Have tribalist Labourites not clicked yet that Scottish independence cements a right leaning government in England most likely for the rest of their lives?
That's an interesting question.
Some separatists argue that if it happens, there would be a political realignment in Scotland, with a revival of a party of the right.
While it is true the Little Englanders are an overwhelming right wing majority today, at some point the wheel will turn again, probably as their promises turn to ashes (again)
Yes I think you are right that the SNP’s big tent would eventually crumble and you’d get a more balanced democracy in Scotland post independence. I was talking about England, where I thought you live?
By the way can you explain your Little Englander meme? I’m not sure I fully understand whatever insult you think you’re making.
I don't think anyone understands what "clever" points Scott thinks he's been making this morning. I'm beginning to think it was better when he just posted tweets without comment.
There’s no border between England and Scotland right now!
That the UK leaving the EU makes it more difficult practically for Scotland to leave the UK, is simply another illustration of the current government’s dedication to protecting the Union.
Off topic but as anyone read the Dominic Sandbrook series of books - - I have just read Who Dares Wins ( social history of Britain from 1979 to 1982) and have ordered the one preceding it - Seasons in the sun 1974-79 . The one I have read is very good and nearly a 1000 pages .
I have read Never Had it So Good and White Heat. I agree they are good, though he rather obviously relishes the cultural stuff more than the politics. I used to know him slightly years ago. Nice guy.
A history professor friend of mine says that he's somewhat ostracised in academia because of his supposed right wing leanings, though he's always struck me as pretty centrist. Shows how lefty much of academia is.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
There’s no border between England and Scotland right now!
That the UK leaving the EU makes it more difficult practically for Scotland to leave the UK, is simply another illustration of the current government’s dedication to protecting the Union.
There most certainly is a border. Different legal systems, for one thing.
So Scotland wants razor wire and guard posts from Gretna to the Tweed.
It wants "the same border as Northern Ireland"
BoZo can insist there is one, and build one, or insist there isn't one.
His choice
Northern Ireland has a border with GB in the Irish Sea now to avoid a hard border with Ireland, the minimum border an independent Scotland in the EU and/or single market could have with England would be the same border Northern Ireland now has with GB.
Though if Boris needs confidence and supply from Mr Poots and the DUP in 2024 to stay in power he could remove that border by going to an even harder Brexit for the whole UK, albeit that would mean a hard border with Ireland and the same for an independent Scotland
If he needs confidence and supply from the DUP then he shouldn't be Prime Minister anyway. You keep telling us that minority parties don't count in parliament when considering major issues (vide Scottish Greens).
Not on once in a generation referendum issues no, the 2016 EU referendum was held 41 years after the first in 1975
With Sandbrook, he's a better journalist and writer than he is a thinker, on the whole. Some of his accounts of the period are quite unashamedly and obviously skewed, other parts quite colourful and compelling.
So Scotland wants razor wire and guard posts from Gretna to the Tweed.
It wants "the same border as Northern Ireland"
BoZo can insist there is one, and build one, or insist there isn't one.
His choice
Northern Ireland has a border with GB in the Irish Sea now to avoid a hard border with Ireland, the minimum border an independent Scotland in the EU and/or single market could have with England would be the same border Northern Ireland now has with GB.
Though if Boris needs confidence and supply from Mr Poots and the DUP in 2024 to stay in power he could remove that border by going to an even harder Brexit for the whole UK, albeit that would mean a hard border with Ireland and the same for an independent Scotland
If he needs confidence and supply from the DUP then he shouldn't be Prime Minister anyway. You keep telling us that minority parties don't count in parliament when considering major issues (vide Scottish Greens).
Not on once in a generation referendum issues no, the 2016 EU referendum was held 41 years after the first in 1975
You'd get a job easily at the local park moving the goalposts for the five-a side footy.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
The short term answer is “No because covid”. Perhaps the medium term answer is “No until YOU sort out the following list of imponderables. If you persuade us that a split won’t harm the interests of anyone currently a British citizen in Scotland, then perhaps we can talk about the length of a generation again.”
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
Over-reaching and overwhelming hubris does indeed tend to precede a fall.
Headline 1 in the Mail : "Ministers say Boris could rule longer than Thatcher's 11 years - We're the true workers' party now !"
Headline 2 : "Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds rent out their £1.2million south London townhouse to raise cash"
If he’s short of money, why doesn’t he just sell it? £1.2 million should keep him going for a few years.
Reading between the lines, it’s mostly the bank’s house, rather than Johnson’s. And he’s struggling to make his repayments at the same time as keeping his girlfriend in the style she expects.
He won’t make much from letting it out, after he’s paid interest. London yields are shite, and it’s not in an ideal location for the corporate rentals market.
I’m not sure people really understand the economics of rental. It works if you don’t have a mortgage or have enough capital to go into it in a big way. Not otherwise.
And it helps to pick the right area as well. London isn’t good because you get, as you rightly say, so little margin after overheads. Round here it’s different. I could easily buy five houses without a mortgage in Rugeley with the money I would get from selling up in Gloucester, or ten by turning into a company and borrowing. That money would keep me very comfortably for the rest of my life even allowing for depreciation and dilapidations.
I also think he’s providing many hostages to fortune by renting. It’s great if you get good tenants. Newsflash, you often don’t. One disgruntled tenant selling a story to the Daily Mirror and he will have a problem.
Good comment from Y. Not quite agreeing on the economics.
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
Do you have any analysis to go with that, Alistair? On outstanding constituencies and potential list effects? What's the max v mim 95% confidence range?
I'm still shy of backing it.
SNP nerd to win seats in regions they currently have no list MSPs in. Winning West Dumfries doesn't do them any good as they will just lose the list seat.
So that gives you a tiny set of targets. Aberdeen West is a must win now but there is a massive LD vote to squeeze for the Con candidate.
To expand on this the SNP are currently up 1 seat, they need to be up 2.
Without winning Aberdeenshire West they would have to go absolute gangbusters on the List somewhere to get that second seat. And the List vote counted so far doesn't say they are going gangbusters anywhere.
Plus the Tories top target seat of Perthshire South and Kinrossshire has yet to declare, the Tories need a 1.97% swing to take it from the SNP and the LDs got 8% there for example in 2016
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
Hope you are all recovered from the excitements of the last 36 hours.
If you need a bit of distraction can I please recommend a fabulous long article by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian this morning on the notable figures who have written for the newspaper in its 200 year history. Very enjoyable and some amazing stories.
I may not be at all in line with their politics but the Guardian remains, along with the Times the only real quality British newspaper on the shelves and the internet.
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
Yes, they postpone again the Labour collapse.
Equally, they now have no choice but to own everything going wrong going forward. Nine years and counting since they were in coalition with another major party.
But there are some big old swings needed to take those seats, 5% only getting two.
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Despite the arguments that "the campaign for a third referendum would start the day after the second is lost", I'm not so sure. A lost second referendum would give the UK Government the opportunity to move away from appeasement over fear of Independence, and therefore force Scottish voters to make a choice about whether they want Independence to be the ongoing fault line in Scottish politics - or engage more clearly with other matters, and use their votes to influence these.
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
Labour and Lib Dem voters don't give a flying fuck about the Union. They're just so many muddy middle voters who have yet to be persuaded that independence won't cost them money. This is demonstrated in, for example, Ayr, where a tiny slither of the (completely hopeless and pointless) Lib Dem vote acting tactically would've saved the Tory. They didn't bother. They let the SNP in, they knew that would strength Sturgeon's hand, they did it anyway.
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
Generally looks like a swing to the Tories in Outer London which was more Leave and a swing to Labour in Inner London which was strong Remain, so much like the rest of the country (albeit a big swing to the Greens in Lambeth and Southwark and North East too)
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
So Tories overperform in England, Labour in Wales and SNP in Scotland - how much will those vaccine boosts be worth by 2024?
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
Not a dramatic change but clearly at least some parts of London have edged right despite all of the criticism of the Conservative candidate and much of the polling. Supposedly london was to be the Labour party's big headline victory to make up for all the rest. Even that is looking a bit 'meh' now - rather like Starmer himself - who really shouldn't try 'angry shouty' man again.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
Over-reaching and overwhelming hubris does indeed tend to precede a fall.
Headline 1 in the Mail : "Ministers say Boris could rule longer than Thatcher's 11 years - We're the true workers' party now !"
Headline 2 : "Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds rent out their £1.2million south London townhouse to raise cash"
If he’s short of money, why doesn’t he just sell it? £1.2 million should keep him going for a few years.
Reading between the lines, it’s mostly the bank’s house, rather than Johnson’s. And he’s struggling to make his repayments at the same time as keeping his girlfriend in the style she expects.
He won’t make much from letting it out, after he’s paid interest. London yields are shite, and it’s not in an ideal location for the corporate rentals market.
I’m not sure people really understand the economics of rental. It works if you don’t have a mortgage or have enough capital to go into it in a big way. Not otherwise.
And it helps to pick the right area as well. London isn’t good because you get, as you rightly say, so little margin after overheads. Round here it’s different. I could easily buy five houses without a mortgage in Rugeley with the money I would get from selling up in Gloucester, or ten by turning into a company and borrowing. That money would keep me very comfortably for the rest of my life even allowing for depreciation and dilapidations.
I also think he’s providing many hostages to fortune by renting. It’s great if you get good tenants. Newsflash, you often don’t. One disgruntled tenant selling a story to the Daily Mirror and he will have a problem.
Good comment from Y. Not quite agreeing on the economics.
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
What i don't understand about this story is the implication that he's just leaving it sitting there at the moment unoccupied? Surely he must be renting it out at the moment? Or do some of his kids live there rent free?
I'm not seeing many good answers for how Labour need to do things differently. To be fair they are in the same situation as social democrat parties elsewhere that are up against populists. Do they say, we are more honest and more competent? Problem, people don't care about the first and don't believe the second. Do they try a me-too populism. In which case why not go for the real thing?
Tricky.
Yes, it is an issue across the continent, and in the USA, where Biden is a relic of Social Democracy's heyday. FPTP fossilised the system and is a major bar to new parties becoming effective.
In recent cases in the UK a party in a hopeless situation has only found recovery by a combination of some things. They are:
A conviction leader
A project that can be presented simply
Decay in the other party.
Labour lack all three. The Tories have all three (until the wheels come off).
We have never recently had two top quality such leaders vying for the same position. It has gone: Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Johnson none ever facing the highest quality opposition.
Sadly SKS is not it; if he was political genius he would not have got himself into yesterday's mess, nor failed to extricate himself in that terrible pooled interview.
Among all the qualities on display (or not) yesterday an important one is the quality of projection. The four listed above in interview are/were capable of seeming to address the nation and/or the individual watcher rather than the interviewer. T May in interview generally seemed to be having a fight with herself, SKS is having a rather intense discussion in a cross between a tetchy seminar and interview. Boris is a performing seal.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
Labour and Lib Dem voters don't give a flying fuck about the Union. They're just so many muddy middle voters who have yet to be persuaded that independence won't cost them money. This is demonstrated in, for example, Ayr, where a tiny slither of the (completely hopeless and pointless) Lib Dem vote acting tactically would've saved the Tory. They didn't bother. They let the SNP in, they knew that would strength Sturgeon's hand, they did it anyway.
So what if the Union is held together mainly by money, Scotland joined the Union in the first place in 1707 because it was bankrupted by the Darien scheme and needed funds from Westminster not out of any great love of England.
In 2014 it was hard headed fiscally sensible voters who are proud Scots but know the Union boosts the Scottish economy who got No to 55% (and mainly vote Labour and LD) not emotional British patriot Unionists who only amount to 25-30% of Scots and almost all vote Tory and mostly backed Brexit
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Despite the arguments that "the campaign for a third referendum would start the day after the second is lost", I'm not so sure. A lost second referendum would give the UK Government the opportunity to move away from appeasement over fear of Independence, and therefore force Scottish voters to make a choice about whether they want Independence to be the ongoing fault line in Scottish politics - or engage more clearly with other matters, and use their votes to influence these.
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
Which is why, however reluctantly, I am moving down the road to having a second referendum.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
I agree that BR is unduly gloomy. I think Scotland may well end up like Quebec - somewhere that is always on the verge, but never quite leaves, and uses the threat to milk more and more concessions out of the national government.
Of course, Canada is in a better position than we are, because it has a working federal structure. We should learn from that at least.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
Over-reaching and overwhelming hubris does indeed tend to precede a fall.
Headline 1 in the Mail : "Ministers say Boris could rule longer than Thatcher's 11 years - We're the true workers' party now !"
Headline 2 : "Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds rent out their £1.2million south London townhouse to raise cash"
If he’s short of money, why doesn’t he just sell it? £1.2 million should keep him going for a few years.
Reading between the lines, it’s mostly the bank’s house, rather than Johnson’s. And he’s struggling to make his repayments at the same time as keeping his girlfriend in the style she expects.
He won’t make much from letting it out, after he’s paid interest. London yields are shite, and it’s not in an ideal location for the corporate rentals market.
I’m not sure people really understand the economics of rental. It works if you don’t have a mortgage or have enough capital to go into it in a big way. Not otherwise.
And it helps to pick the right area as well. London isn’t good because you get, as you rightly say, so little margin after overheads. Round here it’s different. I could easily buy five houses without a mortgage in Rugeley with the money I would get from selling up in Gloucester, or ten by turning into a company and borrowing. That money would keep me very comfortably for the rest of my life even allowing for depreciation and dilapidations.
I also think he’s providing many hostages to fortune by renting. It’s great if you get good tenants. Newsflash, you often don’t. One disgruntled tenant selling a story to the Daily Mirror and he will have a problem.
Good comment from Y. Not quite agreeing on the economics.
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
What i don't understand about this story is the implication that he's just leaving it sitting there at the moment unoccupied? Surely he must be renting it out at the moment? Or do some of his kids live there rent free?
He has a reputation for not being very efficient on financial matters. Butd it may also have been kept empty thanks to health worries post-covid (ie in case he had to resign for health grounds).
Labour figures are now saying that “tackling injustice and inequality” is the party’s mission. But that’s an abstraction to most voters: you need to talk about concrete things that matter to people’s lives - like housing, jobs, pay, services - and what you’ll do about them
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
The UKIP collapse in the North Wales looks to have broken towards the Tories but not as overwhelming as in the North of England. So Con were able to flip Vale of Clwyd from -3 to +1 but nothing else. I was surprised Labour held Wrexham. By the end of the campaign, I expected them to hold Delyn and Clwyd South but not so easily.
In the South the swing has been towards Labour with Jane Hutt surviving yet again and CWPS and PP being close. Bridgend went in the other direction but their 2011-2016 Assembly majorities were inflated by Carwyn Jones in comparison to the Westminster elections. So it reversed back to being in the same league of Delyn, Clwyd South, Newport West.
Drakeford is boring. But I think you can benefit from a boring reassuring type of leader when you are in government and you get exposure by virtue of your institutional position. In opposition, you risk not to be noticed with this sort of leader.
Mr. Fishing, aye. Labour dicking about with the constitutional arrangement because they complacently thought they'd have Celtic fiefdoms forever has not been a great success for either the integrity of the UK or the electoral prospects of the Labour Party.
Does anyone know if there are any published figures for this in the UK? Do we know, for example, what proportion of those who received first doses 12 or more weeks ago have received a second dose?
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
Have tribalist Labourites not clicked yet that Scottish independence cements a right leaning government in England most likely for the rest of their lives?
That's an interesting question.
Some separatists argue that if it happens, there would be a political realignment in Scotland, with a revival of a party of the right.
While it is true the Little Englanders are an overwhelming right wing majority today, at some point the wheel will turn again, probably as their promises turn to ashes (again)
Yes I think you are right that the SNP’s big tent would eventually crumble and you’d get a more balanced democracy in Scotland post independence. I was talking about England, where I thought you live?
By the way can you explain your Little Englander meme? I’m not sure I fully understand whatever insult you think you’re making.
I don't think anyone understands what "clever" points Scott thinks he's been making this morning. I'm beginning to think it was better when he just posted tweets without comment.
Scott n' paste has a hide like a rhinoceros. He is like the German Army as the Russians reached Berlin. His views must be defended at all costs by fighting to the last tweet.
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
The other thing to consider is the 2016 UKIP shares that were up for grabs:
Bexley and Bromley 16.1 % Brent and Harrow 5.2 % Ealing and Hillingdon 7.9 % Havering & Redbridge 15.7 % Lambeth and Southwark 3.5 % North East 5.0 % West Central 5.0 %
Best Conservative results in the UKIPpy areas, which isn't surprising. But except in North East (Hackney/Islington/Waltham Forest), the Conservative gain is quite a lot less than the UKIP loss. (RefUK generally got 3 % or so.)
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
Over-reaching and overwhelming hubris does indeed tend to precede a fall.
Headline 1 in the Mail : "Ministers say Boris could rule longer than Thatcher's 11 years - We're the true workers' party now !"
Headline 2 : "Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds rent out their £1.2million south London townhouse to raise cash"
If he’s short of money, why doesn’t he just sell it? £1.2 million should keep him going for a few years.
Reading between the lines, it’s mostly the bank’s house, rather than Johnson’s. And he’s struggling to make his repayments at the same time as keeping his girlfriend in the style she expects.
He won’t make much from letting it out, after he’s paid interest. London yields are shite, and it’s not in an ideal location for the corporate rentals market.
I’m not sure people really understand the economics of rental. It works if you don’t have a mortgage or have enough capital to go into it in a big way. Not otherwise.
And it helps to pick the right area as well. London isn’t good because you get, as you rightly say, so little margin after overheads. Round here it’s different. I could easily buy five houses without a mortgage in Rugeley with the money I would get from selling up in Gloucester, or ten by turning into a company and borrowing. That money would keep me very comfortably for the rest of my life even allowing for depreciation and dilapidations.
I also think he’s providing many hostages to fortune by renting. It’s great if you get good tenants. Newsflash, you often don’t. One disgruntled tenant selling a story to the Daily Mirror and he will have a problem.
Good comment from Y. Not quite agreeing on the economics.
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
What i don't understand about this story is the implication that he's just leaving it sitting there at the moment unoccupied? Surely he must be renting it out at the moment? Or do some of his kids live there rent free?
Every wannabe Berlusconi needs somewhere to take the next mistress.
This bullshit is just going to drag on and on and on until they go. The idea that entering into a negotiation with the Scottish Government will somehow help to resolve the matter is for the birds.
Stick a draft treaty before the Scots and persuade them to reject it, and it will help not a jot. It's irrelevant. If the nationalists lose a second referendum, the campaign for the third starts the next morning and they'll keep on winning elections up there until they get it.
Bad take. If the vote happens and it's Remain, that's the end of the matter for quite a while. Yes, the SNP will continue to have independence as a core aspiration but they won't keep running in elections on a commitment to hold another vote. To do so would shed support and lose influence. These referendums are massive, intense, divisive events and the Scottish people will not have an appetite for having one every few years.
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
"They're a one party Tory state and we can't stand the Tories. They've dragged us out of the EU against our will. Now they won't even allow us to vote on our own destiny. FFS!"
Upshot - when the vote does finally come it will be Leave.
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
Not a dramatic change but clearly at least some parts of London have edged right despite all of the criticism of the Conservative candidate and much of the polling. Supposedly london was to be the Labour party's big headline victory to make up for all the rest. Even that is looking a bit 'meh' now - rather like Starmer himself - who really shouldn't try 'angry shouty' man again.
I think we need to see the full result and particularly the transfers before reaching a definitive view on London. Khan has been talked about for so long as a shoo-in (not least on PB) that I suspect many Labour voters will have been tempted to put their first preference with one of the wide range of alternatives on offer, knowing that when it matters their vote will drop into Khan's box.
Let's see how the final Lab v Con vote tally compares with expectations.
Hope you are all recovered from the excitements of the last 36 hours.
If you need a bit of distraction can I please recommend a fabulous long article by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian this morning on the notable figures who have written for the newspaper in its 200 year history. Very enjoyable and some amazing stories.
I may not be at all in line with their politics but the Guardian remains, along with the Times the only real quality British newspaper on the shelves and the internet.
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
Labour figures are now saying that “tackling injustice and inequality” is the party’s mission. But that’s an abstraction to most voters: you need to talk about concrete things that matter to people’s lives - like housing, jobs, pay, services - and what you’ll do about them
OJ finally grows up.....
I was having the same argument we a friend yesterday, he was banging on about how Labour should campaign on an anti-billionaire platform, it's the same as the above. People don't care about billionaires, they care about crime, housing and the NHS in that order. Talking about injustice and inequality (or billionaires) won't get any votes. What are Labour's policies to bring down crime, make housing more affordable to buy for under 40s and how will Labour ensure the NHS can deal with the 6m backlog of patients without spending the earth.
Were I a Labour strategist or policy researcher I'd be looking to answer the above three questions and block out everything else for the next year. Stay on those three core messages.
I like a lot of David Herdson's pieces but I have to admit I completely disagree on this. Referendums on national independence ought to be understood as a once in a generation idea. After all they are not things that can be easily undone. There was a referendum on Scottish independence less than seven years ago so why would it be sensible to have another one now? Brexit? Well yes a clear majority in Scotland voted to remain in the EU but still I would be looking for an overwhelming mandate to even countenance another vote on cessation at this stage. It's pretty obvious that the Scottish result has not provided that. As Neil Oliver said Scotland is split down the middle. Those who believe the SNP have a mandate should follow the logic of that. It means that you can have a referendum every time there is a pro independence majority in Holyrood. Just keep holding referendums until you get the right result. We ought to have more respect for the union and in fact more respect for Scotland. I feel very sorry for those like my brother who live in Scotland and have to deal with this rather than the bread and butter issues that ought to be debated. When will people start questioning the SNP’s patriotism? Yes, I’m serious. If you really care about Scotland why would you want to hold another inevitably divisive referendum just a few years after another very divisive referendum. How concerned are these fanatics with the wellbeing of Scotland’s economy and civic society?
Mentioning Harold Wilson is rather apt. A supposedly cunning political operator it was of course Wilson who brought the referendum into British politics. Not for any high minded reason but in order to resolve a problem within his own party. For all the abuse hurled at David Cameron he was following a precedent already set. He also didn’t realise that many people had seen the same trick pulled before and wouldn’t be persuaded.
I agree that the thorny choices faced by an independent Scotland should be set out clearly in advance but seems absurd when the current prime minister was front and centre of the shallow Brexit campaign. Is he going to do a mea culpa over the lack of detail presented to people in 2016. How can a government that has denied the need for a border between the UK and Ireland start stressing the need for customs checks on the Tweed? Be careful about stoking allegations of bullying and project fear. As I’ve repeatedly said the UK government’s approach to the post-Brexit relationship with the EU has undermined the union between England and Scotland.
I don’t quite get the fuss about allowing or blocking referendums either. I don’t have an objection the Scottish government holding an advisory referendum on independence but the UK government should make clear that it has no obligation to pay attention to such a vote. There is too much talk about Quebec where the second referendum supposedly killed it off but what about Catalonia where they held an unauthorised vote and it went nowhere?
I’m not saying that the lack of an outright SNP majority should lead to complacency. At best it will be met with a sigh of relief and at worst triumphalism. But a situation where fifty percent of people get up in the morning to campaign for independence and the rest do nothing is not a good scenario. Devolution was supposed to kill nationalism stone dead. It didn’t. The 2014 referendum was supposed to kill it. It didn’t. And don’t forget the SNP won 56 out of 59 Westminster seats in 2015 BEFORE the Brexit vote. Like a marriage a political union needs constant work. Start improving transport connections between England and Scotland. Start challenging the notion of major cultural differences and misconceptions on both sides. Unfortunately none of this can probably be done under the current prime minister who’s unlikely to be going anywhere soon.
The more i think about it the more i think that Scottish Independendence founders fundamentally on the issue of a hard border with England (as mentioned as one issue by DavidH). And it is the one issue that was, I believe, almost absent from the first Indy referendum debates. Quite simply, how DO they square the circle? I can't even see a fudge solution.
In the first referendum, the pro-Indy camp tried to play down difficulties in their position on currency, joining the EU and national debt, by arguing that statements by the opponents would not reflect the reality in the aftermath of a yes vote, suggesting that what the no camp was saying was merely project fear which wouldn't come to pass because of mutual interest (or in the case of national debt - they could just walk away from it). And sometimes (in the case of currency - fudging by just saying their were lots of options).
But the hard border is different. Because, as Northern Ireland has shown, being in the EU is incompatible with the lack of a hard border with England. And whereas during the first referendum they could try to place the EU and rUK in the same "project fear" camp, this time there would have to be a choice. I don't see any circumstances where they could put the case where there future is in the EU (which after all is presented currently as a, if not the, major driving force for Independence) but not have a hard border with England. As David points out, the default position is even worse - hard border with both - and even outside the EU there could not be a completely open border with England, short of joining a Customs Union/UK single market.
And this would also dominate any post Indy discussions, which would make Brexit look like a cakewalk. They would have to negotiate with the rUK (obviously). But the outcome of those negotiations would have to be heavily destructive to Scottish business and economy, or would have to agree a hard border. But without a hard border negotiations with the EU would be impossible, because of the implications for the EU-UK relationship.
Have the Sindy advocates on this site got an answer to this issue?
There is no answer unless an independent Scotland did not wish to join the EU. In the Brexit debate the Remain side had to underplay the NI problem because Remain had to conduct the pretence that the EU was a useful large trade association and not an emerging state (how it could do that with an EU having a flag, directly elected parliament, currency, citizenship, open borders, central bank, law making powers, a president and cabinet I still have no idea).
An honest Remain campaign would have had to say the real reason for staying is that leaving is literally impossible. But that would have given the game away too obviously. The rest is history!
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
The UKIP collapse in the North Wales looks to have broken towards the Tories but not as overwhelming as in the North of England. So Con were able to flip Vale of Clwyd from -3 to +1 but nothing else. I was surprised Labour held Wrexham. By the end of the campaign, I expected them to hold Delyn and Clwyd South but not so easily.
In the South the swing has been towards Labour with Jane Hutt surviving yet again and CWPS and PP being close. Bridgend went in the other direction but their 2011-2016 Assembly majorities were inflated by Carwyn Jones in comparison to the Westminster elections. So it reversed back to being in the same league of Delyn, Clwyd South, Newport West.
Drakeford is boring. But I think you can benefit from a boring reassuring type of leader when you are in government and you get exposure by virtue of your institutional position. In opposition, you risk not to be noticed with this sort of leader.
For someone broadly of the centre left, the Welsh result has reassured me that Labour's failure nationally has more to do with a vaccine bounce than Starmer's lack of charisma. That is not to say an injection of enthusiasm wouldn't help.
Yesterday however, two posters deduced from the Welsh results that there was a desire for a Corbynista ticket, and that is what won it for Labour in Wales. They extrapolated from their erroneous theory that what Labour need nationally is a Marxist ticket of say Burgon and Long Bailey, and with it the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
That is a better piece, and closer to setting out a path for the future.
An under-analysed part of Labour's jigsaw is the changing nature of the unions. When I was young, Labour was rescued from its left-wing activists by the moderate (in political terms) union 'barons', and the unions played a critical role in rescuing the party when it went astray in the 1980s - for example Blair couldn't have got his hugely symbolic Clause 4 change through without the deals he did behind the scenes with union leaders.
Nowadays, the principal union leaders are part of the problem - the likes of McCluskey and Ward are Corbynites through and through. The unions themselves have lost touch with the views of the 'ordinary worker' and this makes the challenge the party faces even more difficult to remedy.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
Labour and Lib Dem voters don't give a flying fuck about the Union. They're just so many muddy middle voters who have yet to be persuaded that independence won't cost them money. This is demonstrated in, for example, Ayr, where a tiny slither of the (completely hopeless and pointless) Lib Dem vote acting tactically would've saved the Tory. They didn't bother. They let the SNP in, they knew that would strength Sturgeon's hand, they did it anyway.
This isn't true. I support the Union, but I voted for the Green Party in the Holyrood election, despite their support for Independence, because climate change is more important an issue for me than preventing a second referendum (when I will get to vote for the Union anyway).
Part of being a Unionist for many voters is that you think non-nationalist politics - in terms of tax and spend policies, etc - are more important to them than the question of independence. So it's completely logical for many Labour and Lib Dem voters to refuse to vote tactically to support the Tories, while many SNP voters will vote SNP despite SNP policies on taxation and spending, because independence is so important to them.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Despite the arguments that "the campaign for a third referendum would start the day after the second is lost", I'm not so sure. A lost second referendum would give the UK Government the opportunity to move away from appeasement over fear of Independence, and therefore force Scottish voters to make a choice about whether they want Independence to be the ongoing fault line in Scottish politics - or engage more clearly with other matters, and use their votes to influence these.
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
Spot on. The notion of the Scots continually having Sindy refs and rejecting Sindy is for the birds. The next one will settle the question for ever (if Leave) or for a long time (if Remain). And Remain is more likely if it's held soon.
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
Ummm - is he saying Sturgeon would defy a court injunction to hold a referendum if the SC ruled she had no competency to do so?
I mean - seriously? Given the penalties for contempt of court, it seems to put it mildly improbable.
Have tribalist Labourites not clicked yet that Scottish independence cements a right leaning government in England most likely for the rest of their lives?
That's an interesting question.
Some separatists argue that if it happens, there would be a political realignment in Scotland, with a revival of a party of the right.
While it is true the Little Englanders are an overwhelming right wing majority today, at some point the wheel will turn again, probably as their promises turn to ashes (again)
Yes I think you are right that the SNP’s big tent would eventually crumble and you’d get a more balanced democracy in Scotland post independence. I was talking about England, where I thought you live?
By the way can you explain your Little Englander meme? I’m not sure I fully understand whatever insult you think you’re making.
I don't think anyone understands what "clever" points Scott thinks he's been making this morning. I'm beginning to think it was better when he just posted tweets without comment.
Scott n' paste has a hide like a rhinoceros. He is like the German Army as the Russians reached Berlin. His views must be defended at all costs by fighting to the last tweet.
Nah. I have railed against Scott for many a year on here with his reposts. But now he is actually posting more of his own thoughts and comments - even though I disagree with him almost all the time - I find it much more enjoyable and worthy of serious consideration.
In London the YouTube meme candidate is just ahead of Fox - in spite of all the press time the latter received. That’s got to hurt his ego.
Yes the bookies got this about right offering the same odds on both to win the minnows battle - I think it will be the you tube candidate as most of the more right wing areas already counted - Fox for instance got 3% in Bexley whereas Omilana got 1% but in Lambeth it was 3% for Omilana and 1% for Fox- Pitty no in running betting on this!
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
If a wildcat referendum were held, wouldn't local authorties in Unionist areas of Scotland simply boycott it?
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
The UKIP collapse in the North Wales looks to have broken towards the Tories but not as overwhelming as in the North of England. So Con were able to flip Vale of Clwyd from -3 to +1 but nothing else. I was surprised Labour held Wrexham. By the end of the campaign, I expected them to hold Delyn and Clwyd South but not so easily.
In the South the swing has been towards Labour with Jane Hutt surviving yet again and CWPS and PP being close. Bridgend went in the other direction but their 2011-2016 Assembly majorities were inflated by Carwyn Jones in comparison to the Westminster elections. So it reversed back to being in the same league of Delyn, Clwyd South, Newport West.
Drakeford is boring. But I think you can benefit from a boring reassuring type of leader when you are in government and you get exposure by virtue of your institutional position. In opposition, you risk not to be noticed with this sort of leader.
For someone broadly of the centre left, the Welsh result has reassured me that Labour's failure nationally has more to do with a vaccine bounce than Starmer's lack of charisma. That is not to say an injection of enthusiasm wouldn't help.
Yesterday however, two posters deduced from the Welsh results that there was a desire for a Corbynista ticket, and that is what won it for Labour in Wales. They extrapolated from their erroneous theory that what Labour need nationally is a Marxist ticket of say Burgon and Long Bailey, and with it the keys to 10 Downing Street.
They are both wrong.
It’s just a misunderstanding of party politics.
It’s not Labour who see Burgon and Wrong Daily as a dream ticket. It’s the Tories and Liberal Democrats.
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
That is a better piece, and closer to setting out a path for the future.
An under-analysed part of Labour's jigsaw is the changing nature of the unions. When I was young, Labour was rescued from its left-wing activists by the moderate (in political terms) union 'barons', and the unions played a critical role in rescuing the party when it went astray in the 1980s - for example Blair couldn't have got his hugely symbolic Clause 4 change through without the deals he did behind the scenes with union leaders.
Nowadays, the principal union leaders are part of the problem - the likes of McCluskey and Ward are Corbynites through and through. The unions themselves have lost touch with the views of the 'ordinary worker' and this makes the challenge the party faces even more difficult to remedy.
I think Labour should focus on being the party of workers and jobs, but that also means supporting good businesses, backing r&d and education, and getting the balance right between focusing on welfare and those in work.
Interesting polling from Spain - just a week after the Conservative win in Madrid and the socialist central government decides on motorway charges, new tax rises generally and we have the first poll in months with gives the Conservatives a small national lead.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Despite the arguments that "the campaign for a third referendum would start the day after the second is lost", I'm not so sure. A lost second referendum would give the UK Government the opportunity to move away from appeasement over fear of Independence, and therefore force Scottish voters to make a choice about whether they want Independence to be the ongoing fault line in Scottish politics - or engage more clearly with other matters, and use their votes to influence these.
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
Which is why, however reluctantly, I am moving down the road to having a second referendum.
Yep. It makes sense for you. Remain is favourite if held soon, Leave is favourite if delayed. This is a test of what Johnson holds most dear, the Union or himself? I'll say no more.
The other trick Johnson could play - and it would be totally cynical but almost certainly successful - is to put a minimum 40% threshold of the total population voting for Sindy before a change could take place, given how dramatic the changes would be.
Shaun Bailey has won 5 of the 7 London areas to have declared so far — on first preferences. And Sadiq Khan only two. Khan holds a narrow lead overall though.
I'm utterly astonished at this.
In no way on God's green earth did I ever predict Shaun Bailey or the Conservatives having a good result in London. Never.
Lots of analysis to do afterwards, methinks.
Khan has been an underwhelming mayor. Turnout is down and a decent chunk of voters are giving their first preferences to no-hopers. If the Tories had taken the election seriously and put up a decent candidate they may well have had a shot.
An outside chance perhaps but London is now very progressive - a relatively young, sophisticated and educated populace is never going to vote Tory willingly.
I fear for the Tories in London.
Are Bexley and Bromley, Ealing and Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow, Havering and Redbridge and West Central not parts of London ?
Bexley, Bromley, Havering are not representative of what London is/(has) transforming(ed) to. These are the least multi-cultural parts of London.
The other boroughs you mentioned have returned poor results for Sadiq - however, the constituency vote was much stronger for Labour I believe. So, yes Sadiq is under-performing as expected.
Bailey will on 1st prefs take Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, South West. Khan has gone backwards THE MOST in North East. If Labour aren't going forward in London against one of the Tories' worst candidates in years then there's no realignment, there's just the Labour party losing it's old heartlands.
Let's see what the Assembly votes are before we start talking about Labour going backwards in London. As things stand, it looks like very little change to 2016.
In the Assembly constituencies so far
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3 Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7 Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2 Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1 Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2 North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6 West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
Not a dramatic change but clearly at least some parts of London have edged right despite all of the criticism of the Conservative candidate and much of the polling. Supposedly london was to be the Labour party's big headline victory to make up for all the rest. Even that is looking a bit 'meh' now - rather like Starmer himself - who really shouldn't try 'angry shouty' man again.
I think we need to see the full result and particularly the transfers before reaching a definitive view on London. Khan has been talked about for so long as a shoo-in (not least on PB) that I suspect many Labour voters will have been tempted to put their first preference with one of the wide range of alternatives on offer, knowing that when it matters their vote will drop into Khan's box.
Let's see how the final Lab v Con vote tally compares with expectations.
I made it clear I was referring to 'some parts of London'. Try dealing with facts rather than your suspicions.
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
I think Dan is having some sort of Collective breakdown
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
If these tales are even halfway true, it’s interesting to speculate what history will remember Boris Johnson as being important for.
Brexit was all sorted inside his first 6 months. Covid inside another 15-18 months. First half a dozen chapters of the memoirs then.
Sometimes I suppose political figures really are defined by something very early in their leadership. Will Boris spend his time chasing a different but elusive legacy to the above two? Or is there something else waiting over the hills for him...
We can be sure that a big part of what he will be remembered for is the reason that eventually removes him from office. The poll tax, sleaze, financial crisis, Brexit, Brexit...for five of the last six. Only Blair has avoided being remembered for why he left office, and given what he is remembered for, that's little consolation.
Over-reaching and overwhelming hubris does indeed tend to precede a fall.
Headline 1 in the Mail : "Ministers say Boris could rule longer than Thatcher's 11 years - We're the true workers' party now !"
Headline 2 : "Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds rent out their £1.2million south London townhouse to raise cash"
If he’s short of money, why doesn’t he just sell it? £1.2 million should keep him going for a few years.
Reading between the lines, it’s mostly the bank’s house, rather than Johnson’s. And he’s struggling to make his repayments at the same time as keeping his girlfriend in the style she expects.
He won’t make much from letting it out, after he’s paid interest. London yields are shite, and it’s not in an ideal location for the corporate rentals market.
I’m not sure people really understand the economics of rental. It works if you don’t have a mortgage or have enough capital to go into it in a big way. Not otherwise.
And it helps to pick the right area as well. London isn’t good because you get, as you rightly say, so little margin after overheads. Round here it’s different. I could easily buy five houses without a mortgage in Rugeley with the money I would get from selling up in Gloucester, or ten by turning into a company and borrowing. That money would keep me very comfortably for the rest of my life even allowing for depreciation and dilapidations.
I also think he’s providing many hostages to fortune by renting. It’s great if you get good tenants. Newsflash, you often don’t. One disgruntled tenant selling a story to the Daily Mirror and he will have a problem.
Good comment from Y. Not quite agreeing on the economics.
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
What i don't understand about this story is the implication that he's just leaving it sitting there at the moment unoccupied? Surely he must be renting it out at the moment? Or do some of his kids live there rent free?
He has a reputation for not being very efficient on financial matters. Butd it may also have been kept empty thanks to health worries post-covid (ie in case he had to resign for health grounds).
It's also the case that the London market went a little beserk - as in unpredictable - during the lockdown. It is naturally a speculators market much of time, even for owner occupiers.
In Boris' case it could make 100k difference to the price compared with a year later.
Rents in London have been reported moving by 10-15% down at one stage afaics. And developments I track as bellwethers have seen much changed conditions.
Though the Stamp Duty holiday may have made it attractive to sell, it disturbed things. But it was a really loopy policy. I think Sir Guy of Gosborne may have done well from it, though with his private vineyard, and possibly Sarah Beeny.
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
No we are not and no it isn't.
Yes there will be an interesting game of chicken going, but not at a playground level. Boris and Sturgeon are both heavy weight top performers. The game will be fun (though deadly serious) for politics watchers, but it won't be at the Laurel and Hardy level.
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
One unexamined aspect of the prospect of IndyRef2 is that Johnson will 100% think he can win it. So for him there is only an upside to having one.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Alistair Darling didn't have the confidence.
Jim Murphy did but he got tired of the physical and verbal abuse. Understandably.
Mr. Fishing, aye. Labour dicking about with the constitutional arrangement because they complacently thought they'd have Celtic fiefdoms forever has not been a great success for either the integrity of the UK or the electoral prospects of the Labour Party.
They were afraid of the nationalists and hoped it would solve the issue.
If a wildcat referendum were held, wouldn't local authorties in Unionist areas of Scotland simply boycott it?
It's only wildcat if BoZo defeats it in court. That's the point
Do you think the current Supreme Court would take the view that this was not a constitutional matter and overturn the precedent of 2014?
Because much though I think of the SC as a joke, that seems a stretch. Heck, they wouldn’t even overrule the HO on Shamima Begum, and that was a decision that was as dodgy as hell in legal terms.
This one, by contrast, is pretty clear cut. Constitutional matters are specifically reserved, and the SNP have previously accepted that. I know Business for Scotland, the National and Joanna Cherry don’t, but they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about (heck, they don’t even realise the SC has jurisdiction over Scotland and can trump the Court of Sessions).
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
That is a better piece, and closer to setting out a path for the future.
An under-analysed part of Labour's jigsaw is the changing nature of the unions. When I was young, Labour was rescued from its left-wing activists by the moderate (in political terms) union 'barons', and the unions played a critical role in rescuing the party when it went astray in the 1980s - for example Blair couldn't have got his hugely symbolic Clause 4 change through without the deals he did behind the scenes with union leaders.
Nowadays, the principal union leaders are part of the problem - the likes of McCluskey and Ward are Corbynites through and through. The unions themselves have lost touch with the views of the 'ordinary worker' and this makes the challenge the party faces even more difficult to remedy.
I think Labour should focus on being the party of workers and jobs, but that also means supporting good businesses, backing r&d and education, and getting the balance right between focusing on welfare and those in work.
Wilson and his many types of aspiration, in other words. I've flogged the theme to death, but culturally, too, he also had as much an ear for the Beatles as Bolsover.
The other trick Johnson could play - and it would be totally cynical but almost certainly successful - is to put a minimum 40% threshold of the total population voting for Sindy before a change could take place, given how dramatic the changes would be.
1979 offers him a precedent.
Of ill repute. That allows the dead to vote no automatically, because the 40% baseline will inevitably be out of date by the actual vote.
The other trick Johnson could play - and it would be totally cynical but almost certainly successful - is to put a minimum 40% threshold of the total population voting for Sindy before a change could take place, given how dramatic the changes would be.
1979 offers him a precedent.
Of ill repute. That allows the dead to vote no automatically, because the 40% baseline will inevitably be out of date by the actual vote.
Yes, I’m aware of that, but when has that stopped Johnson?
Do people actually realise what we're heading for in Scotland. We're literally going to see the police closing down polling stations. When people say the UK Government should go to court to block a referendum this is where it will end up. At which point independence is nailed on. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
I think Dan is having some sort of Collective breakdown
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
One unexamined aspect of the prospect of IndyRef2 is that Johnson will 100% think he can win it. So for him there is only an upside to having one.
There isn't as if he lost it he would go down in history as the Lord North of the 21st century who lost Scotland and broke a 300 year Union, not the author of Brexit which is how he wants history to remember him.
Only if polls showed No on over 55% consistently would Boris even consider it (in which case he would beat Dave's No vote in 2014), otherwise it would be too risky and even if No won closer than 2014 so the Nationalists would demand another vote straight after as the UK government had already been weak by not respecting the fact the 2014 referendum was a once in a generation vote
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
The UKIP collapse in the North Wales looks to have broken towards the Tories but not as overwhelming as in the North of England. So Con were able to flip Vale of Clwyd from -3 to +1 but nothing else. I was surprised Labour held Wrexham. By the end of the campaign, I expected them to hold Delyn and Clwyd South but not so easily.
In the South the swing has been towards Labour with Jane Hutt surviving yet again and CWPS and PP being close. Bridgend went in the other direction but their 2011-2016 Assembly majorities were inflated by Carwyn Jones in comparison to the Westminster elections. So it reversed back to being in the same league of Delyn, Clwyd South, Newport West.
Drakeford is boring. But I think you can benefit from a boring reassuring type of leader when you are in government and you get exposure by virtue of your institutional position. In opposition, you risk not to be noticed with this sort of leader.
For someone broadly of the centre left, the Welsh result has reassured me that Labour's failure nationally has more to do with a vaccine bounce than Starmer's lack of charisma. That is not to say an injection of enthusiasm wouldn't help.
Yesterday however, two posters deduced from the Welsh results that there was a desire for a Corbynista ticket, and that is what won it for Labour in Wales. They extrapolated from their erroneous theory that what Labour need nationally is a Marxist ticket of say Burgon and Long Bailey, and with it the keys to 10 Downing Street.
They are both wrong.
It is massively regional for labour. There are large pockets in the north east where labour is not liked or trusted and has little to offer.
If labour people think this is All vaccine bounce and they need to wait for that to wash through then the faithful will see the error of their ways then you’re dreaming.
The other trick Johnson could play - and it would be totally cynical but almost certainly successful - is to put a minimum 40% threshold of the total population voting for Sindy before a change could take place, given how dramatic the changes would be.
1979 offers him a precedent.
Of ill repute. That allows the dead to vote no automatically, because the 40% baseline will inevitably be out of date by the actual vote.
Yes, I’m aware of that, but when has that stopped Johnson?
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
One unexamined aspect of the prospect of IndyRef2 is that Johnson will 100% think he can win it. So for him there is only an upside to having one.
Trivial to identify Labour's problems as he does. Coming up with plausible, workable, pragmatic solutions to them would be far more interesting, and challenging.
In simple terms Con are now Leave and Lab are now Remain - the leaders of the parties were the main faces of Leave and the ‘Peoples Vote’ after all. Hartlepool seems to indicate that Leavers who were formerly Lab voters don’t mind voting Tory now, & Labour are doing well in southern Remain areas.
I guess the big problem for Labour, if the it is true that voters are staying with their Brexit vote rather than their traditional party, is that Leave won roughly 64% of parliamentary constituencies according to Hanretty, so the Tories have an inbuilt advantage while that stays relevant.
It’s probably true to say it was Starmer’s Brexit policy, a second referendum in which Labour would campaign for Remain, that lost the Red Wall rather than anti Corbyn sentiment, now we know for sure that Leave areas don’t vote for Sir Keir’s Corbyn-less Labour
Have tribalist Labourites not clicked yet that Scottish independence cements a right leaning government in England most likely for the rest of their lives?
That's an interesting question.
Some separatists argue that if it happens, there would be a political realignment in Scotland, with a revival of a party of the right.
While it is true the Little Englanders are an overwhelming right wing majority today, at some point the wheel will turn again, probably as their promises turn to ashes (again)
Yes I think you are right that the SNP’s big tent would eventually crumble and you’d get a more balanced democracy in Scotland post independence. I was talking about England, where I thought you live?
By the way can you explain your Little Englander meme? I’m not sure I fully understand whatever insult you think you’re making.
I don't think anyone understands what "clever" points Scott thinks he's been making this morning. I'm beginning to think it was better when he just posted tweets without comment.
Scott n' paste has a hide like a rhinoceros. He is like the German Army as the Russians reached Berlin. His views must be defended at all costs by fighting to the last tweet.
He's like the German Army *after* the Russians reached Berlin.
Like, that ex-Waffen SS association that fought for justice well into the 1960s.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
You need to have done the work, though, to forensically demolish the SNP wibble on debt, on currency, on borders, on EU membership, on the departure of the Scottish finance sector, on the departure of the nuclear submarines and the jobs that sustain them, on North Sea oil platform and pipeline abandonment costs.
I suspect that there are significant numbers of Scots whose heart is with independence, but whose head knows the SNP has no answers to this raft of issues - and who will not take the risk that "something will be sorted".
It is just so much easier for Boris to play at being de Gaulle and say "Non....".
Yes these points need to be forcibly made and it has been evident from many interviews in the last month that Sturgeon has no answers to them at all. But the missing element in 2014 was the positive case for the Union and we should not make that mistake again.
Despite the arguments that "the campaign for a third referendum would start the day after the second is lost", I'm not so sure. A lost second referendum would give the UK Government the opportunity to move away from appeasement over fear of Independence, and therefore force Scottish voters to make a choice about whether they want Independence to be the ongoing fault line in Scottish politics - or engage more clearly with other matters, and use their votes to influence these.
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
One sure way of ensuring the boil isn't lanced is if the Union wins ugly (again) If you feel confident that BJ and co are capable of making a nuanced, positive case for the Union while coolly and dispassionately laying out the economic realities, well, I hope you're as up for indy ref II as I am.
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
One unexamined aspect of the prospect of IndyRef2 is that Johnson will 100% think he can win it. So for him there is only an upside to having one.
There isn't as if he lost it he would go down in history as the Lord North of the 21st century who lost Scotland and broke a 300 year Union, not the author of Brexit which is how he wants history to remember him.
That's the point. The fat fucker won't entertain the possibility that he's going to lose. He's high on hopium 24/7.
Do you think the current Supreme Court would take the view that this was not a constitutional matter and overturn the precedent of 2014?
I think Nippy wants the spectacle of BoZo arguing in Court that Scots can't "take back control" of their own destiny
But he doesn’t need to. He simply gets the Acting AG to say that Holyrood as a branch of the UK Government has no competency in this matter, and that therefore they cannot hold it as such a matter is decided by the UK as a whole.
However the SNP might try to spin it, that’s the situation they’ve accepted. And Sturgeon herself would probably be happy with that in private.
Thanks for interesting Header. The premise - negotiate the indy deal first and then have the vote - sounds sensible on the face of it but in practice is a non starter. Years of intense, complex, fractious talks would be required to thrash out a deal, and to get there you need the authentic political pressures of having to do it because separation has been democratically mandated. The notion of going through all of this in advance as a kind of roleplay, and with the balance of power artificially stacked in favour of the UK government, which it would be, is somewhat ludicrous. It's a Not Happening Event.
Not if there are two referendums, one to trigger the above procedure and, if approved, the second to ratify the outcome.
Labour figures are now saying that “tackling injustice and inequality” is the party’s mission. But that’s an abstraction to most voters: you need to talk about concrete things that matter to people’s lives - like housing, jobs, pay, services - and what you’ll do about them
OJ finally grows up.....
And property tax reform may now be an open goal. Please.
So what should the UK government do? Well, firstly and obviously it needs to make the case for the Union. In 2014 Cameron and Osborne largely accepted the premise that this was a matter for Scots and stayed out. That was wrong. We are Brits every bit as much as people from Yorkshire or Cornwall. It is right for our government to make a positive case for the Union, to explain the enormous benefits we get from unimpeded access to the UK SM, the ability our financial services have had to grow with the BoE as lender of last resort and an internationally recognised regulator in the FCA.
We should emphasise right now that it is the resources and ingenuity of the UK that has allowed so many Scots to be vaccinated so quickly saving many lives, that it is the financial strength of the UK that has allowed furlough, the giving of grants and the continued funding of public services whilst tax revenues have collapsed.
Where I do have a passing element of agreement with David is that we should not let the Scottish government control the process. In 2014 we had a neverendum which went on for years paralysing the economy and the operation of the Scottish government. It should be made clear that if this is going to happen again it is going to happen quickly, say in 6 months time, and then we move on, together.
The votes are still to be counted. It seems unlikely that the independence parties will have more than 50% of the votes although they are depressingly close to this. If they fall short there is an argument for just saying no but I am moving to the idea that the correct approach is to have a referendum this year and get this nonsense over with.
Your comments suggest that the UK government needs urgently to reject being cast as the English government by the Scottish government. Very much more emphasis on representing Unionists in Scotland.
Good morning, everyone.
Hello Anne.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
Rubbish, Unionist parties ie the Tories, Labour and LDs are currently winning about 52% combined in Scotland to just 48% combined for the SNP and Greens and Alba.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
Labour and Lib Dem voters don't give a flying fuck about the Union. They're just so many muddy middle voters who have yet to be persuaded that independence won't cost them money. This is demonstrated in, for example, Ayr, where a tiny slither of the (completely hopeless and pointless) Lib Dem vote acting tactically would've saved the Tory. They didn't bother. They let the SNP in, they knew that would strength Sturgeon's hand, they did it anyway.
So what if the Union is held together mainly by money, Scotland joined the Union in the first place in 1707 because it was bankrupted by the Darien scheme and needed funds from Westminster not out of any great love of England.
In 2014 it was hard headed fiscally sensible voters who are proud Scots but know the Union boosts the Scottish economy who got No to 55% (and mainly vote Labour and LD) not emotional British patriot Unionists who only amount to 25-30% of Scots and almost all vote Tory and mostly backed Brexit
You are certainly going to bring a new dimension to your town council meetings.
In the unlikely event that the Supreme Court ruled that the British government had no power to block a referendum, then it would take place. There would be no question of police or troops stopping people from voting.
If the Supreme Court ruled against such a referendum taking place, then local authorities would have every reason to boycott it, if Holyrood pressed ahead with it regardless.
But he doesn’t need to. He simply gets the Acting AG to say that Holyrood as a branch of the UK Government has no competency in this matter, and that therefore they cannot hold it as such a matter is decided by the UK as a whole.
I like a lot of David Herdson's pieces but I have to admit I completely disagree on this. Referendums on national independence ought to be understood as a once in a generation idea. After all they are not things that can be easily undone. There was a referendum on Scottish independence less than seven years ago so why would it be sensible to have another one now? Brexit? Well yes a clear majority in Scotland voted to remain in the EU but still I would be looking for an overwhelming mandate to even countenance another vote on cessation at this stage. It's pretty obvious that the Scottish result has not provided that. As Neil Oliver said Scotland is split down the middle. Those who believe the SNP have a mandate should follow the logic of that. It means that you can have a referendum every time there is a pro independence majority in Holyrood. Just keep holding referendums until you get the right result. We ought to have more respect for the union and in fact more respect for Scotland. I feel very sorry for those like my brother who live in Scotland and have to deal with this rather than the bread and butter issues that ought to be debated. When will people start questioning the SNP’s patriotism? Yes, I’m serious. If you really care about Scotland why would you want to hold another inevitably divisive referendum just a few years after another very divisive referendum. How concerned are these fanatics with the wellbeing of Scotland’s economy and civic society?
Mentioning Harold Wilson is rather apt. A supposedly cunning political operator it was of course Wilson who brought the referendum into British politics. Not for any high minded reason but in order to resolve a problem within his own party. For all the abuse hurled at David Cameron he was following a precedent already set. He also didn’t realise that many people had seen the same trick pulled before and wouldn’t be persuaded.
I agree that the thorny choices faced by an independent Scotland should be set out clearly in advance but seems absurd when the current prime minister was front and centre of the shallow Brexit campaign. Is he going to do a mea culpa over the lack of detail presented to people in 2016. How can a government that has denied the need for a border between the UK and Ireland start stressing the need for customs checks on the Tweed? Be careful about stoking allegations of bullying and project fear. As I’ve repeatedly said the UK government’s approach to the post-Brexit relationship with the EU has undermined the union between England and Scotland.
On Dominic Sandbrook, he makes a convincing case in his book Seasons in the Sun: Battle for Britain 1974-1979 that the worst Government we've ever had was not Callaghan's from 1976-1979 (which he views as the foothills of Thatcherism) but Wilson's of 1974-1976, which was absolutely dire.
Comments
That the UK leaving the EU makes it more difficult practically for Scotland to leave the UK, is simply another illustration of the current government’s dedication to protecting the Union.
A history professor friend of mine says that he's somewhat ostracised in academia because of his supposed right wing leanings, though he's always struck me as pretty centrist. Shows how lefty much of academia is.
The Tories poll about 20% in Scotland which, based on the 2011 Census returns and the turmoil that has transpired in the intervening decade, probably represents the approximate percentage of the Scottish population that still identifies as British.
An Anglo-Welsh Britain might still be salvageable, but the Union with Scotland is over. Done. They've given up on us. It's just a matter of time now.
If the SNP and Greens and Alba were on about 60%+ combined you might have a point, they are not
I believe the forgotten Mr Cameron (who?) rented his out. As did Jeremy Hunt iirc.
And noting that a small portfolio for spreading risk is important. Big mistake that many make is only having one rental - and the regulation system (esp. in London) is setup to make that difficult.
He could do a decent sized mortgage on it for a reasonable monthly sum - maybe £500k for 600 a month, and it would cover itself running cost wise and make some money. Depending on current mortgage status.
The killer will be regulation costs. The Osborne taxes particularly slug higher rate taxpayers with a mortgage personally-owned rental. And a company is several k a year to run.
It says it will rent for 40k a year (ish as a normal rental). Which will displace the need to spend out of other income to maintain it, plus a mortgage if there is one, plus 2nd house taxes if he keeps it empty (poss. exemption if it is still 1st house given the other is a life-over-the-job).
Plus it will be a capital play again, if the property taxes across the country are not properly rebalanced.
It will carry a Carrie-cost when they move back in ("Ugh! Ex-rental!"), and he could lose his job and be in rental himself.
Worth it? Maybe, after advice. Or sell. I'd sell, or rent to a trusted party.
And as pointed out, I am not sure that the ethics of political stunters will stop them using the house and exploiting a tenant for politics. The media are really shitty as we know.
Bexley and Bromley (Con hold by 27.2%): Con +6.6 Lab +1.3
Brent and Harrow (Lab hold with new candidate by 12.4): Lab -0.1 Con -0.7
Ealing and Hillingdon (Lab hold by 3.9%): Lab -2 Con +2
Havering & Redbridge (Con hold by 9.1): Con +8.3 Lab +0.1
Lambeth and Southwark (Lab hold with new candidate by 29.3 over the Greens): Lab -2.6 Greens +6 Con -2
North East (Lab hold with new candidate by 31.4 over the Greens): Lab -7.5 Greens +7.5 Con +4.6
West Central (Con hold by 1.6%): Con -5.3 Lab +2.6
I had been expecting a Labour bloodbath.
Labour's success has cemented my view that in the UK at least, incumbency benefits during a crisis. Post that crisis Llafur's pandemic response will be called out, as will the Westminster Government's.
Equally, they now have no choice but to own everything going wrong going forward. Nine years and counting since they were in coalition with another major party.
But there are some big old swings needed to take those seats, 5% only getting two.
https://unherd.com/2021/05/labour-isnt-working/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=7fb02e0243&mc_eid=836634e34b
The arguments against Independence seem (to me) impossible to counter. There is obviously a danger of the "heart over head" line winning the day, but i can also see (in theory anyway) that there is a lot to be said for doing a second referendum whilst the balance is still against.
It is possible that the real danger of Independence happening is that the lance isn't boiled (again), the issues aren't addressed, and that in future support rises with demographic change to a point at which the split happens because there is almost too much embarrassment in backing down.
Quite amusing really.
A conviction leader
A project that can be presented simply
Decay in the other party.
Labour lack all three. The Tories have all three (until the wheels come off).
We have never recently had two top quality such leaders vying for the same position. It has gone: Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Johnson none ever facing the highest quality opposition.
Sadly SKS is not it; if he was political genius he would not have got himself into yesterday's mess, nor failed to extricate himself in that terrible pooled interview.
Among all the qualities on display (or not) yesterday an important one is the quality of projection. The four listed above in interview are/were capable of seeming to address the nation and/or the individual watcher rather than the interviewer. T May in interview generally seemed to be having a fight with herself, SKS is having a rather intense discussion in a cross between a tetchy seminar and interview. Boris is a performing seal.
In 2014 it was hard headed fiscally sensible voters who are proud Scots but know the Union boosts the Scottish economy who got No to 55% (and mainly vote Labour and LD) not emotional British patriot Unionists who only amount to 25-30% of Scots and almost all vote Tory and mostly backed Brexit
Of course, Canada is in a better position than we are, because it has a working federal structure. We should learn from that at least.
Owen Jones 🌹
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@OwenJones84
Labour figures are now saying that “tackling injustice and inequality” is the party’s mission. But that’s an abstraction to most voters: you need to talk about concrete things that matter to people’s lives - like housing, jobs, pay, services - and what you’ll do about them
OJ finally grows up.....
I was surprised Labour held Wrexham. By the end of the campaign, I expected them to hold Delyn and Clwyd South but not so easily.
In the South the swing has been towards Labour with Jane Hutt surviving yet again and CWPS and PP being close.
Bridgend went in the other direction but their 2011-2016 Assembly majorities were inflated by Carwyn Jones in comparison to the Westminster elections. So it reversed back to being in the same league of Delyn, Clwyd South, Newport West.
Drakeford is boring. But I think you can benefit from a boring reassuring type of leader when you are in government and you get exposure by virtue of your institutional position. In opposition, you risk not to be noticed with this sort of leader.
Does anyone know if there are any published figures for this in the UK? Do we know, for example, what proportion of those who received first doses 12 or more weeks ago have received a second dose?
Bexley and Bromley 16.1 %
Brent and Harrow 5.2 %
Ealing and Hillingdon 7.9 %
Havering & Redbridge 15.7 %
Lambeth and Southwark 3.5 %
North East 5.0 %
West Central 5.0 %
Best Conservative results in the UKIPpy areas, which isn't surprising. But except in North East (Hackney/Islington/Waltham Forest), the Conservative gain is quite a lot less than the UKIP loss. (RefUK generally got 3 % or so.)
The best way to secure the Union - should Perfidious Posh so desire - is to have this vote now and win it. Remain is clear favourite if it happens next year. If it's denied, however, the grievance will build and will look justified.
"They're a one party Tory state and we can't stand the Tories. They've dragged us out of the EU against our will. Now they won't even allow us to vote on our own destiny. FFS!"
Upshot - when the vote does finally come it will be Leave.
Let's see how the final Lab v Con vote tally compares with expectations.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1390962090739896321
Were I a Labour strategist or policy researcher I'd be looking to answer the above three questions and block out everything else for the next year. Stay on those three core messages.
Mentioning Harold Wilson is rather apt. A supposedly cunning political operator it was of course Wilson who brought the referendum into British politics. Not for any high minded reason but in order to resolve a problem within his own party. For all the abuse hurled at David Cameron he was following a precedent already set. He also didn’t realise that many people had seen the same trick pulled before and wouldn’t be persuaded.
I agree that the thorny choices faced by an independent Scotland should be set out clearly in advance but seems absurd when the current prime minister was front and centre of the shallow Brexit campaign. Is he going to do a mea culpa over the lack of detail presented to people in 2016. How can a government that has denied the need for a border between the UK and Ireland start stressing the need for customs checks on the Tweed? Be careful about stoking allegations of bullying and project fear. As I’ve repeatedly said the UK government’s approach to the post-Brexit relationship with the EU has undermined the union between England and Scotland.
I don’t quite get the fuss about allowing or blocking referendums either. I don’t have an objection the Scottish government holding an advisory referendum on independence but the UK government should make clear that it has no obligation to pay attention to such a vote. There is too much talk about Quebec where the second referendum supposedly killed it off but what about Catalonia where they held an unauthorised vote and it went nowhere?
I’m not saying that the lack of an outright SNP majority should lead to complacency. At best it will be met with a sigh of relief and at worst triumphalism. But a situation where fifty percent of people get up in the morning to campaign for independence and the rest do nothing is not a good scenario. Devolution was supposed to kill nationalism stone dead. It didn’t. The 2014 referendum was supposed to kill it. It didn’t. And don’t forget the SNP won 56 out of 59 Westminster seats in 2015 BEFORE the Brexit vote. Like a marriage a political union needs constant work. Start improving transport connections between England and Scotland. Start challenging the notion of major cultural differences and misconceptions on both sides. Unfortunately none of this can probably be done under the current prime minister who’s unlikely to be going anywhere soon.
An honest Remain campaign would have had to say the real reason for staying is that leaving is literally impossible. But that would have given the game away too obviously. The rest is history!
Yesterday however, two posters deduced from the Welsh results that there was a desire for a Corbynista ticket, and that is what won it for Labour in Wales. They extrapolated from their erroneous theory that what Labour need nationally is a Marxist ticket of say Burgon and Long Bailey, and with it the keys to 10 Downing Street.
They are both wrong.
Nowadays, the principal union leaders are part of the problem - the likes of McCluskey and Ward are Corbynites through and through. The unions themselves have lost touch with the views of the 'ordinary worker' and this makes the challenge the party faces even more difficult to remedy.
Part of being a Unionist for many voters is that you think non-nationalist politics - in terms of tax and spend policies, etc - are more important to them than the question of independence. So it's completely logical for many Labour and Lib Dem voters to refuse to vote tactically to support the Tories, while many SNP voters will vote SNP despite SNP policies on taxation and spending, because independence is so important to them.
I mean - seriously? Given the penalties for contempt of court, it seems to put it mildly improbable.
It’s not Labour who see Burgon and Wrong Daily as a dream ticket. It’s the Tories and Liberal Democrats.
Interesting polling from Spain - just a week after the Conservative win in Madrid and the socialist central government decides on motorway charges, new tax rises generally and we have the first poll in months with gives the Conservatives a small national lead.
1979 offers him a precedent.
In Boris' case it could make 100k difference to the price compared with a year later.
Rents in London have been reported moving by 10-15% down at one stage afaics. And developments I track as bellwethers have seen much changed conditions.
Though the Stamp Duty holiday may have made it attractive to sell, it disturbed things. But it was a really loopy policy. I think Sir Guy of Gosborne may have done well from it, though with his private vineyard, and possibly Sarah Beeny.
If it got in through a hung parliament, and didn't do anything stupid, I think it'd probably win an outright 2-3 years later.
Yes there will be an interesting game of chicken going, but not at a playground level. Boris and Sturgeon are both heavy weight top performers. The game will be fun (though deadly serious) for politics watchers, but it won't be at the Laurel and Hardy level.
Jim Murphy did but he got tired of the physical and verbal abuse. Understandably.
Because much though I think of the SC as a joke, that seems a stretch. Heck, they wouldn’t even overrule the HO on Shamima Begum, and that was a decision that was as dodgy as hell in legal terms.
This one, by contrast, is pretty clear cut. Constitutional matters are specifically reserved, and the SNP have previously accepted that. I know Business for Scotland, the National and Joanna Cherry don’t, but they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about (heck, they don’t even realise the SC has jurisdiction over Scotland and can trump the Court of Sessions).
I can't see why Boris can't pluck out Tory MSPs from the Scottish Parliament for some ministerial portfolios.
Ruth sat in cabinet without portfolio.
How he's getting 1-2%, God only knows!
Only if polls showed No on over 55% consistently would Boris even consider it (in which case he would beat Dave's No vote in 2014), otherwise it would be too risky and even if No won closer than 2014 so the Nationalists would demand another vote straight after as the UK government had already been weak by not respecting the fact the 2014 referendum was a once in a generation vote
It is massively regional for labour. There are large pockets in the north east where labour is not liked or trusted and has little to offer.
If labour people think this is All vaccine bounce and they need to wait for that to wash through then the faithful will see the error of their ways then you’re dreaming.
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1390965947775782912
You'd need to give them peerages.
I guess the big problem for Labour, if the it is true that voters are staying with their Brexit vote rather than their traditional party, is that Leave won roughly 64% of parliamentary constituencies according to Hanretty, so the Tories have an inbuilt advantage while that stays relevant.
It’s probably true to say it was Starmer’s Brexit policy, a second referendum in which Labour would campaign for Remain, that lost the Red Wall rather than anti Corbyn sentiment, now we know for sure that Leave areas don’t vote for Sir Keir’s Corbyn-less Labour
Like, that ex-Waffen SS association that fought for justice well into the 1960s.
That's the point. The fat fucker won't entertain the possibility that he's going to lose. He's high on hopium 24/7.
However the SNP might try to spin it, that’s the situation they’ve accepted. And Sturgeon herself would probably be happy with that in private.
But who's voting coalition will be damaged more?
If the Supreme Court ruled against such a referendum taking place, then local authorities would have every reason to boycott it, if Holyrood pressed ahead with it regardless.