the early days of the pandemic.
I doubt that Starmer's 'Tory sleaze' redux (is Mandelson advising him?) will go anywhere. The transplant from the 1990s doesn't fit the world of the 2020s.
Why do you think lining your pockets with taxpayers money is ok in the 2020s?
Because the expected standards for conduct in public life are massively lower.
Latterly I've been struck by how many officials of all stripes in the UK are amenable to bit of fragrant grease - as the Chinese say.
That's interesting.
Can you give us a list of say 20 examples you have encountered personally in the UK in the last 3 years?
I am 59 and I cannot recall a single incident in my adult life where any official has ever indicated to me that some "fragrant grease" might aid the process along. Of course I don't live in Liverpool but it is just not a feature of public life in Britain in my experience. I have of course had to deal with officious and pedantic idiots who seemed to be creating problems for irrational reasons. Maybe I was just missing the signposts?
Our "corruption" seems to me to be at a different level. It is the appointment of like minded people to public bodies and publicly funded organisations, grants to those bodies who become beholden to and cheerleaders for those in charge, in more recent times contracts offered to chums without due diligence or competitive tendering, that sort of thing. We are a long way from perfect but just plain bribes or "thank you's"? Just never seen it.
Yesterday I had a call from someone in a Local Authority regarding our tender for some major works. He wanted to have a meeting about it outside Starbucks over a coffee.. This is an example of the signpost you are talking about.
This type of thing has been happening for decades and will always continue to happen. I could give hundreds of examples of where we do work on peoples houses for nothing, provide holidays, golf memberships etc etc as well as the good old brown envelope.
There's quite a few 'brown envelope' estates round here, and they stick out a mile. Planning constraints conveniently forgotten. Some people did go to jail but not necessarily over that.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
This kind of thing is not that common. Those areas where people can be influenced are known by developers. But this is not normal in local government.
There are too many people who would have to be involved to get away with it, it's just implausible as it would both be too risky to attempt and cost too much to be worth it. That's why it is so shocking when genuinely corrupt councils are revealed. DavidL's scenarios are much more plausible.
Not that it stops people very casually suggesting rampant brown envelope corruption of Members and officials as if it is the mmost natural thing in the world. Even on this thread we've a cast iron comment about how many are so amenable, then watered down when pressed about it to how there may not be any 'signposts' or thoughts about asking for a bribe until offered.
That is, going from 'many are amenable' to 'even if they don't ask for one, just assume they would take one'.
I've been on both sides of public sector procurement for the last ten years and have seen literally nothing dodgy, ever.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
When I booked a slot - for fist and second jabs - earlier this week I was offered any location in the country. I just had to put in a postcode - not necessarily my own - and I was given pages and pages of locations. But if I (accidentally) put in an erroneous postcode I was offered all of them. Perhaps it's different for just booking second jabs?
It’s because the first dose was from a GP or local outlet, as I said above. To avoid double booking once you have had a first dose from a local provider you are deleted from the national booking list.
The upside is that this allows local practices to manage their own booking arrangements with their familiar patient list. Somehow allowing the national system to manage appointments with dozens of small GP practices probably isn’t a sensible approach.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
It is odd that so many countries have been sticklers for following the schedule from the trials, but we almost immediately decided to follow prior medical experience with other vaccines and lengthen the intervals to increase the rate at which people are vaccinated. There was no good reason to think the UK was doing something wrong, are other countries much more risk-averse or hidebound?
I think the overriding factor in Europe was "brexit Britain - must be wrong". I don't think any more thought went into it than being a jilted ex who hates everything we do.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you got your first dose from a GP, they are supposed to arrange the second dose themselves, and you are blocked from the national NHs booking system. My mother was in the same position and she had to wait for a GP slot, and was done last week. At 89 I am sure she’s higher up the queue than you.
They have done. They have given me the link to the system which books and which I used last time to book my first dose. It checks my date of birth and then sends me to the site to book.
Then I get a screen saying: No Appointments Available and telling me to check the link every day and that I will be able to book the moment slots become available.
My brother was done yesterday and according to what he heard the next slots will be on 21st and 24th April. So am keeping my fingers crossed. But I it is a 5 hour drive down to London.
Quite why it was my ex-GP who organised my first dose despite me having already moved practice is unclear. It does not give me a lot of confidence in the system.
They are kind of screwed as a group if, even at such a time, they are relying on the Queen to be the one who is being sensible and making the rest be sensible as well. Charles has been in training his whole life, and Will is, in proper fashion, boringly sensible, but will they be able to keep a lid on the rest of them without her matriarchal authority?
I doubt the average voter could care less whether the males in the royal family wear military uniforms on Saturday or not.
In any case it is Charles and William who are next in line to the throne after the Queen, not Andrew and Harry neither of whom even perform royal duties anymore
I think you've missed my point, which was that the family members are reportedly squabbling over petty issues to the point it apparently still requires the Queen herself, no doubt hit harder than anyone by the death of her husband, to personally intervene to sort it out.
It's not about whether the public care what they wear, or what the line of succession is. It's about whether those not in the direct line damage the institution through their general behaviour, and if they can be managed without the Queen there to manage them.
It's the right decision but it really does beggar belief that The Queen has to deal with this shit on top of grieving for losing the love of her life.
The Queen is Head of State and head of the royal family so obviously she still decides on what they are allowed to do, when she dies Charles will take those roles and decide as will William when Charles dies.
It is as simple as that
It's not as simple as that, as the point was whether the troublemakers will listen to Will and Charles as they do to the Queen. The signs are not promising.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
As much as the EU/Macron succeeded in trashing the AZ reputation in the eyes of the French, I don’t think the attempts at shitting on the UK’s one dose strategy as risky ever really convinced people here - the UK is just seen as having handled it’s programme well like Israel. I’ve never had any comments from people criticising the UK and vaccines, compared to last spring when people were incredulous about the UK’s herd immunity approach in the early days of the pandemic.
That is interesting to note and quite positive, though it makes the attempts to paint it as riskier than it was more inexplicable rather than simply shitty. I never really understood why attack the strategy like that, rather than just go for an abundance of caution line if not following suit. A bit like when the data wranglers were focusing on second doses, when simple maths would indicate that would backfire in a month.
They are kind of screwed as a group if, even at such a time, they are relying on the Queen to be the one who is being sensible and making the rest be sensible as well. Charles has been in training his whole life, and Will is, in proper fashion, boringly sensible, but will they be able to keep a lid on the rest of them without her matriarchal authority?
I doubt the average voter could care less whether the males in the royal family wear military uniforms on Saturday or not.
In any case it is Charles and William who are next in line to the throne after the Queen, not Andrew and Harry neither of whom even perform royal duties anymore
I think you've missed my point, which was that the family members are reportedly squabbling over petty issues to the point it apparently still requires the Queen herself, no doubt hit harder than anyone by the death of her husband, to personally intervene to sort it out.
It's not about whether the public care what they wear, or what the line of succession is. It's about whether those not in the direct line damage the institution through their general behaviour, and if they can be managed without the Queen there to manage them.
It's the right decision but it really does beggar belief that The Queen has to deal with this shit on top of grieving for losing the love of her life.
The Queen is Head of State and head of the royal family so obviously she still decides on what they are allowed to do, when she dies Charles will take those roles and decide as will William when Charles dies.
It is as simple as that
It's not as simple as that, as the point was whether the troublemakers will listen to Will and Charles as they do to the Queen. The signs are not promising.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
As much as the EU/Macron succeeded in trashing the AZ reputation in the eyes of the French, I don’t think the attempts at shitting on the UK’s one dose strategy as risky ever really convinced people here - the UK is just seen as having handled it’s programme well like Israel. I’ve never had any comments from people criticising the UK and vaccines, compared to last spring when people were incredulous about the UK’s herd immunity approach in the early days of the pandemic.
That is interesting to note and quite positive, though it makes the attempts to paint it as riskier than it was more inexplicable rather than simply shitty. I never really understood why attack the strategy like that, rather than just go for an abundance of caution line if not following suit. A bit like when the data wranglers were focusing on second doses, when simple maths would indicate that would backfire in a month.
It doesn't matter whether they do or not, Charles as the new sovereign would decide and they could not challenge his decision.
In some respects he already does, it was Charles who removed Andrew from royal duties for example, not the Queen
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you got your first dose from a GP, they are supposed to arrange the second dose themselves, and you are blocked from the national NHs booking system. My mother was in the same position and she had to wait for a GP slot, and was done last week. At 89 I am sure she’s higher up the queue than you.
They have done. They have given me the link to the system which books and which I used last time to book my first dose. It checks my date of birth and then sends me to the site to book.
Then I get a screen saying: No Appointments Available and telling me to check the link every day and that I will be able to book the moment slots become available.
My brother was done yesterday and according to what he heard the next slots will be on 21st and 24th April. So am keeping my fingers crossed. But I it is a 5 hour drive down to London.
Quite why it was my ex-GP who organised my first dose despite me having already moved practice is unclear. It does not give me a lot of confidence in the system.
I would call your GP and tell him that you are just going to turn up tomorrow for your jab. Then just go down there and refuse to leave until they jab you.
They are kind of screwed as a group if, even at such a time, they are relying on the Queen to be the one who is being sensible and making the rest be sensible as well. Charles has been in training his whole life, and Will is, in proper fashion, boringly sensible, but will they be able to keep a lid on the rest of them without her matriarchal authority?
I doubt the average voter could care less whether the males in the royal family wear military uniforms on Saturday or not.
In any case it is Charles and William who are next in line to the throne after the Queen, not Andrew and Harry neither of whom even perform royal duties anymore
I think you've missed my point, which was that the family members are reportedly squabbling over petty issues to the point it apparently still requires the Queen herself, no doubt hit harder than anyone by the death of her husband, to personally intervene to sort it out.
It's not about whether the public care what they wear, or what the line of succession is. It's about whether those not in the direct line damage the institution through their general behaviour, and if they can be managed without the Queen there to manage them.
It's the right decision but it really does beggar belief that The Queen has to deal with this shit on top of grieving for losing the love of her life.
The Queen is Head of State and head of the royal family so obviously she still decides on what they are allowed to do, when she dies Charles will take those roles and decide as will William when Charles dies.
It is as simple as that
It's not as simple as that, as the point was whether the troublemakers will listen to Will and Charles as they do to the Queen. The signs are not promising.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
As much as the EU/Macron succeeded in trashing the AZ reputation in the eyes of the French, I don’t think the attempts at shitting on the UK’s one dose strategy as risky ever really convinced people here - the UK is just seen as having handled it’s programme well like Israel. I’ve never had any comments from people criticising the UK and vaccines, compared to last spring when people were incredulous about the UK’s herd immunity approach in the early days of the pandemic.
That is interesting to note and quite positive, though it makes the attempts to paint it as riskier than it was more inexplicable rather than simply shitty. I never really understood why attack the strategy like that, rather than just go for an abundance of caution line if not following suit. A bit like when the data wranglers were focusing on second doses, when simple maths would indicate that would backfire in a month.
It doesn't matter whether they do or not, Charles for instance would decide.
It was Charles who removed Andrew from royal duties for example, not the Queen
You've been very impressive with the missing the point on this one, well done. You seem incapable of noticing that 'X deciding' something does not mean that person Y will play along quietly, rather than, say, publicly embarrass the family with interviews, stories or poor behaviour, because they don't listen to what X decides.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you got your first dose from a GP, they are supposed to arrange the second dose themselves, and you are blocked from the national NHs booking system. My mother was in the same position and she had to wait for a GP slot, and was done last week. At 89 I am sure she’s higher up the queue than you.
They have done. They have given me the link to the system which books and which I used last time to book my first dose. It checks my date of birth and then sends me to the site to book.
Then I get a screen saying: No Appointments Available and telling me to check the link every day and that I will be able to book the moment slots become available.
My brother was done yesterday and according to what he heard the next slots will be on 21st and 24th April. So am keeping my fingers crossed. But I it is a 5 hour drive down to London.
Quite why it was my ex-GP who organised my first dose despite me having already moved practice is unclear. It does not give me a lot of confidence in the system.
I think the national booking system has worked very well indeed - considering the demand and the scale of the task, there have been few reports of glitches or downtime and the rest, which for a public sector project is remarkable. We all remember the experience of trying to get Olympic tickets, I am sure.
The problem is that once you are opted out from this system you are in the hands of your local provider, with both the availability of vaccine and the efficiency of the booking system (which seems to be a mix of old style manual systems and a myriad of software systems being used) varying considerably.
I am sure it makes sense not to have tried to ‘override’ thousands of GP and pharmacy booking systems and manage them all from NHS Towers, but inevitably availability and service levels is going to vary at local level.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you have the booking link from your other GP use that and change your location, you might need to drive quite some distance to get one though. Or see if your GP can approve a local AZ dose if Pfizer isn't available within 50 miles. Pfizer first then AZ looks like the best combination fwiw as they both have slight variations in the spike protein they show the immune system so you get loads of antibody generation each time and you get very strong t-cell immunity. I half expext that regimen to become recommended.
I cannot change the location. The booking link does not allow me to do that.
I could I suppose ring the NHS helpline and get an AZ jab as my second dose. My only concern with that is that I have a blood condition which makes me susceptible to blood clots and have had two Deep Vein Thrombosis incidents in my leg. So what with that and being female I'd rather not take that risk, really.
I'll just have to wait until the London centre gets more Pfizer doses. Irritating to be nagged by the GP to book when I have been the one doing the chasing though .......
Diplomats say the European Commission president apparently broke convention by having her cabinet chief, Björn Seibert, reply to an official invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy had written to von der Leyen to invite her to Kyiv to attend a 30th anniversary celebration of Ukrainian independence, as well as a first-ever “Crimean Platform” summit meeting, which is aimed at showing support for Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula that was invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014.
But in a move that has caused a stir among EU diplomats, Seibert sent a response letter under his own signature to turn down the invitation and express von der Leyen’s regrets, rather than under the Commission president’s name as is customary protocol.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
If you are a really effective local councillor you can win even on a poor night for your party nationally but such a personal vote takes time to win.
More common is voters who vote LD locally to supposedly mend the potholes etc but Tory or Labour nationally.
For example in the 2017 local elections the LDs got 18%, the Tories got 38% and Labour got 27% but at the general election that year the Tories got 42%, Labour got 40% and the LDs only got 7%.
Similarly at the 2019 local elections the LDs got 19% and the Tories and Labour got 28% each but at the 2019 general election the Tories got 44%, Labour got 32% and the LDs only got 12%
That’s a mix of greater ability to win votes on local issues and the difficulty of hanging onto votes in national elections when the tactical squeeze from the voting system is so powerful.
Also, the path to victory is different in a local election with 20-30% turnout, compared with a general election with 60-70% turnout.
In a low turnout election, you win by identifying your existing supporters and making sure they make it to the polls. Even a ward that looks pretty poor for you will probably have enough potential voters for you to secure victory... if you can find and motivate them. Hence all the "where we work, we win" stuff that old-school Lib Dems do.
There's a bit of that in higher turnout elections (shifts between Lab and stay at home, or Con and stay at home are at least as interesting as direct party switches) but except for serious marginals, getting the vote out isn't as decisive.
We seem to be back to the lockdown fanatics actively seeking bad news. Not helped by the moronic intervention by Boris earlier in the week – probably the most stupid thing he has said since this shitshow began.
6 months sounds excessive, although the general reasoning is sound in the scenario where vaccination capacity is constrained.
If you look at our weekly survey on antibody prevalence 12-14 weeks is probably about right. It's a shame the European countries were too pig headed to admit brexit Britain was right and decided to try and undermine our strategy rather than copy it. Doing a u-turn now will just dent overall confidence given that the people have been brainwashed into thinking the UK took loads of risks with the first dose preference strategy.
As much as the EU/Macron succeeded in trashing the AZ reputation in the eyes of the French, I don’t think the attempts at shitting on the UK’s one dose strategy as risky ever really convinced people here - the UK is just seen as having handled it’s programme well like Israel. I’ve never had any comments from people criticising the UK and vaccines, compared to last spring when people were incredulous about the UK’s herd immunity approach in the early days of the pandemic.
Interestingly, an American relative, when I sent the link to the ONS antibody study, had a sort of cognitive dissonance moment.
"But Dr Faucci* said...."
They also seem to believe, thanks to the NYT that the UK is mixing vaccines already - was quite... almost upset when I said that wasn't correct.
*For those who don't know, Dr Faucci is basically worshipped by pretty much everyone who would have voted for Biden.
Diplomats say the European Commission president apparently broke convention by having her cabinet chief, Björn Seibert, reply to an official invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy had written to von der Leyen to invite her to Kyiv to attend a 30th anniversary celebration of Ukrainian independence, as well as a first-ever “Crimean Platform” summit meeting, which is aimed at showing support for Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula that was invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014.
But in a move that has caused a stir among EU diplomats, Seibert sent a response letter under his own signature to turn down the invitation and express von der Leyen’s regrets, rather than under the Commission president’s name as is customary protocol.
'We have won the war, America has lost', say Taliban...
It's a similar picture across much of Afghanistan: the government controls the cities and bigger towns, but the Taliban are encircling them, with a presence in large parts of the countryside...
The government pays the salaries of staff, but the Taliban are in charge. It's a hybrid system in place across the country...
Surge testing in Smethwick. Uncontrolled Covid immigration resulting in rivers of infection.
Typical hyperbole from you.
Hysterical, attention-seeking nonsense.
With respect you may be right but do you have a source for your rejection and is there surge testing in Smethwick
There is surge testing in Smethwick yes, but we could well do without the gleeful "uncontrolled Covid immigration resulting in rivers of infection" hysteria.
"Wimbledon, Carshalton, Cheltenham, Winchester and Cheadle – all of which look very vulnerable and where Davey’s party has been working very hard."
a) It's Davey, the guy who was standing way behind Starmer when charisma was being doled out.
b) You think the Tories haven't been working those seats hard?
c) Rejoin is a very different thing to sell to Remain that gave them the bounce in those seats in 2019. Especially when Rejoin will come with a whole bunch of things we will have give up. Like membership of trade organisations that actually want us.
d) Four more years of incumbency.
The love of the EU and the antipathy towards Boris is far, far different on pb.com than that amongst the wider electorate.
Incumbency always helps but there's plenty of evidence that it peaks after the first re-election. Eventually floating voters start to move from "You've done quite well, let's give you another shot" to "You were pretty good but it's time for a change." Other things being equal, of course.
An important unknown is whether any kind of Lab/LD/Green understanding is reached. All it would take would be quietly shelving the Lab/LD rule that parties need to stand in every seat. Local parties will do the rest ("We give the GE a miss, you give us a clear run in 4 council seats"). As Sean F often observes, voters don't necessarily follow suit, but around 50-60% of them do, judging by multi-member wards where parties aren't putting up full slates (I'm a beneficiary of that)..
Didnt LDs and Green do that in 2019? ended in tears I think...........
That’s overstating things - that it didn’t deliver much benefit is different from ending in tears. There’s no evidence that it did any harm.
Yes - two small parties helping each other doesn't produce many seats, and may not be worth the irritation to rival activists. But unlike the Greens (except in a tiny handful of seats), the LDs have a number of seats that they could easily win with no Labour candidate, and potential Labour gains with that sort of nudge are all over the place.
It needs a constituency-based quid pro quo in council seats, though. Constituency parties are not up for standing down to benefit somewhere else - perhaps they should be, but they're not. However, a small party offered a chance at say 4 council seats vs 0 will be very tempted.
A Tory weakness is that there are no parties in sight which they could do that sort of deal with.
You're assuming the Lib Dem voters are interchangeable with Labour ones and vice-versa though.
Not only might some not vote if their preferred party is not on the ballot paper (or vote for a different third party) but some Lib Dems might vote Tory if there were no Lib Dem on the ballot paper.
If Labour and Liberal Democrat voters were the same, they'd all be voting Labour already.
I'm constrained by the rules on disclosing details from counts, even years later, but having seen countless multi-member ward results in different political climates, I believe that about 2/3 of Labour voters will give LibDems a vote too if there isn't a full Labour slate (and almost none will vote Tory), while the other way round about 50% of LDs will give Labour a vote vs around 5% fiving one to the Tories. The balance simply vote for their own parties and don't use all 2-3 votes. My experience of this doesn't cover the period of Con-LD coalition, when the dynamics both ways may well have been different.
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
I almost always fought full slate elections, so don’t have that evidence, but I do know that many of my own voters voted differently at national elections, more Labour than Tory but a mix, and we’d always be third in the national election within the ward even though winning it convincingly for the council.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Yes my ward votes Tory at general elections but LD for local elections too.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
That’s clearly more sensible - and easier to record in these computerised days than it was back in the 90s - and like me you are helped by not really fighting the ward in different types of elections but being sent away elsewhere.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
There were long term Tory councillors when I was an activist who would get votes from Labour voters (as in those who would always vote Labour at a GE) if they were locally known enough. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people will "divide loyalties" between local and national
If you are a really effective local councillor you can win even on a poor night for your party nationally but such a personal vote takes time to win.
More common is voters who vote LD locally to supposedly mend the potholes etc but Tory or Labour nationally.
For example in the 2017 local elections the LDs got 18%, the Tories got 38% and Labour got 27% but at the general election that year the Tories got 42%, Labour got 40% and the LDs only got 7%.
Similarly at the 2019 local elections the LDs got 19% and the Tories and Labour got 28% each but at the 2019 general election the Tories got 44%, Labour got 32% and the LDs only got 12%
That’s a mix of greater ability to win votes on local issues and the difficulty of hanging onto votes in national elections when the tactical squeeze from the voting system is so powerful.
Also, the path to victory is different in a local election with 20-30% turnout, compared with a general election with 60-70% turnout.
In a low turnout election, you win by identifying your existing supporters and making sure they make it to the polls. Even a ward that looks pretty poor for you will probably have enough potential voters for you to secure victory... if you can find and motivate them. Hence all the "where we work, we win" stuff that old-school Lib Dems do.
There's a bit of that in higher turnout elections (shifts between Lab and stay at home, or Con and stay at home are at least as interesting as direct party switches) but except for serious marginals, getting the vote out isn't as decisive.
Definitely so. For a GE there’s 70% who will definitely vote and 20% who won’t, and in terms of GOTV the campaign is really just chasing the occasional person who forgets to arrange a postal vote when they are going to be away, or who is ill and can be tempted with a lift. Trying to get the 20% to turn out is a waste of time.
In a local election the same 70% splits into say 40% who will definitely vote and 30% who won’t unless someone persuades them.
In an area with a relatively settled population, over the years you can identify the habitual voters and non-voters, and modern election software can both record this and help you focus efforts on those who sometimes vote and sometimes don’t.
We seem to be back to the lockdown fanatics actively seeking bad news. Not helped by the moronic intervention by Boris earlier in the week – probably the most stupid thing he has said since this shitshow began.
Anyway, who do I have to bribe to get my second Pfizer dose? That's the important question for today.
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
Ty and change your location, you may need to drive to somewhere further away to get it as the provisioning system has probably allocated you a dose in London.
I live in the Lake District. I cannot get a slot here because the GP cannot get me onto the booking system. I cannot change the location. I have spent ages on the phone to both my old practice and my new one and the NHS helpline. It is Kafkaesque.
If you got your first dose from a GP, they are supposed to arrange the second dose themselves, and you are blocked from the national NHs booking system. My mother was in the same position and she had to wait for a GP slot, and was done last week. At 89 I am sure she’s higher up the queue than you.
They have done. They have given me the link to the system which books and which I used last time to book my first dose. It checks my date of birth and then sends me to the site to book.
Then I get a screen saying: No Appointments Available and telling me to check the link every day and that I will be able to book the moment slots become available.
My brother was done yesterday and according to what he heard the next slots will be on 21st and 24th April. So am keeping my fingers crossed. But I it is a 5 hour drive down to London.
Quite why it was my ex-GP who organised my first dose despite me having already moved practice is unclear. It does not give me a lot of confidence in the system.
I would call your GP and tell him that you are just going to turn up tomorrow for your jab. Then just go down there and refuse to leave until they jab you.
My GP doesn't have any jabs. The GP in London doesn't have any jabs either. They are doing it at another location at a larger practice in Belsize Lane. If I haven't been able to book by the 21st I will get onto them.
It''s the feeling that I'm going to slip between the cracks and be forgotten that is worrying me .....
Surge testing in Smethwick. Uncontrolled Covid immigration resulting in rivers of infection.
Typical hyperbole from you.
Hysterical, attention-seeking nonsense.
With respect you may be right but do you have a source for your rejection and is there surge testing in Smethwick
There is surge testing in Smethwick yes, but we could well do without the gleeful "uncontrolled Covid immigration resulting in rivers of infection" hysteria.
Sadly such lines are typical from this poster.
I think it was a sarcastic comment referring to this infamous incident:
Comments
Are we now reaping the reward of that view?
The EEC may have ultimately become unstable like our EU membership did or it might have provided a happy medium, impossible to tell.
It seems one party states are the worst for this kind of thing, and it probably doesn't matter which party.
In our case it was a similar make up to Liverpool.
Given, for example, some of the errrr... interesting decisions made by government regarding the aircraft industry from the 1930s onwards, it is quite clear that people in government were being "helpful" back then....
Starmer feels exactly like Ed Miliband 2.0 to me. He's better than Corbyn and indeed was probably Labour's best bet in the leadership contest, but he's boring, doesn't inspire much of anything and is starting from a very bad position.
Now I would say our best and brightest want to work for tech companies
If a prospective non-Tory agreement for a change of government (not necessarily a formal coalition) was in prospect, I'd expect those figures to be higher - these things create their own dynamic. Some LDs would peel off to the Tories if that was in prospect, but probably IMO not many in the Starmer era - I know plenty of people who find Starmer dull, but I've yet to meet anyone who felt he was scary.
The fact of the matter is that scandals generally have very little or no effect on voting intention. Often none at all: for example Bernie Ecclestone, cash-for-honours, the Capita donations to the Labour Party, the various Mandelson resignations, Cameron's cosy equestrian afternoons with Rebekah, Andy Coulson, Phil Woolas, the various SNP scandals, etc etc etc. (The same is true in other countries.)
There are a few big exceptions to this general rule. The MPs' expenses scandal made a huge impression on voters, but because it was across all parties it didn't in the end affect any of them directly: even ex-Labour MPs going to jail had zero impact. The main effect it had was to corrode trust in general, perhaps contributing to the Brexit self-harm vote.
The other exception was as you said the 1990s 'Tory sleaze' story. Objectively, the 'sleaze' wasn't necessarily anything worse than the other examples I've just cited, but Alastair Campbell did a quite brilliant job of weaponising it into an electoral asset for Labour, helped by the fact that it played into the existing dissatisfaction with the long period of Tory government. I don't think Starmer and his weak team are anywhere near capable of repeating the trick.
The most extreme example I can give is the rewiring of a Council Head Office. When the job came out to tender we were informed through the grapevine that Company A were going to win it and the tender exercise was just a front. Despite this we still decided to tender it.
One morning we received via email from the LA Procurement Department a congratulations letter that we had won the job.
Within an hour this award letter was withdrawn as a "mistake" had been made in the Procurement process.
What had actually happened was that a junior person in the Procurement Department was not in on the fix. On hearing the news that they had not won the job Company A called their man in the Procurement Department and the changes were made.
We complained but it got us nowhere.
Even if Labour recover seats at the next GE, we would still expect some Labour marginals to buck the trend and fall (e.g. Putney still fell to Labour in 2019).
Here are the Tory targets.
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
Which ones are the likely fallers? The Coventry seats? Warwick & Leamington? Dagenham & Rainham?
The most marginal, Bedford, seems to me to be demographically trending Labour. I would also disregard the Welsh seats as they will be dramatically re-drawn, but my guess is the successor to Alyn & Deeside could be rather safer for Labour.
GB seats not held by Lab or Con in 2019: 65 out of 632
Of course, it’s a very different set of other seats today than it was in 2005.
Insofar as there is a battle of the flags, the Union version in Glasgow is associated with bigotry, racism, a rampant mob smashing up the city centre and a recent sectarian murder, the Saltire (nor the EU flag for that matter) not so much. I think that was the point that the tweeter was making.
Lord Pickles says the focus should be less on "civil servants going out to get experience" but on outsiders coming in.
He tells MPs that the "kind of constraints we put on them" should be looked at "really carefully".
He adds: "Every government for the past 20-25 years – it's true of Lady Thatcher, true of Major, certainly true of Tony Blair and Brown – were all seeking to get people into civil service with business experience.
"So I understand how we got to this circumstances, but I don't think it excuses the final result."
But "part of the problem we have got is that it has not been clear where the boundaries lay – in fact, I hope this doesn't seem rude – there doesn't seem to have been any boundaries at all."
All the companies I have worked for, or worked with since I set up my own, would sack someone for gross misconduct if they fiddled expenses. I fired someone once who was in their probationary period for stating to a colleague in my earshot that they thought dishonesty was fine provided you got away with it. The fundamental for any organisation, whether public or private, is its values. I will not work with any organisation that compromises on that area. It is also the reason why I resigned from the Conservative Party because they thought it OK to promote someone to the top job who was fundamentally and demonstrably dishonest.
That you're incapable of seeing any positives from Brexit doesn't mean the rest of the nation are as blinded by ignorance as you are.
I worry Scotland might be showing the same signs, though. If you want to get 'involved' in politics in Scotland, why join a party that won't get elected? I think that's what is killing Labour more than anything.
Warwick may have enough wealth that it remains Labour (and boy is that a weird sentence to write)
And BoJo did learn one important lesson from Maastricht- announce the deal on Christmas Eve, get the whole thing through Parliament with one day of debate and out of the way in time for Saint Sylvester's Day.
If you are paying anything expect a world of pain when things come out - it's an area HMRC are looking at regardless of anyone else..
French Academy of Medicine recommends dosage interval for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines of up to *6 MONTHS* .
https://www.academie-medecine.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/21.4.12-Accelerer-la-vaccination-anti-Covid.pdf
They are all Rosbifs now.
No change there.
It was a real problem for the larger parties as they’d both rely on their general election canvassing data and spend much of polling day chasing around after my voters, generously giving some of them lifts to the polls. Whereas we could work off our local election canvassing data with confidence and count on anyone we had picked up as a supporter for a general election being almost certainly willing to vote LibDem for the council.
At my first election count we met one of the Tory councillors on the way in, who was confident enough to pronounce that based on his data my ward “was in the bag” for the Tories, and we all then went inside to watch them lose by a thousand. One of the defeated Tories came over and said that he genuinely didn’t understand how we had done it.
Hence we always do separate local elections canvasses here locally, in fact we don't bother to do a general election canvass as it is a safe Tory seat nationally (we help out in marginal constituencies nearby instead), we only canvass locally in the marginal wards
Despite getting an invite to book my second dose, every time I log in it says no appointments are available. Meanwhile my ex-GP texts me every day reminding me to book my second dose. I wish I could. The 12 weeks is almost up.
Nightmare .....
There were 2 major problems (no pun intended). Firstly, the EU never really believed in subsidiarity as a concept. It remained a one way street. Secondly, and relatedly, the Euro fanatics hated it. So far as they were concerned all that had been agreed was that countries like the UK were to lag behind on the same journey as everyone else but they would, indeed must, catch up eventually.
Which is a shame because had that structure been progressed in good faith I have little doubt that the UK would be a signed up member of the EU with a high degree of autonomy working together on common interests and going their own way on others.
I can understand the temptation to claim that the bastards were, roundhead style, right but repulsive but in my view they were merely the latter.
What is the betting that the unlocking is stopped or reversed due to the South African variant, as a variant buster vaccine will be coming out in the autumn?
Lockdowns are like a crutch to get the government through the COVID crisis. Can the government "walk" without its crutch? The plan seems to be to use vaccine passports as a walking stick.
It looks like there is still a very long way to go.
I didn't like the bastards, I still don't like most of them. But unfortunately they were right.
But I would still wager that there are a fair few Tory types who secretly vote LibDem for the council but don’t fess up to you on the doorstep.
That is what we did in 2018 when in the ward on the other side of Epping clearly some Possibles we had on the canvass data voted LD on the day but we held the seat with a majority of just 33 by getting the confirmed Conservative vote out
I can only hope that seeing my posters in his neighbours’ windows offered feedback of sorts.
Continue rollout (Of course)
Paediatric approval (Quite a big one in terms of herd immunity)
Boosters, mix and match (Coming in Autumn)
Outreach to hesitant groups (Happening)
Potentially widen pregnancy recommendation (Will probably come more into focus once we hit 20s and 30s age groups en masse)
The LDs gained the neighbouring seats of Twickenham and Kingston on Thames meanwhile at the same election
I do this regularly.
Not that it stops people very casually suggesting rampant brown envelope corruption of Members and officials as if it is the mmost natural thing in the world. Even on this thread we've a cast iron comment about how many are so amenable, then watered down when pressed about it to how there may not be any 'signposts' or thoughts about asking for a bribe until offered.
That is, going from 'many are amenable' to 'even if they don't ask for one, just assume they would take one'.
Hysterical, attention-seeking nonsense.
More common is voters who vote LD locally to supposedly mend the potholes etc but Tory or Labour nationally.
For example in the 2017 local elections the LDs got 18%, the Tories got 38% and Labour got 27% but at the general election that year the Tories got 42%, Labour got 40% and the LDs only got 7%.
Similarly at the 2019 local elections the LDs got 19% and the Tories and Labour got 28% each but at the 2019 general election the Tories got 44%, Labour got 32% and the LDs only got 12%
Perhaps it's different for just booking second jabs?
The upside is that this allows local practices to manage their own booking arrangements with their familiar patient list. Somehow allowing the national system to manage appointments with dozens of small GP practices probably isn’t a sensible approach.
Then I get a screen saying: No Appointments Available and telling me to check the link every day and that I will be able to book the moment slots become available.
My brother was done yesterday and according to what he heard the next slots will be on 21st and 24th April. So am keeping my fingers crossed. But I it is a 5 hour drive down to London.
Quite why it was my ex-GP who organised my first dose despite me having already moved practice is unclear. It does not give me a lot of confidence in the system.
In some respects he already does, it was Charles who removed Andrew from royal duties for example, not the Queen
I stole €1.75 million to fund my gambling addiction
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1hNf8MNX32YTmzXfvT88JWr/i-stole-1-75-million-to-fund-my-gambling-addiction
Seems a lot of bet on NEV shares, but each to their own.
The problem is that once you are opted out from this system you are in the hands of your local provider, with both the availability of vaccine and the efficiency of the booking system (which seems to be a mix of old style manual systems and a myriad of software systems being used) varying considerably.
I am sure it makes sense not to have tried to ‘override’ thousands of GP and pharmacy booking systems and manage them all from NHS Towers, but inevitably availability and service levels is going to vary at local level.
I could I suppose ring the NHS helpline and get an AZ jab as my second dose. My only concern with that is that I have a blood condition which makes me susceptible to blood clots and have had two Deep Vein Thrombosis incidents in my leg. So what with that and being female I'd rather not take that risk, really.
I'll just have to wait until the London centre gets more Pfizer doses. Irritating to be nagged by the GP to book when I have been the one doing the chasing though .......
https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-protocol-breach-letter-ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskiy-invitation/
Diplomats say the European Commission president apparently broke convention by having her cabinet chief, Björn Seibert, reply to an official invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy had written to von der Leyen to invite her to Kyiv to attend a 30th anniversary celebration of Ukrainian independence, as well as a first-ever “Crimean Platform” summit meeting, which is aimed at showing support for Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula that was invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014.
But in a move that has caused a stir among EU diplomats, Seibert sent a response letter under his own signature to turn down the invitation and express von der Leyen’s regrets, rather than under the Commission president’s name as is customary protocol.
In a low turnout election, you win by identifying your existing supporters and making sure they make it to the polls. Even a ward that looks pretty poor for you will probably have enough potential voters for you to secure victory... if you can find and motivate them. Hence all the "where we work, we win" stuff that old-school Lib Dems do.
There's a bit of that in higher turnout elections (shifts between Lab and stay at home, or Con and stay at home are at least as interesting as direct party switches) but except for serious marginals, getting the vote out isn't as decisive.
"But Dr Faucci* said...."
They also seem to believe, thanks to the NYT that the UK is mixing vaccines already - was quite... almost upset when I said that wasn't correct.
*For those who don't know, Dr Faucci is basically worshipped by pretty much everyone who would have voted for Biden.
'We have won the war, America has lost', say Taliban...
It's a similar picture across much of Afghanistan: the government controls the cities and bigger towns, but the Taliban are encircling them, with a presence in large parts of the countryside...
The government pays the salaries of staff, but the Taliban are in charge. It's a hybrid system in place across the country...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56747158
Sadly such lines are typical from this poster.
In a local election the same 70% splits into say 40% who will definitely vote and 30% who won’t unless someone persuades them.
In an area with a relatively settled population, over the years you can identify the habitual voters and non-voters, and modern election software can both record this and help you focus efforts on those who sometimes vote and sometimes don’t.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1382341275211431938?s=19
It''s the feeling that I'm going to slip between the cracks and be forgotten that is worrying me .....
The rejoin party who cannot speak the name
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1382638923894120448?s=19
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1382638929673867270?s=19
The final Gambling Addiction downslope was as his partner was about to give birth.
Chap ended up with a 4 year prison sentence, and the programme is after he came out, plus a few years.
It's in Ireland, and the betting company mentioned was Paddy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smethwick_in_the_1964_general_election