Nicola Sturgeon provides a classic example of this mentality with her refusal to recognise that the UK, via its government, has done exceptionally well in securing vaccines to combat Covid. There was, she insisted, “absolutely no evidential base to say Scotland would not have vaccinated as many people”.
Actually, there is a very strong evidential base. The wider point is that Ms Sturgeon’s comments are so obviously foolish that they can only spring from a prejudice running so deep that it is incapable of adjustment to take account of evidence to the contrary. Again, if it is British, it must be bad.
Interesting change of style in Cummings' latest blog. From long, rambling and incontinent, to rather tight and focused, as though he had the help of an experienced journalist who knew how to land more blows with fewer words. Anyone seen @michaelgove? And re the flat refurb
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I'm not remotely a fan of Boris but it seems I am reading the headlines completely differently to most here. On the Dyson stuff it just says Boris moves heaven and earth to get ventilators. The rest of it just looks like opposition desperation which makes me think canvass returns are very bad.
And then you have Boris saves football from some nasty billionaires, and even better some Italian nutter says he did so, the naughty man (as did UEFA)! The Tories would pay Super League money to get advertising like that, and on the back pages too, which people actually read.
One other factor is that the lunatic fringe of Labour are going to be voting Green or even Tory in a desperate attempt to get rid of Keir.
I was thinking the Tories are going to do much better than expected everywhere, including Hartlepool.
Starting a post 'I'm not remotely a fan of BORIS' and then writing a eulogy to him is an odd way of appearing an honest broker.
.....But it's surprising how many people do it on here. Maybe it's like the chocolate ad 'My Guilty Secret'
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh This is extraordinary and risks getting lost. @SamCoatesSky says @BorisJohnson personally phoned newspaper editors to brief that Cummings had leaked his messages.
I don't think the Cummings/Johnson battle will be a game-changer, but I am confused and have been from the start as to why Johnson started it. He must have known that Cummings would fire back very publicly, and that the media would love it. And while it's all a bit 'Westminster Village' for the average voter, its still newspaper headlines which aren't exactly helpful. It's not like this has moved us on from a terrible news cycle for Johnson. Why did he ever get this started?
From The Times
But what causes Downing Street particular trepidation is the date next month when Cummings is due to give evidence before MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
The fear is that Cummings will now use his appearance to let rip and attack the prime minister in a way that could be deeply damaging among voters who care nothing about WhatsApp messages or palace intrigue.
“The issue is the select committee appearance,” said once source.
“At the last one (select committee appearance) Dom was pretty well behaved. He took a swipe at Hancock but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
“Boris has made it much more likely that Dom’s evidence will be more forthright than it otherwise would have been.”
Another added: “He’s going to be forensic. He’s going to say things that are verifiable, that are backed up by documents and emails. He will be laser-like about it.”
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
I would buy that if we had not seen Labour polling leads and Johnson's personal ratings in deeply negative territory prior to the vaccine roll-out. I am not sure that "self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption" are values that the electorate identifies with. They will be tolerated if the government has a positive story to tell - as it does currently. When it doesn't, my guess is that they will be viewed far less benignly. But we are not near that point yet - which is why the Cummings story is not going to cut through.
Honestly attacking Dom Cummings then expecting him not to respond is as dumb as allowing international air travel, especially from India attacking the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and not expecting them to respond.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh This is extraordinary and risks getting lost. @SamCoatesSky says @BorisJohnson personally phoned newspaper editors to brief that Cummings had leaked his messages.
I don't think the Cummings/Johnson battle will be a game-changer, but I am confused and have been from the start as to why Johnson started it. He must have known that Cummings would fire back very publicly, and that the media would love it. And while it's all a bit 'Westminster Village' for the average voter, its still newspaper headlines which aren't exactly helpful. It's not like this has moved us on from a terrible news cycle for Johnson. Why did he ever get this started?
From The Times
But what causes Downing Street particular trepidation is the date next month when Cummings is due to give evidence before MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
The fear is that Cummings will now use his appearance to let rip and attack the prime minister in a way that could be deeply damaging among voters who care nothing about WhatsApp messages or palace intrigue.
“The issue is the select committee appearance,” said once source.
“At the last one (select committee appearance) Dom was pretty well behaved. He took a swipe at Hancock but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
“Boris has made it much more likely that Dom’s evidence will be more forthright than it otherwise would have been.”
Another added: “He’s going to be forensic. He’s going to say things that are verifiable, that are backed up by documents and emails. He will be laser-like about it.”
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Dominic Grieve having fun on R4 - Johnson is "a vacuum of integrity"......
Surely, ‘a vacuum as regards integrity?’
Otherwise that statement implies he is vacuous, but has integrity. Which is only 50% correct.
When Boris falls there are going to be so many ready to put the boot in. Unlike Thatcher he doesn’t have many friends.
The really interesting moment will come if and when little Boris does what it’s always done and how people react. Boris has rather dangerously for him now combined his personal and political lives.
Honestly attacking Dom Cummings then expecting him not to respond is as dumb as allowing international air travel, especially from India attacking the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and not expecting them to respond.
Which is why the theory that they are trying to flush him out and inflict some damage in advance of the Select Committee hearing on the virus has a lot of credibility. Rather than an earthquake of dramatic surprise revelations at the Committee, they hope to get some of the likely accusations out into the media beforehand, and hope that by the time the committee comes along, Cummings will be sounding like a broken record and a man with a grievance.
Seldom have so many keyboard warriors and political activists professed so much dissatisfaction towards the government of the day. For some left-wing bloggers and tweeters, the number one cause of outrage of the moment is so-called 'Tory sleaze', a subject to be added to an already formidably long list of gripes towards Boris Johnson that includes Brexit, the claim that Britain is not very racist and his alleged unforgivable bungling of the Covid crisis. . . . But here’s the strangest thing: none of it is making any difference to the Prime Minister’s standing in the eyes of the general public.
The pinprick efforts of Starmer, Cummings and Peter Brookes will come to nought.
... nobody who has visited the Hartlepool by-election campaign now expecting anything other than a Tory victory.
Interesting - one of the frustrating things about by-elections is that it's generally only afterwards that we hear about awful canvassing, etc, etc and that party A knew they'd lost from day 1. Getting anything remotely reliable beforehand is rare indeed.
You're suggesting that O'Flynn, former UKIP MEP, writing in the Spectator is "remotely reliable"?
No - quite the opposite - it is why I say what i said the day the By-election was announced - narrow Labour hold on a low turnout. How could you possibly think otherwise.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh This is extraordinary and risks getting lost. @SamCoatesSky says @BorisJohnson personally phoned newspaper editors to brief that Cummings had leaked his messages.
I don't think the Cummings/Johnson battle will be a game-changer, but I am confused and have been from the start as to why Johnson started it. He must have known that Cummings would fire back very publicly, and that the media would love it. And while it's all a bit 'Westminster Village' for the average voter, its still newspaper headlines which aren't exactly helpful. It's not like this has moved us on from a terrible news cycle for Johnson. Why did he ever get this started?
From The Times
But what causes Downing Street particular trepidation is the date next month when Cummings is due to give evidence before MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
The fear is that Cummings will now use his appearance to let rip and attack the prime minister in a way that could be deeply damaging among voters who care nothing about WhatsApp messages or palace intrigue.
“The issue is the select committee appearance,” said once source.
“At the last one (select committee appearance) Dom was pretty well behaved. He took a swipe at Hancock but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
“Boris has made it much more likely that Dom’s evidence will be more forthright than it otherwise would have been.”
Another added: “He’s going to be forensic. He’s going to say things that are verifiable, that are backed up by documents and emails. He will be laser-like about it.”
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Because Cummings only gets one or two shots at the PM before people switch off and dismiss him (indeed some will do that from the off because he used up any goodwill having his eyes tested). Cummings going nuclear on the question of an obscure leak inquiry offers the chance that by the time he takes aim at the much more serious government mistakes that cost thousands of lives, a lot of people will just think it's the same sacked employee again, peddling his grievance.
They know Cummings has a bullet, and they're taking it in the foot to avoid getting it in the heart.
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
That the clown would rather refund the downing street decorating donors, than reveal who they are, does make who they might be an important question, of legitimate public interest.
Yep. That's what's going to bring about a change of Government in the United Kingdom after 11 years.
Downing Street decorators.
You're trying your favourite straw person trick again. I simply said it was a question of legitimate public interest. Which it is.
It's strawman (it means straw(hu)man; only Wokeies say "strawperson" because they're afraid of misgendering a scarecrow and being accused of misogyny -normal people think that's nuts) and yes such questions should always be asked but the theme of this thread is that this is Der Untergang.
Now it's distraction (and with error, since the term began as 'man of straw')
Who handed over money to the PM to decorate his home is a question of legitimate public interest.
Man is short for human. In the context you describe it was used as shorthand for our species, hence "what a piece of work is man" as written by Shakespeare in Hamlet in reference to the human condition. It is derogated from human to apply to words all across our language, including man and woman by the way, and the idea we must qualify explicitly that an scarecrow used for target practice is genderless to avoid offence is laughable. People simply do this to demonstrate their Woke credentials which is banal, self-absorbed, mildly pompous and trivialises any serious real world issues of gender equality that still need to be addressed.
You said yourself you weren't that Woke. So stop it.
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
That a lot of people think they offer a better life and future for the country?
Unless your support base becomes literal neo-Nazis or something I think popularity is a good thing for a political movement.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
Yet it could be years before we can properly know if lockdown worked and that the benefits outweighed the costs.
The other minor party candidate to top the minnows table with Shadsy is Corbyn. Binface is a value bet, but how many Londoners are dumb enough to not realise this is not Jezza? Worth a quid IMO.
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I think David's leader is accurate - like him I hear snippets suggesting the Tories have a decent chance in Hartlepool, but not a 60% chance.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
Morning all! I called this for the Tories and I haven't seen anything to persuade me that my former colleague Dr Paul Williams can win the seat. Reasons for the Tories:
1. The rapidly accelerating decline of Labour on Teesside. 2. Its a super Thursday election - people will be voting for a councillor, the mayor, the PCC and an MP so turnout will be good 3. A lot of people will already have voted Tory at least once before getting to the MP ticket. Ben Houchen will walk re-election and I now expect the Tory to win the PCC 4. Once you start voting Tory its easy to keep voting Tory 5. Pools council has seen a fractious collapse in Labour - there are now multiple competing independent groups mopping up the WC vote
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Well that makes a change from wanting to lose to get rid of Starmer, I guess.
What proportion of people in Labour actually want to win the by-election?
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
Yet it could be years before we can properly know if lockdown worked and that the benefits outweighed the costs.
Maybe we will never truly know.
Bollocks, you only have to look at India and see what would have happened if Toby Young and his merry band of Covid-19 deniers, sorry Lockdown Sceptics, had their way.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
Much of that is simply current polling evidence combined with the fact that you and others have been whining on about the calamity to come soon since 2010! Meanwhile your party has indulged itself with overly left-wing leader from Miliband through to Corbyn and now to Starmer who looks permanently constipated as he waves the Union Jack and pretend he's a monarchist through permanently gritted teeth. Yet still many Tories like myself do not expect Labour to lose Hartlepool. I do not think they'll prevail in the mayorals on Teeside or WM however. That may be many forms of idiocy but it is not trumphantilism or hubris.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh This is extraordinary and risks getting lost. @SamCoatesSky says @BorisJohnson personally phoned newspaper editors to brief that Cummings had leaked his messages.
I don't think the Cummings/Johnson battle will be a game-changer, but I am confused and have been from the start as to why Johnson started it. He must have known that Cummings would fire back very publicly, and that the media would love it. And while it's all a bit 'Westminster Village' for the average voter, its still newspaper headlines which aren't exactly helpful. It's not like this has moved us on from a terrible news cycle for Johnson. Why did he ever get this started?
From The Times
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
Interesting. If true, I think they are over-estimating the damage that individual witnesses in these hearings will do. Certainly not worth giving one of them another opportunity to smear them.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh This is extraordinary and risks getting lost. @SamCoatesSky says @BorisJohnson personally phoned newspaper editors to brief that Cummings had leaked his messages.
I don't think the Cummings/Johnson battle will be a game-changer, but I am confused and have been from the start as to why Johnson started it. He must have known that Cummings would fire back very publicly, and that the media would love it. And while it's all a bit 'Westminster Village' for the average voter, its still newspaper headlines which aren't exactly helpful. It's not like this has moved us on from a terrible news cycle for Johnson. Why did he ever get this started?
From The Times
But what causes Downing Street particular trepidation is the date next month when Cummings is due to give evidence before MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
The fear is that Cummings will now use his appearance to let rip and attack the prime minister in a way that could be deeply damaging among voters who care nothing about WhatsApp messages or palace intrigue.
“The issue is the select committee appearance,” said once source.
“At the last one (select committee appearance) Dom was pretty well behaved. He took a swipe at Hancock but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
“Boris has made it much more likely that Dom’s evidence will be more forthright than it otherwise would have been.”
Another added: “He’s going to be forensic. He’s going to say things that are verifiable, that are backed up by documents and emails. He will be laser-like about it.”
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
It very much depends how effectively Sir Keir and his band can pick up this baton and take it forward. What wouldn't you give for a Robin Cook a time like this?
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Great news - another Labour idiot want to write off thousands of potential voters from the w/c because they don't like them!
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
That the clown would rather refund the downing street decorating donors, than reveal who they are, does make who they might be an important question, of legitimate public interest.
Yep. That's what's going to bring about a change of Government in the United Kingdom after 11 years.
Downing Street decorators.
You're trying your favourite straw person trick again. I simply said it was a question of legitimate public interest. Which it is.
It's strawman (it means straw(hu)man; only Wokeies say "strawperson" because they're afraid of misgendering a scarecrow and being accused of misogyny -normal people think that's nuts) and yes such questions should always be asked but the theme of this thread is that this is Der Untergang.
Now it's distraction (and with error, since the term began as 'man of straw')
Who handed over money to the PM to decorate his home is a question of legitimate public interest.
Man is short for human. In the context you describe it was used as shorthand for our species, hence "what a piece of work is man" as written by Shakespeare in Hamlet in reference to the human condition. It is derogated from human to apply to words all across our language, including man and woman by the way, and the idea we must qualify explicitly that an scarecrow used for target practice is genderless to avoid offence is laughable. People simply do this to demonstrate their Woke credentials which is banal, self-absorbed, mildly pompous and trivialises any serious real world issues of gender equality that still need to be addressed.
You said yourself you weren't that Woke. So stop it.
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Well that makes a change from wanting to lose to get rid of Starmer, I guess.
What proportion of people in Labour actually want to win the by-election?
This is the sort of comment that does make me wonder to be honest. The contempt within elements of the left for vast tracts of the population is the great hope for an alternative centre left option. The only problem is finding such a party - it dosn't exist right now.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
The other minor party candidate to top the minnows table with Shadsy is Corbyn. Binface is a value bet, but how many Londoners are dumb enough to not realise this is not Jezza? Worth a quid IMO.
yes Corbyn will get the hard socialist but very dumb (not realising its not Jezz) vote plus hard anti vacc/covid vote so may have a chance
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The better polling for Welsh Labour supports this. In a time of crisis and good vaccine rollout, support for the incumbents will be high, it tells us very little about 2024.
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I think David's leader is accurate - like him I hear snippets suggesting the Tories have a decent chance in Hartlepool, but not a 60% chance.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
I agree. I suspect that Labour could do increasingly well in metropolitan suburbia, particularly in university cities.
@Casino_Royale has a hive of bees in his bonnet, particularly "Wokeness" and vegetarianism, but that is the cultural zeitgeist amongst the university educated, who are now 50% of young people and now having families, moving out to suburbia and commuter towns and taking their cultural values with them.
The problem for many "left behind towns" is that the youngsters leave for university, and don't fancy returning to small town life. They like the buzz, and the opportunities of the cities. I have observed the cultural transformation of Leicester from a gritty post industrial city to a university one over the last 3 decades, as I am sure that you saw in Nottingham. It is a much better place to live and work.
That trend is as dangerous for the Tories as the crumbling of the Red Wall was for Labour. I don't think it will shift enough seats in 2024 though possibly the GE after.
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Great news - another Labour idiot want to write off thousands of potential voters from the w/c because they don't like them!
Roger should go out canvassing with "you're not a proper Tory" HY; the videos of their techniques could go viral.
This is why I change my mobile phone number every few years.
There is also concern about Johnson’s phone, which one source described as a “horror show”. The prime minister has retained the same phone number for most of his career - despite advice from officials - and is regularly contacts by MPs, lobbyists and people from the world of business.
The Times has been told that at one point Johnson was contacted directly by a Universal Credit claimant asking for help with their benefit claim, having been given his mobile by a friend. The prime minister referred the issue to the Department for Work and Pensions, which resolved it.
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I think David's leader is accurate - like him I hear snippets suggesting the Tories have a decent chance in Hartlepool, but not a 60% chance.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
I agree. I suspect that Labour could do increasingly well in metropolitan suburbia, particularly in university cities.
@Casino_Royale has a hive of bees in his bonnet, particularly "Wokeness" and vegetarianism, but that is the cultural zeitgeist amongst the university educated, who are now 50% of young people and now having families, moving out to suburbia and commuter towns and taking their cultural values with them.
The problem for many "left behind towns" is that the youngsters leave for university, and don't fancy returning to small town life. They like the buzz, and the opportunities of the cities. I have observed the cultural transformation of Leicester from a gritty post industrial city to a university one over the last 3 decades, as I am sure that you saw in Nottingham. It is a much better place to live and work.
That trend is as dangerous for the Tories as the crumbling of the Red Wall was for Labour. I don't think it will shift enough seats in 2024 though possibly the GE after.
I truly deeply want to be wrong about the Tories winning Hartlepool. Paul Williams is a great guy and was a good MP. Its just that with his People's Vote history and Labour Party baggage, for him to win would be to reverse the tide.
He did it before when we took Stockton South in 2017. Nobody expected to win that one. Perhaps a similar shock can be pulled off.
"Has anyone been held accountable? So far, nobody at the Post Office or Fujitsu has been held accountable, although the High Court judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible further action because he had "grave concerns" about the evidence of the company's employees."
Morning all. Re Header, as I've posted a few times, my view is that in our post-Brexit, realigned politics, with the Con grip on the WWC Leave demographic, Hartlepool is a seat they should win. I think they will win it and it wouldn't surprise me if it's not that close.
If Labour manage to hold here it will a positive for their longer term prospects for the next GE. The Con win is the expected result if analyzed correctly rather than applying shibboleths from the ye olde political world. A Lab hold would be the surprise and don't let anybody fool you otherwise. They will be either off the pace, punditry wise, or spinning. Eg the disaffected left in Labour will seek to present a Con win in Hartlepool as a disaster for Centrist Starmer.
On the betting, evens on the Cons was great value - I only wish I'd done more of it - but I agree the value has probably gone at 4/7. I'm not closing out though. I really will be quite surprised if Labour hold this seat on May 6th.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
My sense is that if you insert the current sleaze narrative into a scenario where the vaccine roll-out is not going as well as it is, the polling would be looking very different. However, I do think that Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years that even relentless Tory incompetence and grift will not deliver Starmer a majority at the next election. The turnaround is a decade-long job. The first part of it is to deny the Tories a workable majority at the next election. That is doable.
"Has anyone been held accountable? So far, nobody at the Post Office or Fujitsu has been held accountable, although the High Court judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible further action because he had "grave concerns" about the evidence of the company's employees."
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
My sense is that if you insert the current sleaze narrative into a scenario where the vaccine roll-out is not going as well as it is, the polling would be looking very different. However, I do think that Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years that even relentless Tory incompetence and grift will not deliver Starmer a majority at the next election. The turnaround is a decade-long job. The first part of it is to deny the Tories a workable majority at the next election. That is doable.
I wouldn’t want to predict 2024 or 2029 right now. I can pretty much see any outcome. There is too much up in the air.
If I were Labour leader I would be modelling my approach on Attlee. A beautiful mix of doorstep radicalism and dull competence to win the peace.
We’re coming out of this crisis with wounds to heal. Social democracy is well placed to make a comeback.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
My sense is that if you insert the current sleaze narrative into a scenario where the vaccine roll-out is not going as well as it is, the polling would be looking very different. However, I do think that Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years that even relentless Tory incompetence and grift will not deliver Starmer a majority at the next election. The turnaround is a decade-long job. The first part of it is to deny the Tories a workable majority at the next election. That is doable.
Sleaze is something that can be thrown at both parties. There is always corruption of a sort. Look at Blair and the Ecclestone donation...
Frankly SKS is dull as ditchwater and there is no sign that he has any policies that are likely to get voters to switch in any number that will deprive a Majority. The Election is the Tories to lose. I cannot see it happening at the moment...
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
I think you're wrong about the bit in bold. I remember @MaxPB talking about CFR by age that showed the fatality rate for older age groups increasing a lot during the peak of our latest wave - a sign that the NHS was rationing care and concentrating on treating the younger patients who benefited most.
That's a sign that the NHS was overwhelmed and additional deaths were caused as a result. It just happened in a quieter, more organised, very British way - including that no-one wants to talk about it.
Apologies to Max if I misinterpreted what he posted some weeks ago.
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
Well that makes a change from wanting to lose to get rid of Starmer, I guess.
What proportion of people in Labour actually want to win the by-election?
Isn't politics all about values? It has to be otherwise the Lib Dems or Greens wouldn't get a vote. If Brexit has done anything positive its shown that the country divides down the middle. The hangers the floggers and the little englanders on one side and the human beings on the other. Let the Faragist/Tories have their victories otherwise they'd go underground.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
My sense is that if you insert the current sleaze narrative into a scenario where the vaccine roll-out is not going as well as it is, the polling would be looking very different. However, I do think that Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years that even relentless Tory incompetence and grift will not deliver Starmer a majority at the next election. The turnaround is a decade-long job. The first part of it is to deny the Tories a workable majority at the next election. That is doable.
Sleaze is something that can be thrown at both parties. There is always corruption of a sort. Look at Blair and the Ecclestone donation...
Frankly SKS is dull as ditchwater and there is no sign that he has any policies that are likely to get voters to switch in any number that will deprive a Majority. The Election is the Tories to lose. I cannot see it happening at the moment...
Ps. Labour cannot event ditch SKS. Who else is there ? Who knows any of Labours front bench. They are anonymous.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
Whilst I agree that we ought to have been locked down from the end of September, I’m not sure it would have been possible to stay like that until 21 June.
Ultimately, I think us lot are out of step with the public. Lockdown is worse than lots of people dying. Avoiding scenes such as those in India was pretty much the key for the government, and they succeeded in that regard.
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
I think you're wrong about the bit in bold. I remember @MaxPB talking about CFR by age that showed the fatality rate for older age groups increasing a lot during the peak of our latest wave - a sign that the NHS was rationing care and concentrating on treating the younger patients who benefited most.
That's a sign that the NHS was overwhelmed and additional deaths were caused as a result. It just happened in a quieter, more organised, very British way - including that no-one wants to talk about it.
Apologies to Max if I misinterpreted what he posted some weeks ago.
Care, particularly intensive care, was clearly rationed and given to those with the best prospects. But that is not meltdown. Meltdown is what we are seeing in India where hospitals run out of oxygen or Brazil where incubation tubes are inserted without medication. Horrific. We didn't come close.
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
I think you're wrong about the bit in bold. I remember @MaxPB talking about CFR by age that showed the fatality rate for older age groups increasing a lot during the peak of our latest wave - a sign that the NHS was rationing care and concentrating on treating the younger patients who benefited most.
That's a sign that the NHS was overwhelmed and additional deaths were caused as a result. It just happened in a quieter, more organised, very British way - including that no-one wants to talk about it.
Apologies to Max if I misinterpreted what he posted some weeks ago.
Care, particularly intensive care, was clearly rationed and given to those with the best prospects. But that is not meltdown. Meltdown is what we are seeing in India where hospitals run out of oxygen or Brazil where incubation tubes are inserted without medication. Horrific. We didn't come close.
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
Calling the PM a liar is hardly libellous.
Not in the way that calling him a fine, upstanding fellow whose word is his bond, would be, no.
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I think David's leader is accurate - like him I hear snippets suggesting the Tories have a decent chance in Hartlepool, but not a 60% chance.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
And yet those who know the area are still calling it for the Tories - because this is an election where 1 of the votes is going to be Tory (Regional Mayor) and once you've done that for the mayor and looked at a list of independent candidates (as with the Tories Labour are not standing in every Hartlepool seat) continuing to not vote red will be very easy.
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
Yet it could be years before we can properly know if lockdown worked and that the benefits outweighed the costs.
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
Calling the PM a liar is hardly libellous.
Fair point. But what I really meant was that Cummings sets out a load of 'facts' which, if they are wrong, one would expect No. 10 to rebut very quickly. I don't think we'll see that happening.
I think this constituency is a genuine 50:50 call so if you are getting better odds on Labour that is where the value is. Normally it would be a walk in the park for an Opposition but as David identifies the unknown factor is the large Brexit Party vote.
It's interesting that Boris took time out to campaign there. I doubt he would have done that if he wasn't getting told that it was a possible win. But Labour, surely, aren't going backwards from the disaster of 2019, are they?
It is not Labour going backwards, its what happens to Brexit party voters. The Labour vote share will surely increase but probably not by enough to hold off the Tory vote.
If Labour lose they are going backwards. From a disastrously low base. These Brexit voters were in the main 1 time supporters pissed off that the likes of Starmer was frustrating the democratic will. If Labour has not found a way to re-engage with those pissed off voters now that Brexit is done they are in trouble.
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
I think David's leader is accurate - like him I hear snippets suggesting the Tories have a decent chance in Hartlepool, but not a 60% chance.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
I agree. I suspect that Labour could do increasingly well in metropolitan suburbia, particularly in university cities.
@Casino_Royale has a hive of bees in his bonnet, particularly "Wokeness" and vegetarianism, but that is the cultural zeitgeist amongst the university educated, who are now 50% of young people and now having families, moving out to suburbia and commuter towns and taking their cultural values with them.
The problem for many "left behind towns" is that the youngsters leave for university, and don't fancy returning to small town life. They like the buzz, and the opportunities of the cities. I have observed the cultural transformation of Leicester from a gritty post industrial city to a university one over the last 3 decades, as I am sure that you saw in Nottingham. It is a much better place to live and work.
That trend is as dangerous for the Tories as the crumbling of the Red Wall was for Labour. I don't think it will shift enough seats in 2024 though possibly the GE after.
Matches some of the Conservative gains in the north- the Barrat British from that Economist piece a while back. Not so much voters flipping allegiance as plonking the kind of people who you would expect to vote Conservative (or more critically, the Thatcher/Blair swinger demographic) in sufficient concentrations in places where they wouldn't have lived before. Separate to the older people in abandoned towns narrative, which has swung hard blue.
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
That the clown would rather refund the downing street decorating donors, than reveal who they are, does make who they might be an important question, of legitimate public interest.
Yep. That's what's going to bring about a change of Government in the United Kingdom after 11 years.
Downing Street decorators.
You're trying your favourite straw person trick again. I simply said it was a question of legitimate public interest. Which it is.
It's strawman (it means straw(hu)man; only Wokeies say "strawperson" because they're afraid of misgendering a scarecrow and being accused of misogyny -normal people think that's nuts) and yes such questions should always be asked but the theme of this thread is that this is Der Untergang.
Now it's distraction (and with error, since the term began as 'man of straw')
Who handed over money to the PM to decorate his home is a question of legitimate public interest.
Man is short for human. In the context you describe it was used as shorthand for our species, hence "what a piece of work is man" as written by Shakespeare in Hamlet in reference to the human condition. It is derogated from human to apply to words all across our language, including man and woman by the way, and the idea we must qualify explicitly that an scarecrow used for target practice is genderless to avoid offence is laughable. People simply do this to demonstrate their Woke credentials which is banal, self-absorbed, mildly pompous and trivialises any serious real world issues of gender equality that still need to be addressed.
You said yourself you weren't that Woke. So stop it.
“Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
I think you're wrong about the bit in bold. I remember @MaxPB talking about CFR by age that showed the fatality rate for older age groups increasing a lot during the peak of our latest wave - a sign that the NHS was rationing care and concentrating on treating the younger patients who benefited most.
That's a sign that the NHS was overwhelmed and additional deaths were caused as a result. It just happened in a quieter, more organised, very British way - including that no-one wants to talk about it.
Apologies to Max if I misinterpreted what he posted some weeks ago.
Care, particularly intensive care, was clearly rationed and given to those with the best prospects. But that is not meltdown. Meltdown is what we are seeing in India where hospitals run out of oxygen or Brazil where incubation tubes are inserted without medication. Horrific. We didn't come close.
And what stopped us from coming close?
On one view the balance the government found between freedom and lockdown. I am not suggesting that the government response was "optimal", if such a thing even exists. But it did achieve the primary objective which has been in place since March 20.
One of the issues with lockdown was that if it worked, people would say it was unnecessary and if it didn’t, people would say it was too late/lenient. How do you prove a negative?
But in this case, those countries that failed to lock down are tragically demonstrating what might have been.
Similarly, China’s failure to admit the vaccine was happening, leading to a failure to lock down early, seems to have caused several hundred thousand deaths although of course we don’t know how many. Equally when Xi finally engaged his tiny mind and did lock down very hard, it came under control very fast.
With vaccines, particularly at our level of take up, it won’t be necessary to lock down. I know there are epidemiologists who say otherwise but they’re always looking for the Next Big Catastrophe and they are almost always wrong. But without them, governments didn’t really have much choice.
And that’s not to overlook that there were other measures that anyone with a brain could and should have used, such as banning unrestricted air travel.
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
It is Westminster Bubble. But on the other hand, us lot can only make any displeasure we have in Boris known in 2024. The Westminster Bubble can do so today.
(No, not expecting it. But there have been and will be lots of events like this and one of them will bring BoJo down. I just don't know which one or when.)
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
That the clown would rather refund the downing street decorating donors, than reveal who they are, does make who they might be an important question, of legitimate public interest.
Yep. That's what's going to bring about a change of Government in the United Kingdom after 11 years.
Downing Street decorators.
You're trying your favourite straw person trick again. I simply said it was a question of legitimate public interest. Which it is.
It's strawman (it means straw(hu)man; only Wokeies say "strawperson" because they're afraid of misgendering a scarecrow and being accused of misogyny -normal people think that's nuts) and yes such questions should always be asked but the theme of this thread is that this is Der Untergang.
Now it's distraction (and with error, since the term began as 'man of straw')
Who handed over money to the PM to decorate his home is a question of legitimate public interest.
Man is short for human. In the context you describe it was used as shorthand for our species, hence "what a piece of work is man" as written by Shakespeare in Hamlet in reference to the human condition. It is derogated from human to apply to words all across our language, including man and woman by the way, and the idea we must qualify explicitly that an scarecrow used for target practice is genderless to avoid offence is laughable. People simply do this to demonstrate their Woke credentials which is banal, self-absorbed, mildly pompous and trivialises any serious real world issues of gender equality that still need to be addressed.
You said yourself you weren't that Woke. So stop it.
'mildy pompous' - you may want to reach for a mirror
The Post Office scandal. A question. Am I right in thinking that this is a continuous scandal of government and a government public body, the PO, from 1996 to today and continuing?
And because this involves lengthy terms of Labour and Tory government this will be met with:
The highest practicable degree of silence from both Tory and Labour An enthusiastic desire to pay up compensation (out of our money) in large doses Political agreement to hold an enquiry reporting well into the future Every attempt, agreed by Labour and Tory, to ensure that the actually guilty people are not prosecuted.
I hope for better than that - and people who knowingly see innocent people go to prison and do nothing in order to save themselves deserve massive 10 year type sentences - but it will be interesting to watch.
Re Hartlepool I think it is too close to call but if I had to call it, I would probably go for a narrow conservative win due to the Brexit vote moving to the conservatives.
On the Cummings-Boris spat, and the hope by some on here as well as those in the media, especially Sky with Jon Craig, Beth Rigby and Sam Coates virtually hyperventilating, I believe they will be disappointed.
Boris is very much a chancer, is unreliable, and most everything else his critics throw at him, including his chaotic private life, but the critical ingredient they miss, and seemingly cannot understand, is that he is seen as man of the people.
He has succeeded with the vaccine programme which has been widely recognised across the country, he is opening up the economy, and of course he put the billionaire football club owners to the sword, and that has been recognised by the fans, UEFA, and indeed most all of the European press who credit him with finishing off the ESL, and he quite naturally extols positiveness and patriotism and is seen as someone to have a pint with.
In his address to Joe Biden’s climate conference, he referred to ‘rabbit huggers’ and this caused fury amongst green activists including Greta Thunberg who apparently is now calling herself a rabbit hugger.
As I said yesterday here is the problem for the left and Boris distracters.
He was not talking to them, but to the ordinary voters up and down the UK who are not activists but need to be brought along and his way of doing this was to promote all the investment and jobs as a consequence of his green policies.
Indeed, Rachel Burden of 5 Live put that exact point to the green activist she was interviewing saying directly to her that Boris was not addressing her, but those who need to be persuaded to the cause.
There are some posters on here who fell into the trap of attacking the ‘rabbit huggers, quote without understanding the nuance of it.
Indeed, I would suggest in all this effort in trying to take down Boris, maybe his distractors should ask themselves why they are not succeeding and realise that Boris’s appeal is to the people who matter, and who elect MPs to the HOC
Boris and Nicola are remarkably similar politicians in many ways and for the same reason Salmond did not damage Sturgeon, I do not expect Cummings, who as Tim Montgomery said last night has zero credibility with the public, to have much effect on Boris popularity.
I may be wrong and it is always ‘events’ but this is my opinion as of today
I suspect quite a few PB Tories are underestimating the damage that the Cummings statement could do in the medium term. It's worth a careful read. The PM will, I suspect, be worried by it.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
It is Westminster Bubble. But on the other hand, us lot can only make any displeasure we have in Boris known in 2024. The Westminster Bubble can do so today.
(No, not expecting it. But there have been and will be lots of events like this and one of them will bring BoJo down. I just don't know which one or when.)
‘I can’t get my backbenchers to see there needs to be pay restraint. MPs having a pay rise when nurses are unhappy looks very bad.’ ‘Surely nurses being unhappy is much more serious?’ asked Annie. ‘No dear,’ I exploded. ‘Much less serious. Nurses can’t vote against me until the next election. Backbenchers can vote against me at ten o’clock tonight.’
Yes Prime Minister, A Real Partnership (from memory, so it may not be 100% accurate).
Re Hartlepool I think it is too close to call but if I had to call it, I would probably go for a narrow conservative win due to the Brexit vote moving to the conservatives.
On the Cummings-Boris spat, and the hope by some on here as well as those in the media, especially Sky with Jon Craig, Beth Rigby and Sam Coates virtually hyperventilating, I believe they will be disappointed.
Boris is very much a chancer, is unreliable, and most everything else his critics throw at him, including his chaotic private life, but the critical ingredient they miss, and seemingly cannot understand, is that he is seen as man of the people.
Then it’s high time for the NHS to bring back free eye tests.
The university/metropolitan seats are a bit like Merseyside for Labour. There’s not a lot left to win, and under FPTP, there are no prizes for running up ever-increasing leads. When people leave such seats for places where they can buy decent-sized homes, and do a lot of driving, they tend to leave left wing politics behind them.
It’s not just the Red Wall seats that should be of concern to Labour. It’s the entirety of the Midlands, outside Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham. A shedload of seats have moved from being classic swing seats to safe Conservative.
While I'm here, as ever those of us aligned to Labour are grateful for the advice from Casino and other PB Tories about why Labour is unelectable and what it should do about it. The advice seems to be as follows:
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
The Post Office scandal. A question. Am I right in thinking that this is a continuous scandal of government and a government public body, the PO, from 1996 to today and continuing?
And because this involves lengthy terms of Labour and Tory government this will be met with:
The highest practicable degree of silence from both Tory and Labour An enthusiastic desire to pay up compensation (out of our money) in large doses Political agreement to hold an enquiry reporting well into the future Every attempt, agreed by Labour and Tory, to ensure that the actually guilty people are not prosecuted.
I hope for better than that - and people who knowingly see innocent people go to prison and do nothing in order to save themselves deserve massive 10 year type sentences - but it will be interesting to watch.
The Post Office scandal. A question. Am I right in thinking that this is a continuous scandal of government and a government public body, the PO, from 1996 to today and continuing?
And because this involves lengthy terms of Labour and Tory government this will be met with:
The highest practicable degree of silence from both Tory and Labour An enthusiastic desire to pay up compensation (out of our money) in large doses Political agreement to hold an enquiry reporting well into the future Every attempt, agreed by Labour and Tory, to ensure that the actually guilty people are not prosecuted.
I hope for better than that - and people who knowingly see innocent people go to prison and do nothing in order to save themselves deserve massive 10 year type sentences - but it will be interesting to watch.
Not just the Tories but the Lib Dems as well given they were in power from 2010 to 2015.
I assume SKS was not directly involved in this when he was in the CPS (my assumption is based on the fact that we would have heard about it by now if he were).
The PM might decide to do something if he needs a distraction, using the fact that no one can really blame him for this one.
Re Hartlepool I think it is too close to call but if I had to call it, I would probably go for a narrow conservative win due to the Brexit vote moving to the conservatives.
On the Cummings-Boris spat, and the hope by some on here as well as those in the media, especially Sky with Jon Craig, Beth Rigby and Sam Coates virtually hyperventilating, I believe they will be disappointed.
Boris is very much a chancer, is unreliable, and most everything else his critics throw at him, including his chaotic private life, but the critical ingredient they miss, and seemingly cannot understand, is that he is seen as man of the people.
Then it’s high time for the NHS to bring back free eye tests.
The complacency and hubris shown by Tories is as palpable as it is reminiscent of other untouchable administrations in the past.
If you have seriously read this thread you know that is simply not true.
Eh? I’ve read it.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
The Tories are delivering a hugely successful vaccine roll-out. Voters really like it. The polls reflect this - both in party vote share and personal ratings. None of this should be a surprise. Extrapolating that to a much wider narrative when prior to the roll-out Labour was getting opinion poll leads and the PM's personal ratings were deeply negative is a bit of a stretch. I think that the 10 million plus people who voted Labour across the UK in 2019 were mistaken to back a party led by Jeremy Corbyn, but I struggle to believe that they and the millions of others who supported the Greens and the LibDems are all anti-British wokeists. I think it's a whole lot more complicated than that.
The corruption stories demonstrate we need a change of government.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
My sense is that if you insert the current sleaze narrative into a scenario where the vaccine roll-out is not going as well as it is, the polling would be looking very different. However, I do think that Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years that even relentless Tory incompetence and grift will not deliver Starmer a majority at the next election. The turnaround is a decade-long job. The first part of it is to deny the Tories a workable majority at the next election. That is doable.
I hope your phrase "Labour has done so much to alienate a significant part of the electorate over recent years" is not code for "It's cos of Corbyn. He's trashed the brand."
Because that would be a false and simplistic take. Lab won Hartlepool easily under Corbyn in 2017. The main reason we'll likely lose it now (and would have lost it in 2019 if not for BXP) is Brexit. This has realigned our politics and delivered the WWC Leave demographic to the Johnson Cons.
It means - and I agree with you here - that Starmer's realistic goal for the next GE is hung parliament. This would be the case for any Labour leader, man or woman, charisma or not, from whatever wing of the party.
Honestly attacking Dom Cummings then expecting him not to respond is as dumb as allowing international air travel, especially from India attacking the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and not expecting them to respond.
Pearl Harbor was arguably the greatest strategic mistake ever. Even bigger than Singapore’s infamous guns. Even bigger than Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
What sort of imbecile attacks the world’s largest navy and seriously pisses them off, while at the same time missing the only three capital ships of actual value in the Pacific Fleet?
While I'm here, as ever those of us aligned to Labour are grateful for the advice from Casino and other PB Tories about why Labour is unelectable and what it should do about it. The advice seems to be as follows:
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
The university/metropolitan seats are a bit like Merseyside for Labour. There’s not a lot left to win, and under FPTP, there are no prizes for running up ever-increasing leads. When people leave such seats for places where they can buy decent-sized homes, and do a lot of driving, they tend to leave left wing politics behind them.
It’s not just the Red Wall seats that should be of concern to Labour. It’s the entirety of the Midlands, outside Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham. A shedload of seats have moved from being classic swing seats to safe Conservative.
Two of Coventry’s three seats have majorities of under 500.
While I'm here, as ever those of us aligned to Labour are grateful for the advice from Casino and other PB Tories about why Labour is unelectable and what it should do about it. The advice seems to be as follows:
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
Winning strategy for Labour? What about look at what Blair did and try to do it again?
While I'm here, as ever those of us aligned to Labour are grateful for the advice from Casino and other PB Tories about why Labour is unelectable and what it should do about it. The advice seems to be as follows:
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
And to be fair that is the problem
They are not compatible
Politics is the art of building effective coalitions. Labour's problem reflects that since Brown it has continued to elect leaders whose worldview rarely extended beyond North London.
While I'm here, as ever those of us aligned to Labour are grateful for the advice from Casino and other PB Tories about why Labour is unelectable and what it should do about it. The advice seems to be as follows:
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
And to be fair that is the problem
They are not compatible
Politics is the art of building effective coalitions. Labour's problem reflects that since Brown it has continued to elect leaders whose worldview rarely extended beyond North London.
I have a modest sum on the Tories, from when it was more or less evens. I cannot see that BXP vote going to Labour.
Labour's problem in the post industrial areas of the old coalfields is that they have no real plan to revive them either socially or economically. I am not convinced that the Tories do either, apart from pork barrelling them.
I think it's new green technology and pharmaceutical plants - basically, new industries. Coupled with things like saving football and anti-Wokeness it could be a potent package.
"Saving football and anti-Wokeness" doesn't sound more than shallow populism to me, rather than economic and social renewal.
I think that the better paid jobs in the green technology and pharma sector are in the research and design sector, rather than manufacturing. The key to getting those jobs to places like Teeside is making them attractive to university graduates as places to live. Celebrating cultural reaction is unlikely to do that.
Wow. The confirmation bias is strong in this one, Luke.
Manufacturing jobs in Pharma are well paid and technical roles. Starting/assistant positions at £20-25k, more experienced at £30k+ and £60k for QC roles
Honestly attacking Dom Cummings then expecting him not to respond is as dumb as allowing international air travel, especially from India attacking the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and not expecting them to respond.
Pearl Harbor was arguably the greatest strategic mistake ever. Even bigger than Singapore’s infamous guns. Even bigger than Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
What sort of imbecile attacks the world’s largest navy and seriously pisses them off, while at the same time missing the only three capital ships of actual value in the Pacific Fleet?
What sort of imbecile then declares war on the United States, bringing America into the European war?
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
That a lot of people think they offer a better life and future for the country?
Unless your support base becomes literal neo-Nazis or something I think popularity is a good thing for a political movement.
Except you have to appease your support base. This is what screwed up Labour at the last election. Because of Hartlepool type seats several Labour MPs couldn't be as pro Remain as they would otherwise have been so they looked all over the place
That seems such a self evidently self destructive approach that it lacks credibility. We are worried that X might bad mouth us so let's pick a fight with X beforehand and piss him off. I mean, really?
Someone I know who worked for Boris Johnson put it to me back in January when I wrote this piece about Dom apperaring before inquiries and select committee was
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
But that is so easy to handle, difficult judgments, the cost of lockdown not only in money but in lives as people driven to despair, other views were possible etc etc. It won't go anywhere. Its quite possible that Cummings showed better judgment on this than the PM but so what? So did many on here. It makes no difference, we are where we are.
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
I think when you look at the number of deaths from January onwards then Boris Johnson's save Christmas strategy, only partially cancelled at the last moment, looks like a sick joke.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
And yet we have had months of lockdown at enormous economic cost. Those that went even harder at lockdown than us are dying now in large numbers. Lockdown defers death for a few weeks at a considerable cost. Only vaccines offer a way out. This was Chris Whitty's message a year past March and it is right.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
Well said. In a pandemic people die, in fact in normal times people die.
What's more abnormal is taking away people's basic civil liberties.
The reason to have a lockdown was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, not to prevent every single death. If the Government is to be criticised it should be for locking down too hard and too long now, the NHS is nowhere near being overwhelmed and liberties should be restored.
But too many people in this country are prepared to be illiberal so that argument is going nowhere.
Cummo’s account seems the most credible, both at face value and because of the detail backing it up, and the offer to provide further evidence and answer questions.
Which puts us in the position where the PM personally decided to get his hands dirty phoning the press to spread what he knew were a pack of lies. Presumably to deflect attention away from one of Carrie’s friends.
No-one gives a toss what Cummings says about Boris. People think the former is an off-the-wall sociopath who dislikes everyone and the latter an opportunistic chancer who professes to like everyone, but is actually a ruthless politican. It's all priced in already.
Total Westminster bubble story. The journalists are too close to the action and getting overexcited and the opposition too desperate to believe they have a chance to take the Government down.
Somehow don’t think you would be saying this if the leaks had come from Blair or Brown’s Downing St.
This is clearly serious and more than a bubble story. It contains preferential treatment for donors , Tories ‘using Covid’ , accusations of madness and toxicity at the heart of government.
I appreciate you want it to go away, not least because it questions why on Earth anyone can support this.
No. I'm on record here (repeatedly) for attacking the self-interest, cronyism and low-level corruption of this administration - and, I think Boris only cares about himself.
But, that's not going to dent Government support because their policies and values are simply far more in tune with the electorate. It will only do so once the opposition have already got to an electable position first.
That the clown would rather refund the downing street decorating donors, than reveal who they are, does make who they might be an important question, of legitimate public interest.
How does a refund work here to the satisfaction of anyone?
X gives Y £100k Y refunds X £100k
What is to stop X then giving Y the £100k back after its refunded, if they were able to give it under the radar in the first place.
Honestly attacking Dom Cummings then expecting him not to respond is as dumb as allowing international air travel, especially from India attacking the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and not expecting them to respond.
Pearl Harbor was arguably the greatest strategic mistake ever. Even bigger than Singapore’s infamous guns. Even bigger than Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
What sort of imbecile attacks the world’s largest navy and seriously pisses them off, while at the same time missing the only three capital ships of actual value in the Pacific Fleet?
What sort of imbecile then declares war on the United States, bringing America into the European war?
One who doesn’t know what good facial hair looks like
Labour real value here. I expect them to hold, albeit narrowly.
As a one time Labour enthusiast I'd prefer they lost Hartlepool. I don't see not attracting Hartlepudlians as anything other than a good thing. What does it say about a party that they are attractive to vast numbers of Brexiteers?
That a lot of people think they offer a better life and future for the country?
Unless your support base becomes literal neo-Nazis or something I think popularity is a good thing for a political movement.
Except you have to appease your support base. This is what screwed up Labour at the last election. Because of Hartlepool type seats several Labour MPs couldn't be as pro Remain as they would otherwise have been so they looked all over the place
Because about two-thirds of the seats in this country are Leave. So you want to write off two-thirds of the seats in this country?
Comments
Otherwise that statement implies he is vacuous, but has integrity. Which is only 50% correct.
Actually, there is a very strong evidential base. The wider point is that Ms Sturgeon’s comments are so obviously foolish that they can only spring from a prejudice running so deep that it is incapable of adjustment to take account of evidence to the contrary. Again, if it is British, it must be bad.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scottish-election-2021-nicola-sturgeons-foolish-denial-of-uks-vaccine-success-reveals-a-deeper-prejudice-brian-wilson-3212024
It is a fundamental problem that we have discussed on here many times. Labour are now essentially a metropolitan liberal elitist party and have those priorities in the same way that say Hillary had in the US. It means a lot of success in London and other University dominated cities but it means very little to traditional Labour heartlands. It is bizarre that Eton educated Boris speaks something closer to these peoples' language than the leader of a party set up by Trade Unions but it is a fact. If that metropolitan elite want back to power they need to broaden their base.
.....But it's surprising how many people do it on here. Maybe it's like the chocolate ad 'My Guilty Secret'
But what causes Downing Street particular trepidation is the date next month when Cummings is due to give evidence before MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
The fear is that Cummings will now use his appearance to let rip and attack the prime minister in a way that could be deeply damaging among voters who care nothing about WhatsApp messages or palace intrigue.
“The issue is the select committee appearance,” said once source.
“At the last one (select committee appearance) Dom was pretty well behaved. He took a swipe at Hancock but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
“Boris has made it much more likely that Dom’s evidence will be more forthright than it otherwise would have been.”
Another added: “He’s going to be forensic. He’s going to say things that are verifiable, that are backed up by documents and emails. He will be laser-like about it.”
Cummings himself ominously wrote in his blog: “I will answer questions about any of these issues to Parliament on 26 May for as long as the MPs want.”
Some suspect blaming Cummings for the leaks was part of a deliberate attempt by Downing Street to smear Cummings as a disgruntled ex-employee and to blunt the impact of whatever evidence he gives to the committee.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/johnson-has-stuck-his-foot-in-dominic-cummingss-hornets-nest-5j0r2hvnx
The really interesting moment will come if and when little Boris does what it’s always done and how people react. Boris has rather dangerously for him now combined his personal and political lives.
The stuff about the electorate not caring, it all being priced in, that Tory party values being more in line, the opposition being weak and divided and that people will vote for Boris anyway is truly complacent and straight out of the New Labour copybook in its final years.
'Dom knows where all the bodies are buried, all 75,000 of them'
Now that figure is somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/01/03/after-a-quick-successful-vaccine-rollout-this-is-the-second-most-thing-i-want-to-see-in-2021/
Also from that Times article
Even at the time - when Cummings and Johnson were still close - the former advisor was privately deeply critical of some of the decisions the prime minister took.
Cummings believed that at key moments - particularly in early Autumn last year - Johnson recklessly prioritised keeping the economy open over the clear scientific advice about how many more people would die as a result.
Around late September and early October Cummings was so aggravated by Johnson’s decision not to impose a third lockdown that he printed out an A3 sheet of case rates and deaths, and carried it around in his daily business.
“He walked around Whitehall showing it to everyone. Literally everyone,” one source said. “He opened up a meeting about civil service reform by getting it out and explaining why it showed we need to lock down.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/04/23/war-against-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-has-plenty-ammunition/
Top up on popcorn folks!!!!
They know Cummings has a bullet, and they're taking it in the foot to avoid getting it in the heart.
You said yourself you weren't that Woke. So stop it.
Unless your support base becomes literal neo-Nazis or something I think popularity is a good thing for a political movement.
Maybe we will never truly know.
In response to DavidL's first point, obviously parties always want to regain lost support. But I'm not sure it's easier than gaining floating voters. If you've voted X all your life and then decidde to switch, it's quite a big deal and you buy into it personally. Switching back feels difficult. Labour needs to get most votes nationally. Whether the route to that is over the Red Wall I'm less sure.
1. The rapidly accelerating decline of Labour on Teesside.
2. Its a super Thursday election - people will be voting for a councillor, the mayor, the PCC and an MP so turnout will be good
3. A lot of people will already have voted Tory at least once before getting to the MP ticket. Ben Houchen will walk re-election and I now expect the Tory to win the PCC
4. Once you start voting Tory its easy to keep voting Tory
5. Pools council has seen a fractious collapse in Labour - there are now multiple competing independent groups mopping up the WC vote
What proportion of people in Labour actually want to win the by-election?
A definite weakness in Boris is his enthusiasm with getting distracted with this kind of fluff. The smart thing to do would be to ignore Cummings completely and suggest that any such evidence will be considered by the government Inquiry in due course. By drawing attention to this in advance and getting involved in leak allegations the PM is diminishing himself and his office. Its stupid.
In first past the post, that’s Labour.
The vaccine rollout shows that governments can do things.
The opportunity for Labour is to show how we can now ‘win the peace’.
I've said I can just about forgive Boris Johnson for his mistakes last March, but he has repeated those mistakes again and again, only introducing lockdown far too late in November when the numbers showed it should have begun in September/October, as was clear at the time, ditto the December one.
@Casino_Royale has a hive of bees in his bonnet, particularly "Wokeness" and vegetarianism, but that is the cultural zeitgeist amongst the university educated, who are now 50% of young people and now having families, moving out to suburbia and commuter towns and taking their cultural values with them.
The problem for many "left behind towns" is that the youngsters leave for university, and don't fancy returning to small town life. They like the buzz, and the opportunities of the cities. I have observed the cultural transformation of Leicester from a gritty post industrial city to a university one over the last 3 decades, as I am sure that you saw in Nottingham. It is a much better place to live and work.
That trend is as dangerous for the Tories as the crumbling of the Red Wall was for Labour. I don't think it will shift enough seats in 2024 though possibly the GE after.
There is also concern about Johnson’s phone, which one source described as a “horror show”. The prime minister has retained the same phone number for most of his career - despite advice from officials - and is regularly contacts by MPs, lobbyists and people from the world of business.
The Times has been told that at one point Johnson was contacted directly by a Universal Credit claimant asking for help with their benefit claim, having been given his mobile by a friend. The prime minister referred the issue to the Department for Work and Pensions, which resolved it.
On the vegetarian thing, I expect that will soon become moot as a result of the rapid developments in synthetic biology.
https://medium.com/regen-ventures/synthetic-biology-and-a-window-into-the-future-of-food-abb441c7ef9b
He did it before when we took Stockton South in 2017. Nobody expected to win that one. Perhaps a similar shock can be pulled off.
If Labour manage to hold here it will a positive for their longer term prospects for the next GE. The Con win is the expected result if analyzed correctly rather than applying shibboleths from the ye olde political world. A Lab hold would be the surprise and don't let anybody fool you otherwise. They will be either off the pace, punditry wise, or spinning. Eg the disaffected left in Labour will seek to present a Con win in Hartlepool as a disaster for Centrist Starmer.
On the betting, evens on the Cons was great value - I only wish I'd done more of it - but I agree the value has probably gone at 4/7. I'm not closing out though. I really will be quite surprised if Labour hold this seat on May 6th.
There are or were serious arguments to be had as to whether a country is better to take it on the chin or drag things out by removing peoples' liberty and ability to earn provided that blow to the chin does not overwhelm the NHS causing additional unnecessary deaths like we see in Brazil and India. We never got close to that. If that was the primary objective shouldn't the government have allowed as much freedom as was compatible with that criteria?
It seems to me that there is no clear right or wrong on this. Others, including Cummings, may have done things differently. That is not clearly right or wrong either. It is simply a different set of outcomes with different costs.
If I were Labour leader I would be modelling my approach on Attlee. A beautiful mix of doorstep radicalism and dull competence to win the peace.
We’re coming out of this crisis with wounds to heal. Social democracy is well placed to make a comeback.
Frankly SKS is dull as ditchwater and there is no sign that he has any policies that are likely to get voters to switch in any number that will deprive a Majority. The Election is the Tories to lose. I cannot see it happening at the moment...
Another one?
That's a sign that the NHS was overwhelmed and additional deaths were caused as a result. It just happened in a quieter, more organised, very British way - including that no-one wants to talk about it.
Apologies to Max if I misinterpreted what he posted some weeks ago.
Ultimately, I think us lot are out of step with the public. Lockdown is worse than lots of people dying. Avoiding scenes such as those in India was pretty much the key for the government, and they succeeded in that regard.
So not much, basically.
Cummings is clearly so furious that he has committed to print a fairly devastating critique of the workings of No. 10 and the PM's integrity. Why has he done this? Because he could not tolerate the PM/No. 10, 48 hours ago, generating headlines in their favoured press that Cummings was the source of the leaks. He wasn't, because if he was he wouldn't have responded by publishing the statement. Normally, Cummings would defend himself through off-the-record conversations, not by writing a potentially libelous statement calling the PM a liar. There could be more of this to come, both from Cummings and other sources.
It was a serious misjudgment for the PM to pin the leaks on Cummings, one that he will already be regretting. It may be a Westminster bubble story (I don't think it is actually), but sometimes bubbles burst. I don't think any impact will be seen in time for the May elections, though. The SC hearing on 26 May should be in people's diaries.
Actually, we don’t need to wait that long.
From the same speech...
But in this case, those countries that failed to lock down are tragically demonstrating what might have been.
Similarly, China’s failure to admit the vaccine was happening, leading to a failure to lock down early, seems to have caused several hundred thousand deaths although of course we don’t know how many. Equally when Xi finally engaged his tiny mind and did lock down very hard, it came under control very fast.
With vaccines, particularly at our level of take up, it won’t be necessary to lock down. I know there are epidemiologists who say otherwise but they’re always looking for the Next Big Catastrophe and they are almost always wrong. But without them, governments didn’t really have much choice.
And that’s not to overlook that there were other measures that anyone with a brain could and should have used, such as banning unrestricted air travel.
(No, not expecting it. But there have been and will be lots of events like this and one of them will bring BoJo down. I just don't know which one or when.)
And because this involves lengthy terms of Labour and Tory government this will be met with:
The highest practicable degree of silence from both Tory and Labour
An enthusiastic desire to pay up compensation (out of our money) in large doses
Political agreement to hold an enquiry reporting well into the future
Every attempt, agreed by Labour and Tory, to ensure that the actually guilty people are not prosecuted.
I hope for better than that - and people who knowingly see innocent people go to prison and do nothing in order to save themselves deserve massive 10 year type sentences - but it will be interesting to watch.
Re Hartlepool I think it is too close to call but if I had to call it, I would probably go for a narrow conservative win due to the Brexit vote moving to the conservatives.
On the Cummings-Boris spat, and the hope by some on here as well as those in the media, especially Sky with Jon Craig, Beth Rigby and Sam Coates virtually hyperventilating, I believe they will be disappointed.
Boris is very much a chancer, is unreliable, and most everything else his critics throw at him, including his chaotic private life, but the critical ingredient they miss, and seemingly cannot understand, is that he is seen as man of the people.
He has succeeded with the vaccine programme which has been widely recognised across the country, he is opening up the economy, and of course he put the billionaire football club owners to the sword, and that has been recognised by the fans, UEFA, and indeed most all of the European press who credit him with finishing off the ESL, and he quite naturally extols positiveness and patriotism and is seen as someone to have a pint with.
In his address to Joe Biden’s climate conference, he referred to ‘rabbit huggers’ and this caused fury amongst green activists including Greta Thunberg who apparently is now calling herself a rabbit hugger.
As I said yesterday here is the problem for the left and Boris distracters.
He was not talking to them, but to the ordinary voters up and down the UK who are not activists but need to be brought along and his way of doing this was to promote all the investment and jobs as a consequence of his green policies.
Indeed, Rachel Burden of 5 Live put that exact point to the green activist she was interviewing saying directly to her that Boris was not addressing her, but those who need to be persuaded to the cause.
There are some posters on here who fell into the trap of attacking the ‘rabbit huggers, quote without understanding the nuance of it.
Indeed, I would suggest in all this effort in trying to take down Boris, maybe his distractors should ask themselves why they are not succeeding and realise that Boris’s appeal is to the people who matter, and who elect MPs to the HOC
Boris and Nicola are remarkably similar politicians in many ways and for the same reason Salmond did not damage Sturgeon, I do not expect Cummings, who as Tim Montgomery said last night has zero credibility with the public, to have much effect on Boris popularity.
I may be wrong and it is always ‘events’ but this is my opinion as of today
‘Surely nurses being unhappy is much more serious?’ asked Annie.
‘No dear,’ I exploded. ‘Much less serious. Nurses can’t vote against me until the next election. Backbenchers can vote against me at ten o’clock tonight.’
Yes Prime Minister, A Real Partnership (from memory, so it may not be 100% accurate).
https://thecritic.co.uk/let-boris-be-boris/
It’s not just the Red Wall seats that should be of concern to Labour. It’s the entirety of the Midlands, outside Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham. A shedload of seats have moved from being classic swing seats to safe Conservative.
1. Labour holds the white w/c, especially in the north and midlands, in contempt and doesn't share their values. To have any chance of winning back these voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the total), Labour needs to dump their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap and go back to a good, honest patriotic party that aligns with the values of the white w/c.
2. The metropolitan, woke, right-on middle class don't share the values of the northern, midland white w/c. Labour should stop trying to appeal to such metropolitan voters (let's imagine they comprise 25% of the electorate) by telling them to stick their woke, social justice, BLM, green vegetarian crap up their backsides so that we can win the votes of the 25% under 1.
I'm not persuaded that this is a winning strategy for Labour, however, Somehow, I think they need to keep the voters in 2. and peel off some of the voters in 1., not all of whom fit the stereotype I've outlined in 1.
I assume SKS was not directly involved in this when he was in the CPS (my assumption is based on the fact that we would have heard about it by now if he were).
The PM might decide to do something if he needs a distraction, using the fact that no one can really blame him for this one.
Because that would be a false and simplistic take. Lab won Hartlepool easily under Corbyn in 2017. The main reason we'll likely lose it now (and would have lost it in 2019 if not for BXP) is Brexit. This has realigned our politics and delivered the WWC Leave demographic to the Johnson Cons.
It means - and I agree with you here - that Starmer's realistic goal for the next GE is hung parliament. This would be the case for any Labour leader, man or woman, charisma or not, from whatever wing of the party.
What sort of imbecile attacks the world’s largest navy and seriously pisses them off, while at the same time missing the only three capital ships of actual value in the Pacific Fleet?
They are not compatible
What's more abnormal is taking away people's basic civil liberties.
The reason to have a lockdown was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, not to prevent every single death. If the Government is to be criticised it should be for locking down too hard and too long now, the NHS is nowhere near being overwhelmed and liberties should be restored.
But too many people in this country are prepared to be illiberal so that argument is going nowhere.
Works for me. Go for it!