Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Rumor of the day: the Emergent Bioscience AZ and J&J vaccines that have not been FDA approved due to contamination have been shipped to Canada, Japan and the EU in contravention of US export controls and are waiting on dispensation from the US before becoming available.
I think you are probably muddling two things.
I would be VERY surprised if contaminated vaccine had not been destroyed
Inspired by and to echo Casino. There is one big difference that might explain the difference between Labour in England And Wales.
In Wales, Labour have been very comfortable with Welsh national Identity and the politics that go with it. The red dragon has always been part of the left in Wales. It’s obvious.
Whereas in Scotland the union-independence debate has complicated the issue and split Labour front Scottish identity and the Saltire. In England the previous shenanigans of the far right coupled with Brexit have seriously distanced the left for this sort of politics. On,y when Labour coupled itself with the local identity ( Manchester) did it succeed.
The best thing Labour can do now is to break up what's left of the UK party and found fraternal national parties. Labour does very well in Wales and very badly in England and Scotland. Create wholly separate registrations and let the parties do their own thing.
As long as there is a compact to have one whip in Westminster, they will be able to win more seats by saying different things to the different electorates.
It needs to solve the problem in England. There are plenty of regions that do not have a voice. For example, the south fully taken for granted by the Tories for decades is ripe for the plucking. There is a southern identity.
Is there? Other than jokes between the two I've never noticed much actual difference between north and south identities (the midlands tends to get overlooked). More locally focused ones perhaps, in the north, less so in the south.
Agreed it's taken for granted, but if that is going to bite them I dont think it will for awhile.
We seem to be on the hunt for differences rather than similarities these days, and of course if you go searching for it you will find it where none was before. Tell people they are different and they come to believe it - even Scotland and England are not as far apart on most issues as each suggests.
Sit on a bus and start a conversation with the person next to you in the north and the south and the reactions are very different indeed.
I remember my Scottish father going to stay with mum's long-expat cousin in Orpington. He was out in her garden doing some tidying up and started talking to the neighbour over the fence at the back end as he did at home. Cousin-in-law was absolutely astounded - she'd been there 30+ years and never even spoken to him.
Though such cultural schisms can occur between G1 and EH1..
Indeed, it's the Morningside/Bearsden equivalent of the what-to-put-on-chips and weans/bairns test. Footie doesn't work at that level either.
Ah good old Waverley, yes Farnham is ripe for a Lib Dem takeover, as is Guildford and Winchester. These seats would have flipped had it not been for Corbyn standing for Labour.
I have never seen such visceral hatred for the Tories in any election apart from 2019, in these areas.
Why ? Why is there a hatred of the Tories ?
I think a combination of being very anti-Brexit but also a lot of them feel like the Tory Party isn't really representing them anymore, I'd call them Cameronites around here.
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
All those Tory election posters of Alex Salmond picking the English voters' pockets etc. Who would have thought it?
At least it showed him only picking their pockets. Imagine what they would show now...
They would never be able to decide on the messaging. Bandit or martyr?
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Agree. I would only add that quite a significant proportion of the home counties/southern 'respectable' middle classes really don't approve of Boris Johnson for a mixture of reasons. Theresa May types, I guess. I suspect many of those would return to the Tories once Boris is gone.
It's a demographic that's almost certainly over-represented on here, but there is a chunk of Conservatives who just can't stomach this iteration of the Conservative party. Due to the lies, the pork barrelling and the dishonour. (Yes, they've all been there before, but not to this degree.) Kind of a UK version of the Lincon Project people.
The median leave vote in 2016 was 53 %; it's a shame the bar charts aren't grouped around that. The Conservative advance really was focussed on heavy Leave areas, where there were UKIP votes to hoover up. Elsewhere- whisper it- they did fall back a bit.
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
Mmm .... SKS will look like Jimmy Saville surrounded by young girls in skimpy tops in an old rerun of TOTP
We agree on the approach, but SKS looks grey and ancient. He's not the right casting.
He's older than Boris. He's older than Nicola. He's even older than Ed Davey. And he looks even older & greyer than he is. Boris and Nicola exude energy & confidence. SKS doesn't.
Politics is also about ruthlessness. SKS has got to go. Sorry.
Age isn't very important in generating enthusiasm. Corbyn. Sanders. Even Biden, though mainly as the anti-Trump. But you need energy and confidence (which Corbyn and Sanders had and indeed have), coupled with confidence that they won't enthusiastically steer the ship onto the rocks (not so much).
Biden & Sanders & Trump are old. US politics has become a gerontocracy. It is not a fair comparison.
My point is Labour should re-set the debate on intergenerational fairness.
And a much more youthful leader will really help to do this -- a visible pictogram of what is happening.
When Labour did this re-setting before, and came back from opposition (Wilson, Blair), the leader was in his forties.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Do you really think support is built up by social media I find that difficult to believe.
In this case, yes. There is only one local newspaper covering one of the three main areas. The Facebook groups have 10K+ members. The LibDem leader is all over them, every day, offering helpful advice and useful information, responding to queries, discussing long-term prospects, with barely a hint of party politics - it's Focus leaflets translated into a daily dose of helpfulness. People appreciate it hugely since they are otherwise largely in the dark about what's happening locally, and at election time when he does introduce some mild party politics, hundreds of people respond with enthusiastic plugs - far more than the rather small local LD membership. It's the modern version of what I did with email in Broxtowe, when I built up an active readership of around 15% of households, many of them non-Labour,
It must be exhausting - he has a full time job and is now on 3 councils, leading two of them.
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
Mmm .... SKS will look like Jimmy Saville surrounded by young girls in skimpy tops in an old rerun of TOTP
We agree on the approach, but SKS looks grey and ancient. He's not the right casting.
He's older than Boris. He's older than Nicola. He's even older than Ed Davey. And he looks even older & greyer than he is. Boris and Nicola exude energy & confidence. SKS doesn't.
Politics is also about ruthlessness. SKS has got to go. Sorry.
Age isn't very important in generating enthusiasm. Corbyn. Sanders. Even Biden, though mainly as the anti-Trump. But you need energy and confidence (which Corbyn and Sanders had and indeed have), coupled with confidence that they won't enthusiastically steer the ship onto the rocks (not so much).
Biden & Sanders & Trump are old. US politics has become a gerontocracy. It is not a fair comparison.
My point is Labour should re-set the debate on intergenerational fairness.
And a much more youthful leader will really help to do this -- a visible pictogram of what is happening.
When Labour did this re-setting before, and came back from opposition (Wilson, Blair), the leader was in his forties.
Young, politically speaking.
Sorry, SKS will not do.
Attlee was 62. Equally, he had been in government and in effect the Prime Minister for domestic matters until two months before.
Ah good old Waverley, yes Farnham is ripe for a Lib Dem takeover, as is Guildford and Winchester. These seats would have flipped had it not been for Corbyn standing for Labour.
I have never seen such visceral hatred for the Tories in any election apart from 2019, in these areas.
Why ? Why is there a hatred of the Tories ?
I think a combination of being very anti-Brexit but also a lot of them feel like the Tory Party isn't really representing them anymore, I'd call them Cameronites around here.
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
Many older conservative people also defer, not to Churchill or Cameron, but to our greatest ever peacetime prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Everything Thatcher ever stood for has been completely junked.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Do you really think support is built up by social media I find that difficult to believe.
In this case, yes. There is only one local newspaper covering one of the three main areas. The Facebook groups have 10K+ members. The LibDem leader is all over them, every day, offering helpful advice and useful information, responding to queries, discussing long-term prospects, with barely a hint of party politics - it's Focus leaflets translated into a daily dose of helpfulness. People appreciate it hugely since they are otherwise largely in the dark about what's happening locally, and at election time when he does introduce some mild party politics, hundreds of people respond with enthusiastic plugs - far more than the rather small local LD membership. It's the modern version of what I did with email in Broxtowe, when I built up an active readership of around 15% of households, many of them non-Labour,
It must be exhausting - he has a full time job and is now on 3 councils, leading two of them.
This is the sort of illuminating comment about politics-as-she-is-done from you (and others on PB) that I really appreciate.
Ah good old Waverley, yes Farnham is ripe for a Lib Dem takeover, as is Guildford and Winchester. These seats would have flipped had it not been for Corbyn standing for Labour.
I have never seen such visceral hatred for the Tories in any election apart from 2019, in these areas.
Why ? Why is there a hatred of the Tories ?
I think a combination of being very anti-Brexit but also a lot of them feel like the Tory Party isn't really representing them anymore, I'd call them Cameronites around here.
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
Many older conservative people also defer, not to Churchill or Cameron, but to our greatest ever peacetime prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Everything Thatcher ever stood for has been completely junked.
Yes very good point, Thatcher is popular around these parts too. I say "these parts", what I mean is this is where I'm from, I don't live there now.
And to the shock of some of the "woke watchers", that's not a huge issue around here either. I think it's one of not liking Brexit and the move to the left, which many of this lot don't like at all.
Yesterday we discussed the poor design of the London Mayor ballot paper. In particular the instructions around columns A and B when the candidates were listed in two columns. It was suggested one test of whether voters were actually confused would be the number of spoiled ballots, especially those with too many X's. Helpfully, these have been detailed on the official return. (Hat-tip to countbinface.com for the picture.)
The number of ballot papers rejected on first preference votes was as follows:- (a) Unmarked 18,071 (b) Uncertain 8,672 (c) Voting for too many 87,214 (d) Writing identifying voter 167 (e) Want of official mark 77 Total 114,201
The number of ballot papers rejected on second preference votes was as follows:- (a) Uncertain 965 (b) Voting for too many 7,037 Total 8,002
In particular, those voters who expressed no first preference or who voted for too many candidates were very likely confused by the ballot paper. That is 112,232 voters.
In addition, it was acceptable and logical for supporters of Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey in particular to cast only a first preference vote. This was done by 319,978 voters. However, it is arguable that the 265,343 voters who cast the same first and second preference votes misunderstood either the process or the ballot paper.
So the number of rejected ballots in the Mayoral Election was a lot.
This is not the first time. There were 500k rejected ballots across Mayoral and Assembly elections in 2004.
Anyone know what steps were taken after the other times?
It seems that in London the lesson of 2004 was not learnt. Unless there was a huge "spoil your vote" campaign.
How many votes were rejected in Scotland this time, and have lessons been learnt there from 2007?
I may have been a tad harsh on those who cocked up voting on the form, as it is badly designed, and it is not right to disenfranchise someone for that reason. I do wonder what the baseline for rejected ballots is ( all elections in U.K.) and whether this is sufficiently far worse to justify heads rolling, or at least some severe censure and not repeating the mistake. Is it possible that people believed that it is ok to vote for the same person twice to reinforce their vote?
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
Mmm .... SKS will look like Jimmy Saville surrounded by young girls in skimpy tops in an old rerun of TOTP
We agree on the approach, but SKS looks grey and ancient. He's not the right casting.
He's older than Boris. He's older than Nicola. He's even older than Ed Davey. And he looks even older & greyer than he is. Boris and Nicola exude energy & confidence. SKS doesn't.
Politics is also about ruthlessness. SKS has got to go. Sorry.
He’s only two years older than the PM at 58.
Still young when we regularly hear of septuagenarian politicians.
The median leave vote in 2016 was 53 %; it's a shame the bar charts aren't grouped around that. The Conservative advance really was focussed on heavy Leave areas, where there were UKIP votes to hoover up. Elsewhere- whisper it- they did fall back a bit.
That's similar to Matthew Parris' article from yesterday. His vision of the Conservative Party is one that should appeal to economically successful areas, and which should ignore economically unsuccessful ones. To him "Red Wall" voters are the wrong kind of supporters.
Oddly enough, people like Sir Ian Gilmour were criticising the Conservatives of the Seventies for "retreating behind the privet hedge", but that's where some people want the Conservatives to be.
From PA Media on Twitter. @PA 2m #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will carry out a reshuffle of his shadow cabinet team on Sunday, the PA news agency understands
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Yes but it's easy to pick at occasional examples and forget they are not the norm - a simple scroll through all the results from southern England yesterday reveals more Tory gains than for LD or Labour albeit less dramatic than in the north.
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Western drugs policy has been a mess for decades, but there’s now many vested interests in keeping the ‘war on drugs’ going - even as it’s been shown to be a massive failure.
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
Interesting re the Opinium, am I right in thinking the Tory vote was lower than their predictions (by 4%?) any ideas why that happened? I used to think Wales had shy Tory voters who said Labour but voted blue?
Wales has a strong muscle memory of its Labour-voting heritage. The pencil poises over Conservative - then reverts to putting an X against Labour. Still, the Blues had their best result in Wales on Thursday. Just at the expense of UKIP, LibDems and PC rather than Labour.
That doesn’t really wash as an explanation, given that the same could have been said of areas like the North East.
The explanation is that voters didn’t feel like giving governments a kicking when said governments were in the middle of potentially saving their lives through the vaccination programme.
Inspired by and to echo Casino. There is one big difference that might explain the difference between Labour in England And Wales.
In Wales, Labour have been very comfortable with Welsh national Identity and the politics that go with it. The red dragon has always been part of the left in Wales. It’s obvious.
Whereas in Scotland the union-independence debate has complicated the issue and split Labour front Scottish identity and the Saltire. In England the previous shenanigans of the far right coupled with Brexit have seriously distanced the left for this sort of politics. On,y when Labour coupled itself with the local identity ( Manchester) did it succeed.
The best thing Labour can do now is to break up what's left of the UK party and found fraternal national parties. Labour does very well in Wales and very badly in England and Scotland. Create wholly separate registrations and let the parties do their own thing.
As long as there is a compact to have one whip in Westminster, they will be able to win more seats by saying different things to the different electorates.
It needs to solve the problem in England. There are plenty of regions that do not have a voice. For example, the south fully taken for granted by the Tories for decades is ripe for the plucking. There is a southern identity.
Is there? Other than jokes between the two I've never noticed much actual difference between north and south identities (the midlands tends to get overlooked). More locally focused ones perhaps, in the north, less so in the south.
Agreed it's taken for granted, but if that is going to bite them I dont think it will for awhile.
There are some lovely green shoots. In truest, of true blue Worthing, Labour took half of the county seats this week.
Worthing won't be blue for too much longer.
It's going the way of Hove.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxfors/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
I wouldn’t be so sure. I guess we’ll see.
Fair comment - and remember the red wall breakthrough has been a desperately slow process.
I am more and more convinced that Labour is suffering from the same identity crisis that has hit centre-left parties all over the democratic world since the deindustrialisation and the collapse of Communism. However, that was masked to a large extent in the 90s and 00s for Labour by the political genius of Tony Blair and the Conservative mistakes that he ruthlessly exploited.
From that, it follows that Labour's best strategy is to find another political genius, and wait for the Conservatives to screw up. Not a very satisfying one, and maybe very long-term, but maybe more effective than targeting whatever micro-sliver of the electoral is fashionable that week.
Blair is a 'once in a century' phenomenon.
Early Blair -- with his boyish good looks, his nous, his ability to project warmth and compassion, his powerful communication skills, his intelligence & his articulacy -- was just a political magician. We'll never see his like again ...
I would agree with all of that, except Blair's intelligence, which I never rated.
So we're saying that Labour needs to give up on power till 2097?
If I was in charge of Labour .... well.
Labour have been forced onto profitless territory (Leave or Remain, Union or Independence) by very, very canny opponents (Boris and Nicola). Labour need to get off this terrain ... and fast.
Labour needs a really smart politician to force the political debate back onto much, much more favourable grounds.
I would probably say inter-generational fairness is what Labour should be talking a lot about -- house ownership, life chances, wealth and career progression amongst the young and middle aged. These generations clearly have been shafted by the Boomers, who now expect free social care in their declining years!!
And COVID is a natural entry point -- it is the young who have been really shafted by COVID. It is outrageous that young people are being charged 9k in fees and they can't even get to University.
I would get rid of Disaster Starmer and appoint a young (40s), articulate leader as a standard bearer for a younger-generation.
The leader should be some of the people that Starmer is busy sacking like Rayner (age 41) or Nandy (41). Labour could build an election-winning coalition by trying to get the votes of almost everyone under 50.
Labour certainly can't win on the topics the Tories and the SNP want to talk about. And Labour themselves seem to want to talk about topics that are not broad enough to build an election-winning coalition, like trans rights or BLM.
Remember Quebec is still part of Canada, though it hasn't signed the Canadian constitution. Federal politicians just stopped talking about and making it an issue. Sure, the desire for an independent Quebec is still there, but it is not dominating the Canadian political discourse.
In politics, you don't have to accept your opponents framing of the debate.
Obviously, this needs a bold, clever and imaginative politician to drive the debate onto better grounds & Disaster Starmer completely lacks the skill-set.
As I said right at the beginning, Starmer may be worthy but he is not nimble enough to beat Boris or Nicola.
A very good analysis.
I am keeping a low profile as my anecdota re: Wales turned out to be wholly inaccurate, although I do still believe Labour's success was due to incumbency during a crisis narrative rather than Drakeford's status as a Rock God.
Until the Rayner sacking I was still on board with Starmer for the reason stated above (and his low profile didn't worry me, as Drakeford has proven one can be totally devoid of charisma and still win an election) but the demotion of Rayner and Nandy demonstrates he has zero political awareness.
If I was Johnson I would pencil in a July 2021 GE. A landslide, whilst riding high in the polls and before the post Covid crows come home to roost. According to the Guardian some Tory MPs are already exciteably talking about that prospect. Time for Boris to break out the hi-viz again?
Ah good old Waverley, yes Farnham is ripe for a Lib Dem takeover, as is Guildford and Winchester. These seats would have flipped had it not been for Corbyn standing for Labour.
I have never seen such visceral hatred for the Tories in any election apart from 2019, in these areas.
Why ? Why is there a hatred of the Tories ?
I think a combination of being very anti-Brexit but also a lot of them feel like the Tory Party isn't really representing them anymore, I'd call them Cameronites around here.
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
Many older conservative people also defer, not to Churchill or Cameron, but to our greatest ever peacetime prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Everything Thatcher ever stood for has been completely junked.
Yes very good point, Thatcher is popular around these parts too. I say "these parts", what I mean is this is where I'm from, I don't live there now.
And to the shock of some of the "woke watchers", that's not a huge issue around here either. I think it's one of not liking Brexit and the move to the left, which many of this lot don't like at all.
I can't think this is a unique occurrence.
When these voters do not like the conservatives for some reason, they simply do not vote. The depth of the tory devastation of 1997 was partly because conservatives did not turn up.
In 18 months time we will have the spectacle of the tories desperately trying to tell bedrock voters why they should stay loyal even though they are getting hit for six on taxes, consumer prices are soaring and they STILL can't go to the Marbella Beach Club on holiday.
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
Mmm .... SKS will look like Jimmy Saville surrounded by young girls in skimpy tops in an old rerun of TOTP
We agree on the approach, but SKS looks grey and ancient. He's not the right casting.
He's older than Boris. He's older than Nicola. He's even older than Ed Davey. And he looks even older & greyer than he is. Boris and Nicola exude energy & confidence. SKS doesn't.
Politics is also about ruthlessness. SKS has got to go. Sorry.
He’s only two years older than the PM at 58.
Still young when we regularly hear of septuagenarian politicians.
My point is that it is an advantage to be different, when you are looking to change the debate.
If SKS was a political titan, with great electioneering skills, then of course his age would not be a big deal ....
Perhaps the way to phrase this is -- what is SKS's unique selling point ?
Sorry to go all bigjohnowls, but I cannot see any advantage that SKS actually has -- especially over Nicola & Boris who are the people he is compared against.
True, SKS is probably more intelligent than Nicola and Boris, but they are not candidates for an All Souls College Fellowship.
Yesterday we discussed the poor design of the London Mayor ballot paper. In particular the instructions around columns A and B when the candidates were listed in two columns. It was suggested one test of whether voters were actually confused would be the number of spoiled ballots, especially those with too many X's. Helpfully, these have been detailed on the official return. (Hat-tip to countbinface.com for the picture.)
The number of ballot papers rejected on first preference votes was as follows:- (a) Unmarked 18,071 (b) Uncertain 8,672 (c) Voting for too many 87,214 (d) Writing identifying voter 167 (e) Want of official mark 77 Total 114,201
The number of ballot papers rejected on second preference votes was as follows:- (a) Uncertain 965 (b) Voting for too many 7,037 Total 8,002
In particular, those voters who expressed no first preference or who voted for too many candidates were very likely confused by the ballot paper. That is 112,232 voters.
In addition, it was acceptable and logical for supporters of Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey in particular to cast only a first preference vote. This was done by 319,978 voters. However, it is arguable that the 265,343 voters who cast the same first and second preference votes misunderstood either the process or the ballot paper.
Yes - awful ergonomics.
You actually have to vote twice across two different "column A"s. My quick reaction is that the biggest columns on the page are A and B.
How are these things designed / regulated? Is this another Electoral Commission fail, or is it designed by the Authority "Elections Department"?
I'm not sure who is responsible for designing the ballot paper. It might even have been signed off by the major parties for all I know. One fix would have been simply to place each candidate's party label on the same line as their name, rather than underneath. This would allow all the candidates to fit in the same column.
And why use A and B to describe the first and second preference boxes?
Depending whether you include the voters who made the same first and second choices, the error rate was somewhere between 4 and 14 per cent.
The unique factor in London is counting by machine. I bet some of the requirements were driven by this, whereas in a hand-counted election they'd have gone with a very long ballot paper.
So for all his flaws, Starmer has made tangible progress.
So probably a bit less of a swing than the polls suggested and also the movement has occurred thus far in a way which almost certainly makes the Labour vote even less efficient. However, no doubt Starmer's antics this w/e will do a lot to boost the party even further ... that is the Conservative party.
Anyway, I thought I'd do a comparison with Prof Thrashers Five Scenarios to see where we stand on the local elections (expectation compared with outcome).
Current: Con +239, Lab -301, LD -8, UKIP -43, Greens/Ind/Others +115 (+70 Greens, +45 Ind/Others) (The Green/Ind/Other split wasn't given for four of the scenarios, so I've lumped them together. I'm assuming a UKIP wipeout was the default in all scenarios as well) Still to come: Con defending 144, Lab defending 94, LD defending 36, UKIP defending 6, Greens/Others defending 13 (11 Greens, 2 Independents). Scenario 1: National polling scores: Con +240. Lab +60, Green/Ind/Others -2 Scenario 2: Above, adjusted for LD overperformance locally: Con +120, Lab -50, LD -70, Green/Ind/Oth +48 Scenario 3: National picture ignored; solely local and pure Con-v-LD: Con -150, Lab +70, LD +70, Green/Ind/Oth +58 Scenario 4: Local voters swing behind Greens and Indies to oppose Tories: Con +0, Lab +0, LD -70, Green/Ind/Oth +70 (+30 Greens, +40 Ind/Others) Scenario 5: Excellent Labour ground campaign: Con -150, Lab +300, LD -100, Green/Ind/Oth -2 (UKIP assumed -48 in all of these)
From this, unless the Tories do exceptionally badly in defending the 144 councillors they have out of the 292, they have exceeded every scenario. Labour have already chalked up a far worse performance than any scenario given, even if they win every single seat yet to be announced (spoiler: they won't) The Lib Dems have done considerably better than every scenario other than the one where local voters ignored the national picture (and, to be honest, I wasn't holding my breath for that one). They may even end up with a net increase, which looked unlikely this time yesterday. The Greens have outperformed even the one where they are seen as the key challengers to swing behind.
Cons = Very happy Greens = Very happy LDs = Reasonably pleased/relieved, under the circumstances Labour = Very unhappy
It will come down to heart over head / vice versa, at the end of the day
Which is again why you do it now - once you start explaining the economic difficulties their votes will change
And were a referendum to fail then that really would be it for 25 years and the SNP wouldn't be able to use their rallying cry everyone things went wrong
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
Perhaps the Welsh spent a year moaning about Drakeford before they voted for him? We'll have to ask Big_G whether that's the sort of thing they get up to there
Got jabbed yesterday, AZN. Given the option in the jabbing booth to leave without and wait for an appointment for an alternative (I'm under 40). Asked and my jabber said well under 1/10 she'd asked had deferred, but will still have an impact on jabs delivered even at that level of course.
Feeling a bit grotty today, but I had a cold yesterday and can't really say it's any different /worse.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
I am more and more convinced that Labour is suffering from the same identity crisis that has hit centre-left parties all over the democratic world since the deindustrialisation and the collapse of Communism. However, that was masked to a large extent in the 90s and 00s for Labour by the political genius of Tony Blair and the Conservative mistakes that he ruthlessly exploited.
From that, it follows that Labour's best strategy is to find another political genius, and wait for the Conservatives to screw up. Not a very satisfying one, and maybe very long-term, but maybe more effective than targeting whatever micro-sliver of the electoral is fashionable that week.
Blair is a 'once in a century' phenomenon.
Early Blair -- with his boyish good looks, his nous, his ability to project warmth and compassion, his powerful communication skills, his intelligence & his articulacy -- was just a political magician. We'll never see his like again ...
I would agree with all of that, except Blair's intelligence, which I never rated.
So we're saying that Labour needs to give up on power till 2097?
If I was in charge of Labour .... well.
Labour have been forced onto profitless territory (Leave or Remain, Union or Independence) by very, very canny opponents (Boris and Nicola). Labour need to get off this terrain ... and fast.
Labour needs a really smart politician to force the political debate back onto much, much more favourable grounds.
I would probably say inter-generational fairness is what Labour should be talking a lot about -- house ownership, life chances, wealth and career progression amongst the young and middle aged. These generations clearly have been shafted by the Boomers, who now expect free social care in their declining years!!
And COVID is a natural entry point -- it is the young who have been really shafted by COVID. It is outrageous that young people are being charged 9k in fees and they can't even get to University.
I would get rid of Disaster Starmer and appoint a young (40s), articulate leader as a standard bearer for a younger-generation.
The leader should be some of the people that Starmer is busy sacking like Rayner (age 41) or Nandy (41). Labour could build an election-winning coalition by trying to get the votes of almost everyone under 50.
Labour certainly can't win on the topics the Tories and the SNP want to talk about. And Labour themselves seem to want to talk about topics that are not broad enough to build an election-winning coalition, like trans rights or BLM.
Remember Quebec is still part of Canada, though it hasn't signed the Canadian constitution. Federal politicians just stopped talking about and making it an issue. Sure, the desire for an independent Quebec is still there, but it is not dominating the Canadian political discourse.
In politics, you don't have to accept your opponents framing of the debate.
Obviously, this needs a bold, clever and imaginative politician to drive the debate onto better grounds & Disaster Starmer completely lacks the skill-set.
As I said right at the beginning, Starmer may be worthy but he is not nimble enough to beat Boris or Nicola.
Yes and no.
I think you're right- the sensible place to start is where you are and reach out from there. For Labour, that's certainly the young, tapering off into older working people (parents with children but not grandchildren, say) but fading massively when you get to the retired. It's the "Vote Labour; we have work to do" thing I moodled on yesterday. There are some consequences for that, though.
The now-blue wall goes, because the point about places like Hartlepool is the demographic shift to them being places where the young leave and the old stay behind. (I'm assuming that people leave more because they can, rather than because they're forced to).
It means that Labour have to go on the basis that B***** is a problem to be solved not an opportunity to be grasped, because that's largely what young and working-age people think.
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
A massive dilemma.
The problem in replacing Starmer is all those ghoulish figures that would emerge from the shadows like Burgon and Long- Bailey. And heaven forbid one might win.
I have noticed @squareroot2 has been trolling @CorrectHorseBattery by stating Labour are finished and Horse might as well vote Green or LD (who?) clearly exciteable fanboi nonsense in the wake of Hartlepool, however should the ghost of Corbyn reappear again, Root's premonition could indeed come to pass.
More than 2/3rds of voters under 40 support independence
Which means the longer you leave it the more likely the result - and everything the SNP does is designed to build resentment and increase the support
A party building support for its raison d’être, who’d have thunk? It would be terribly ungracious for the SNP not to acknowledge the substantial help given by BJ, Tories and Brexiteers in the building resentment and increasing support stakes.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Do you really think support is built up by social media I find that difficult to believe.
In this case, yes. There is only one local newspaper covering one of the three main areas. The Facebook groups have 10K+ members. The LibDem leader is all over them, every day, offering helpful advice and useful information, responding to queries, discussing long-term prospects, with barely a hint of party politics - it's Focus leaflets translated into a daily dose of helpfulness. People appreciate it hugely since they are otherwise largely in the dark about what's happening locally, and at election time when he does introduce some mild party politics, hundreds of people respond with enthusiastic plugs - far more than the rather small local LD membership. It's the modern version of what I did with email in Broxtowe, when I built up an active readership of around 15% of households, many of them non-Labour,
It must be exhausting - he has a full time job and is now on 3 councils, leading two of them.
Yesterday we discussed the poor design of the London Mayor ballot paper. In particular the instructions around columns A and B when the candidates were listed in two columns. It was suggested one test of whether voters were actually confused would be the number of spoiled ballots, especially those with too many X's. Helpfully, these have been detailed on the official return. (Hat-tip to countbinface.com for the picture.)
The number of ballot papers rejected on first preference votes was as follows:- (a) Unmarked 18,071 (b) Uncertain 8,672 (c) Voting for too many 87,214 (d) Writing identifying voter 167 (e) Want of official mark 77 Total 114,201
The number of ballot papers rejected on second preference votes was as follows:- (a) Uncertain 965 (b) Voting for too many 7,037 Total 8,002
In particular, those voters who expressed no first preference or who voted for too many candidates were very likely confused by the ballot paper. That is 112,232 voters.
In addition, it was acceptable and logical for supporters of Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey in particular to cast only a first preference vote. This was done by 319,978 voters. However, it is arguable that the 265,343 voters who cast the same first and second preference votes misunderstood either the process or the ballot paper.
That seems like a massive number of rejected votes even in a city its size.
Of course Priti Patel wants to abandon this system in favour of FPTP. I wonder if the next election will in fact be conducted that way?
And do other Mayoral elections have the same percentage of rejected votes. or the same number of candidates, which might in fact be a big part of the cause of the bother?
How many mayoral elections have seen the 1st round leader lose after the second round? In London its 0.
That's because the relative preference between Labour and Tory among other-party voters tends to shift in line with the general swing.
Which is why AV wouldn't have made that much difference.
Which is also why had the SDP not existed in the 1980s, the Tories would have won even bigger.
There is still, nevertheless, a benefit in having far fewer votes wasted, and in allowing those whose first preference is for the Animal Welfare Party of whatever to transfer their final preference so that it counts toward the actual result.
Got jabbed yesterday, AZN. Given the option in the jabbing booth to leave without and wait for an appointment for an alternative (I'm under 40). Asked and my jabber said well under 1/10 she'd asked had deferred, but will still have an impact on jabs delivered even at that level of course.
Feeling a bit grotty today, but I had a cold yesterday and can't really say it's any different /worse.
I felt a bit rough after Pfizer 1 (flu like, swollen glands), and it was no different to my colleague who had AZ at a different vaccination hub on the same day. Went after 2/3 days.
But for now, it probably means sticking with Starmer- until someone else who passes the "could you really imagine them on the steps of No 10" test comes along. But less conspicuous and isolated than now. Lots of bright younger people around him, with SKS as the father figure.
Not easy.
Mmm .... SKS will look like Jimmy Saville surrounded by young girls in skimpy tops in an old rerun of TOTP
We agree on the approach, but SKS looks grey and ancient. He's not the right casting.
He's older than Boris. He's older than Nicola. He's even older than Ed Davey. And he looks even older & greyer than he is. Boris and Nicola exude energy & confidence. SKS doesn't.
Politics is also about ruthlessness. SKS has got to go. Sorry.
He’s only two years older than the PM at 58.
Still young when we regularly hear of septuagenarian politicians.
My point is that it is an advantage to be different, when you are looking to change the debate.
If SKS was a political titan, with great electioneering skills, then of course his age would not be a big deal ....
Perhaps the way to phrase this is -- what is SKS's unique selling point ?
Sorry to go all bigjohnowls, but I cannot see any advantage that SKS actually has -- especially over Nicola & Boris who are the people he is compared against.
True, SKS is probably more intelligent than Nicola and Boris, but they are not candidates for an All Souls College Fellowship.
His USP was his calm demeanour and moderate stance - he blew that up with that shouty TV interview after Hartlepool and is currently digging down by attacking , it seems, mostly women shadow cabinet members for reasons not yet fully clear. Presumably, like me, he had no clue just how bad Hartlepool and the central/northern locals were going to be. The brightest achievement of all was Burnham in the NW who has thoroughly trashed him to boot!
Ah good old Waverley, yes Farnham is ripe for a Lib Dem takeover, as is Guildford and Winchester. These seats would have flipped had it not been for Corbyn standing for Labour.
I have never seen such visceral hatred for the Tories in any election apart from 2019, in these areas.
Why ? Why is there a hatred of the Tories ?
I think a combination of being very anti-Brexit but also a lot of them feel like the Tory Party isn't really representing them anymore, I'd call them Cameronites around here.
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
This is an interesting tone from Michael Gove. Sounding very much like the UK government is saying “not now” to a referendum, rather than an outright “no.” #Marr
Team UK” is the new buzz phrase from Michael Gove. Expect to hear that a lot in the coming months. Doesn’t quite have the same Olympic spirit as “Team GB”.
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
It will come down to heart over head / vice versa, at the end of the day
Only £1,000 worse off per household will make them change their minds? IIRC the deficit per person in Scotland is something like £2,000 per year now.
I think the Nats are beatable if the UK government and Unionist parties stop letting the SNP set the narrative, and make the Nats own the downsides of independence.
Got jabbed yesterday, AZN. Given the option in the jabbing booth to leave without and wait for an appointment for an alternative (I'm under 40). Asked and my jabber said well under 1/10 she'd asked had deferred, but will still have an impact on jabs delivered even at that level of course.
Feeling a bit grotty today, but I had a cold yesterday and can't really say it's any different /worse.
I had a fuzzy/headachy/tired day and a half after mine - since then pretty ok.
Drakeford did well but he mainly held the Labour vote in Wales, there is no evidence whatsoever he appeals to Tory voters, indeed Welsh Labour made a net loss to the Tories in terms of constituency seats in Wales after losing Vale of Clwyd to RT's Tories, the only Welsh Labour gain on the constituency vote came from Plaid in the Rhondda. On the constituency vote the Welsh Tories were up 5% on Thursday on 2016 and up 6% on the list vote, Welsh Labour gains on voteshare came from Plaid and the LDs mainly.
Burnham on the other hand clearly does appeal to Tories as he won areas like Altrincham, Bury and his old seat of Leigh which voted Tory in 2019
After Thatcherism and Corbynism, welcome to Houchenism, the doctrine of Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and endorsed by a whopping 73% of Teesside voters. This 34-year-old northern loyalist is the Tory party’s contemporary version of Michael Heseltine, the lone standard bearer at Thatcher’s zenith of a willingness to intervene “at breakfast, lunch and supper”. Houchen is today’s Tory carrying the Heseltine torch, intervening to reinvent Teesside with the massive backing of his electorate. And a generation later, this Heseltine de nos jours has the backing, not the loathing, of the prime minister. It will not have escaped Boris Johnson’s notice, a self-described Brexity Hezza, that Houchen’s intervention is working big time, economically and politically.
This is the danger for Labour long-term. If the Toris don’t regress to their mean soon, but do actually chuck money at the kinds of places they ignored in the 80s and 90s, then Labour are properly buggered.
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
I must echo the same point. I'm from Sunderland but 12 years in Spain has clearly affected my knowledge of the area. Speaking to my sister yesterday she was thrilled to see Labour getting kicked in the town. I'm now not convinced it's over for Labour.
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
Batley and Spen looks dicey. If those sheep, umm, Heavy Woollen Independents break for the Tories...
The last Prime Minister to gain two seats in by-elections was Macmillan in 1960-61. And in the second one matters were confused as Labour allowed the ineligible former MP, the Viscount Stansgate, to stand again (and he would have won had a judge not disallowed all his votes).
Would be extraordinary if Johnson emulated that, but then, we're living in particularly extraordinary political times.
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
Welsh voters and the Tories are like Peanuts's Lucy and that damned football.....
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Agree. Legalise. Get it taxed. Some people will scream but I think the majority will not be too concerned now. If Boris chucks money at the red wall areas and legalises weed I might start to think he’s a political genius. God forbid.
Yes but it's easy to pick at occasional examples and forget they are not the norm - a simple scroll through all the results from southern England yesterday reveals more Tory gains than for LD or Labour albeit less dramatic than in the north.
I think you're perhaps looking at borough by-elections with varying date comparisons? On a like-for-like basis, the Conservatives lost two seats on the county council in Kent, three in East Sussex, four in West Sussex and ten in Surrey. That covers most of what is usually called the south, no?
Really, if you think Labour has already lost in 2024 and 2029, they may as well concentrate on the areas actually going in their favour, as they will one day lead to some kind of success.
Its more likely that Labour will be irrelevant and the LDs and the Greens come to the fore. If Scotland gets independence Labour will.never win again...
The LD's electing Clegg after the tragic descent into alcohol by Kennedy shows what a poor leader can do. And yes I know a lot of people agreed with him.
He was a decent enough leader as a campaigner, but had bad judgement when he found himself in office (which, to be fair, those choosing him as leader weren't expecting!).
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Western drugs policy has been a mess for decades, but there’s now many vested interests in keeping the ‘war on drugs’ going - even as it’s been shown to be a massive failure.
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
Down where I live in Wokeland the pungent smell of weed is rife. The amount of weed smoking in public both by student types and, for want of a better phrase, manual workers has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. The police turn a blind eye, and nobody else bats an eyelid.
Given that I really hate the smell of the stuff, my solution would be to legalise it for private use but at the same time ban public use. Have a joint in the privacy of your own home or somebody else's - fine. Smoke a joint in public - off to prison you go.
It will come down to heart over head / vice versa, at the end of the day
Only £1,000 worse off per household will make them change their minds? IIRC the deficit per person in Scotland is something like £2,000 per year now.
I think the Nats are beatable if the UK government and Unionist parties stop letting the SNP set the narrative, and make the Nats own the downsides of independence.
Yes the SNP with their massively onside media of... checks notes... The National (circulation less than 10,000) truly are a he ones that set the narrative.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
It's logical that as the Tories steer their appeal towards their new constituency, some voters who previously valued things such as financial responsibility, pro-business policies, or simply a less populist style of campaigning, or even a party that just prioritised the south, fall off the other end.
More than 2/3rds of voters under 40 support independence
Which means the longer you leave it the more likely the result - and everything the SNP does is designed to build resentment and increase the support
It also means if you hold it now before a generation has elapsed since 2014 and No narrowly wins but the Yes vote is up, then Yes will push again until they get the result they want and and in 10-20 years time could win an indyref3 as most over 65 No voters in 2014 will by then be dead. Hold it in 5 years time though rather than now and enough over 65 No voters from 2014 would still be alive for No to win but a generation would have elapsed since 2014 so the argument could then have a better chance of being settled, perhaps with devomax on top (though of course voters generally become more conservative as they age too)
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
Batley and Spen looks dicey. If those sheep, umm, Heavy Woollen Independents break for the Tories...
The last Prime Minister to gain two seats in by-elections was Macmillan in 1960-61. And in the second one matters were confused as Labour allowed the ineligible former MP, the Viscount Stansgate, to stand again (and he would have won had a judge not disallowed all his votes).
Would be extraordinary if Johnson emulated that, but then, we're living in particularly extraordinary political times.
Surely Brabin will postpone going. She said she would go, but did she commit to when ?
Batley & Spen at the moment .. it is Russian roulette with 5 of the barrels filled with bullets.
Good article, and I think a lot of the best bets come from recognising when the headline VI is just wrong. But we should briefly note the limitations of leader polling too: Check our Sarwar's numbers vs Douglas Ross' in Scotland but they didn't help Labour at all in the final results.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Agree. I would only add that quite a significant proportion of the home counties/southern 'respectable' middle classes really don't approve of Boris Johnson for a mixture of reasons. Theresa May types, I guess. I suspect many of those would return to the Tories once Boris is gone.
It's a demographic that's almost certainly over-represented on here, but there is a chunk of Conservatives who just can't stomach this iteration of the Conservative party. Due to the lies, the pork barrelling and the dishonour. (Yes, they've all been there before, but not to this degree.) Kind of a UK version of the Lincon Project people.
The median leave vote in 2016 was 53 %; it's a shame the bar charts aren't grouped around that. The Conservative advance really was focussed on heavy Leave areas, where there were UKIP votes to hoover up. Elsewhere- whisper it- they did fall back a bit.
Is my area on the Isle of Wight unique in being a leave area in England where the Tories suffered a significant reverse?
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
Do you really think support is built up by social media I find that difficult to believe.
In this case, yes. There is only one local newspaper covering one of the three main areas. The Facebook groups have 10K+ members. The LibDem leader is all over them, every day, offering helpful advice and useful information, responding to queries, discussing long-term prospects, with barely a hint of party politics - it's Focus leaflets translated into a daily dose of helpfulness. People appreciate it hugely since they are otherwise largely in the dark about what's happening locally, and at election time when he does introduce some mild party politics, hundreds of people respond with enthusiastic plugs - far more than the rather small local LD membership. It's the modern version of what I did with email in Broxtowe, when I built up an active readership of around 15% of households, many of them non-Labour,
It must be exhausting - he has a full time job and is now on 3 councils, leading two of them.
That's pretty much what Lee Anderson does.
His Facebook "follow" count is currently just under 17,000.
No idea how that compares with other backbench MPs, but it was also what he did as a Labour Councillor.
Ben Bradley is just around 22,000 Facebook followers.
It will come down to heart over head / vice versa, at the end of the day
Only £1,000 worse off per household will make them change their minds? IIRC the deficit per person in Scotland is something like £2,000 per year now.
I think the Nats are beatable if the UK government and Unionist parties stop letting the SNP set the narrative, and make the Nats own the downsides of independence.
Yes the SNP with their massively onside media of... checks notes... The National (circulation less than 10,000) truly are a he ones that set the narrative.
There was a survey posted about on here a week or so ago about "things Nats think about independence and the UK now" it was ludicrously at odds with reality. So one way or another a hell of a lot of Scots are unaware of the reality of the current situation, and the likely prospects of independence.
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Western drugs policy has been a mess for decades, but there’s now many vested interests in keeping the ‘war on drugs’ going - even as it’s been shown to be a massive failure.
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
Down where I live in Wokeland the pungent smell of weed is rife. The amount of weed smoking in public both by student types and, for want of a better phrase, manual workers has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. The police turn a blind eye, and nobody else bats an eyelid.
Given that I really hate the smell of the stuff, my solution would be to legalise it for private use but at the same time ban public use. Have a joint in the privacy of your own home or somebody else's - fine. Smoke a joint in public - off to prison you go.
Same here in my bit of the red wall, it’s everywhere. Police don’t bother. Why would they? Complete waste of their time. Get it taxed and regulated.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
I think that’s complete bollocks.
Is the far from Platonic ideal of a Tory voter wanting Scotland to fuck off and a Tory party determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in less bollocksy?
After Thatcherism and Corbynism, welcome to Houchenism, the doctrine of Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and endorsed by a whopping 73% of Teesside voters. This 34-year-old northern loyalist is the Tory party’s contemporary version of Michael Heseltine, the lone standard bearer at Thatcher’s zenith of a willingness to intervene “at breakfast, lunch and supper”. Houchen is today’s Tory carrying the Heseltine torch, intervening to reinvent Teesside with the massive backing of his electorate. And a generation later, this Heseltine de nos jours has the backing, not the loathing, of the prime minister. It will not have escaped Boris Johnson’s notice, a self-described Brexity Hezza, that Houchen’s intervention is working big time, economically and politically.
This is the danger for Labour long-term. If the Toris don’t regress to their mean soon, but do actually chuck money at the kinds of places they ignored in the 80s and 90s, then Labour are properly buggered.
As I posted yesterday, for which I received quite a few likes, the reason for coalition, and the people to make it, which originally created the Labour Party and which reached it's climax in 1945, no longer exists. Blair created a new, but temporary, coalition in 1997, based largely on 'clean hands' and with the benefit of the brand name for the remaining traditional voters.
The Tory Party looks as though it's re-creating itself as an English version of the SNP, and as it's found itself in Scotland, opposing the idea of 'our nation's party' is quite difficult.
So for all his flaws, Starmer has made tangible progress.
Rallings and Thrasher say NEV of 40% Con, 30% Labour. The BBC are wrong.
NEV and PNS are slightly different calculations. Anyway it's more or less as bad for Labour as 2017 - can't exactly see Glasto next year giving chants of "Oh Sir Keir Starmer" though.
He never won a GE but Miliband's local election results look amazing next to this lot.
After Thatcherism and Corbynism, welcome to Houchenism, the doctrine of Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and endorsed by a whopping 73% of Teesside voters. This 34-year-old northern loyalist is the Tory party’s contemporary version of Michael Heseltine, the lone standard bearer at Thatcher’s zenith of a willingness to intervene “at breakfast, lunch and supper”. Houchen is today’s Tory carrying the Heseltine torch, intervening to reinvent Teesside with the massive backing of his electorate. And a generation later, this Heseltine de nos jours has the backing, not the loathing, of the prime minister. It will not have escaped Boris Johnson’s notice, a self-described Brexity Hezza, that Houchen’s intervention is working big time, economically and politically.
This is the danger for Labour long-term. If the Toris don’t regress to their mean soon, but do actually chuck money at the kinds of places they ignored in the 80s and 90s, then Labour are properly buggered.
Look at the new battery factory in Blyth for an example of what’s coming down the line. Lots of construction and hi-tech manufacturing bringing jobs - and not just public sector jobs displaced from London, but new local jobs for local people. Add in some free ports and infrastructure works, and all of a sudden the red wall is looking to be a deep shade of blue by 2024.
Good article, and I think a lot of the best bets come from recognising when the headline VI is just wrong. But we should briefly note the limitations of leader polling too: Check our Sarwar's numbers vs Douglas Ross' in Scotland but they didn't help Labour at all in the final results.
The problem with Sarwar's number was that they came from SNP voters and they liked Sturgeon more. Sarwar needed to be getting the positives from SCon voters to achieve the swing he needed.
Really, if you think Labour has already lost in 2024 and 2029, they may as well concentrate on the areas actually going in their favour, as they will one day lead to some kind of success.
Its more likely that Labour will be irrelevant and the LDs and the Greens come to the fore. If Scotland gets independence Labour will.never win again...
The LD's electing Clegg after the tragic descent into alcohol by Kennedy shows what a poor leader can do. And yes I know a lot of people agreed with him.
He was a decent enough leader as a campaigner, but had bad judgement when he found himself in office (which, to be fair, those choosing him as leader weren't expecting!).
It happens, now and again.
I've said before, when it happened, and I've seen and heard nothing to convince me I'm wrong that whoever in the LD's agreed with him that he should be DPM, and not have a 'proper job' was WRONG. He should have insisted on something like the Home Office, with all it's risks. We would also have avoided having Mrs M as PM! (probably.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
54% of Tory voters think Scotland should stay in the UK, only 12% think it should leave
Can't think of much to say this morning but I do find the general state of politics rather depressing at the moment. Immigration and Brexit have obviously cast a long shadow over things and it's not going to change much soon.
Labour emerged from the December 2019 general election badly battered and bruised. In the wake of a contest whose principal purpose was to bring an end to the seemingly endless debate about how Brexit should be settled, it found itself with fewer MPs than at any time since 1935. It is little wonder that the party is debating how it can improve its fortunes now that Brexit has been resolved.
The search for an answer is, however, less straightforward than many in the party seem to appreciate. Although a dominant narrative as to the way forward seems to have emerged, there is an alternative perspective that raises questions about the viability of this approach.
Buried in that article is a key fact that underpins Labour’s dilemma, and one that is often ignored as commentators (and certain PB’ers) rush to label “Leave seats”:
..nearly two‐thirds (64 per cent) of Labour's support in 2017 in pro‐Leave seats that elected a Labour MP came from those who had voted Remain. In short, any success in winning back red wall seats will be heavily reliant on retaining the support of Remain voters in these seats
It’s a fair point, though I wonder how many voted remain because that’s what Labour was telling them to do.
Ultimately I think Labour needs to choose between going after its old voters and effectively take for granted its current core vote or going after remainers in places like Woking. Personally I think the first of those is the way to go.
I don't get the feeling that Remain/Rejoin is giving up any time soon. Meanwhile Leave/Stay out is wrapped in the Union Flag/Global Britain.
I think that the 'deal' with India, where people can go either way for two years might blow up in the Government's face; there are a lot more jobs here that young Indians would be willing to do than the other way around.
None of the divides have gone away- indeed some are yet to really surface.
Take Leave to be more global vs. Leave to be protectionist. Farmers don't want cheaper imports, and I suspect manufacturing towns don't either. That dog won't bark until the first new trade deal.
Or Remain and want EEA at least now vs. Remain and renengage more gradually.
Or what should Labour do? There looks to be an unavoidable trade-off between Hartlepool and Peterborough going on. Embrace Brexit or see it as a problem to do something about? I suspect it's impossible to be dispassionate about that one, but I don't see how going into an idealogical space which is already occupied, where the bulk of your supporters don't want to go and where you wouldn't be believed anyway is meant to work.
Looks like Labour have decided to do each other rather than engage on the issues. UK Labour is going to continue to be a shitshow whilst in London and Wales and Manchester and Liverpool semi-independent Labour fiefdoms quietly get on with it
Regarding Labour in Wales, I was advised on this very forum that Drakeford was so degenerate and twisted that Labour stood no chance, yet not only have they bagged an increase in seats but Drakeford himself is being lauded...
The Welsh posters did not distinguish themselves with their predictions ...
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
I must echo the same point. I'm from Sunderland but 12 years in Spain has clearly affected my knowledge of the area. Speaking to my sister yesterday she was thrilled to see Labour getting kicked in the town. I'm now not convinced it's over for Labour.
It isn't. My red friends on Teesside are already reporting that the remaining local party grandees are merrily blaming Starmer, the candidates, the nationally run campaigns etc etc for the Tory grand slam on Teesside.
They are very clear that it is absolutely nothing to do with them. So here's my next prediction. Stockton will be Tory at the next local elections. Likely Sunderland too. And deservedly so.
So for all his flaws, Starmer has made tangible progress.
Rallings and Thrasher say NEV of 40% Con, 30% Labour. The BBC are wrong.
It isn't the BBC. It is Professor Sir John Curtis who is as qualified to make the calculation as Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Nuffield College, Oxford.
However Curtiss have Labour on a lower share (29%) than Rallings and Thrasher (30%) so I'm not sure what your point is.
After Thatcherism and Corbynism, welcome to Houchenism, the doctrine of Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and endorsed by a whopping 73% of Teesside voters. This 34-year-old northern loyalist is the Tory party’s contemporary version of Michael Heseltine, the lone standard bearer at Thatcher’s zenith of a willingness to intervene “at breakfast, lunch and supper”. Houchen is today’s Tory carrying the Heseltine torch, intervening to reinvent Teesside with the massive backing of his electorate. And a generation later, this Heseltine de nos jours has the backing, not the loathing, of the prime minister. It will not have escaped Boris Johnson’s notice, a self-described Brexity Hezza, that Houchen’s intervention is working big time, economically and politically.
This is the danger for Labour long-term. If the Toris don’t regress to their mean soon, but do actually chuck money at the kinds of places they ignored in the 80s and 90s, then Labour are properly buggered.
Yes, but on the plus side it would have taken doing some good to keep the Tories in government, arguably doing more good than the Blair/Brown governments, who had swallowed the Thatcherite mantra so comprehensively.
Much as I loathe Johnson, it could be a lot worse.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
I think that’s complete bollocks.
Is the far from Platonic ideal of a Tory voter wanting Scotland to fuck off and a Tory party determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in less bollocksy?
Well that was my original point. Certainly the last point is true, not sure about the first. I don’t care whether Scotland stay or go, but I’m more than happy for them to vote on the issue as much as they like.
It’s marvellous. Some of these places have been governed by Tories for decades. They need a breath of fresh air, hopefully when tide goes out for Boris the process will accelerate across the South.
Not sure that idea works for the broader south - scrolling through all of the results there were more examples of Tory gains even in these areas, than losses. I think the chinks you refer to are largely in specific and limited areas. The whole Brighton/Hove extension of London/Oxford/Cambridge thing actually has liomited scope to extend much further. It links to a University/Lifestyle vibe which is not mainstream.
Not sure that's true. Waverley is a counter-example. There is no significant university population, it's a bit far from London to commute, the lifestyle is deep Surrey rather than London (Pizza Express is about as exotic as it gets, and estate agents far outnumber bookshops), and there were swings of over 30% against the Tories in several divisions. These mostly benefited the LibDems, though Labour doubled its vote too. The area is overwhelmingly white and middle-aged to elderly.
Some of the LD surge is personal support built up over years from social media. But a lot of it is just alienation from Govrernment populism and Brexitry - this was a deeply Remain area, and people don't feel much in common with the Government at any level.
It's logical that as the Tories steer their appeal towards their new constituency, some voters who previously valued things such as financial responsibility, pro-business policies, or simply a less populist style of campaigning, or even a party that just prioritised the south, fall off the other end.
Absolutely.
If the Libs moderated their offering somewhat away from the green/woke happy-clappyness, they could cut a swathe through the home counties and the shires.
And this is the problem. Why didn't they, for example, fight harder for Gladstone at University of Liverpool FFS? Their greatest prime minister. One of the greatest from any party.
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Western drugs policy has been a mess for decades, but there’s now many vested interests in keeping the ‘war on drugs’ going - even as it’s been shown to be a massive failure.
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
Down where I live in Wokeland the pungent smell of weed is rife. The amount of weed smoking in public both by student types and, for want of a better phrase, manual workers has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. The police turn a blind eye, and nobody else bats an eyelid.
Given that I really hate the smell of the stuff, my solution would be to legalise it for private use but at the same time ban public use. Have a joint in the privacy of your own home or somebody else's - fine. Smoke a joint in public - off to prison you go.
Thornaby-on-Tees absolutely reeked of weed in my final year or so living there. Used to be a handful of hotspots. Is now pretty widespread.
Most people know that is fantasy politics just as Corbyn offered free broadband and holidays to the moon.
Who gives a fuck? Plenty of young people would come out and vote for it. See also: legal ganja.
Legalising pot would be a marginal issue at most. Nowhere near as many votes versus all the other reasons people change their votes.
What I would be inclined is to give the power to decriminalise it to Police and Crime Commissioners. They should know what their patch want. They can get profile they currently lack for taking the stand.
Decrminalisation is a fudge with the problems of both criminalising and legisalising, and the benefits of neither. You still hand the trade to gangs and increase use, but you can't get the tax revenue. Either legalise it completely, or continue sort-of banning it, like now.
Western drugs policy has been a mess for decades, but there’s now many vested interests in keeping the ‘war on drugs’ going - even as it’s been shown to be a massive failure.
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
Down where I live in Wokeland the pungent smell of weed is rife. The amount of weed smoking in public both by student types and, for want of a better phrase, manual workers has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. The police turn a blind eye, and nobody else bats an eyelid.
Given that I really hate the smell of the stuff, my solution would be to legalise it for private use but at the same time ban public use. Have a joint in the privacy of your own home or somebody else's - fine. Smoke a joint in public - off to prison you go.
Absolutely. Legalise the use of cannabis, but make it a capital offence to subject anyone else to the stink of it.
I think the Tories need to be a bit careful with Scotland. It’s one issue in which there is quite a big divide between the party and their voters. I suspect most would happily let Scotland have another referendum and if they vote to leave, all the better.
That's interesting observation. It does seem that the closer one gets to the mental fugue state that is tory party membership the greater the salience of 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓟𝓡𝓔𝓒𝓘𝓞𝓤𝓢 𝓤𝓝𝓘𝓞𝓝.
Obviously I don't know any tories IRL but I have heard more than one political neutral/unengaged say that they wish Scotland would "fuck off".
I think. The platonic ideal of a Tory voter simultaneously wants scotland to fuck off and whilst also determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in.
I think that’s complete bollocks.
Is the far from Platonic ideal of a Tory voter wanting Scotland to fuck off and a Tory party determined that they won't let them go as that would be giving in less bollocksy?
The polling I have seen showed Tory voters opposed giving the SNP indyref2 even if they won a majority, which they didn't, only Labour and LD voters backed indyref2 if the SNP won a majority.
Indeed Mori found this year that 62% of 2019 Tory voters said the UK government should not have allowed the Scottish Government to hold an indyref2 even if the SNP had won a majority on Thursday within the next 5 years.
By contrast 65% of Labour voters and 53% of LD voters said the Scottish government should have been allowed an indyref2 by the UK government had the SNP won a majority (as did an unsurprising 91% of SNP voters)
I am more and more convinced that Labour is suffering from the same identity crisis that has hit centre-left parties all over the democratic world since the deindustrialisation and the collapse of Communism. However, that was masked to a large extent in the 90s and 00s for Labour by the political genius of Tony Blair and the Conservative mistakes that he ruthlessly exploited.
From that, it follows that Labour's best strategy is to find another political genius, and wait for the Conservatives to screw up. Not a very satisfying one, and maybe very long-term, but maybe more effective than targeting whatever micro-sliver of the electoral is fashionable that week.
Blair is a 'once in a century' phenomenon.
Early Blair -- with his boyish good looks, his nous, his ability to project warmth and compassion, his powerful communication skills, his intelligence & his articulacy -- was just a political magician. We'll never see his like again ...
I would agree with all of that, except Blair's intelligence, which I never rated.
So we're saying that Labour needs to give up on power till 2097?
If I was in charge of Labour .... well.
Labour have been forced onto profitless territory (Leave or Remain, Union or Independence) by very, very canny opponents (Boris and Nicola). Labour need to get off this terrain ... and fast.
Labour needs a really smart politician to force the political debate back onto much, much more favourable grounds.
I would probably say inter-generational fairness is what Labour should be talking a lot about -- house ownership, life chances, wealth and career progression amongst the young and middle aged. These generations clearly have been shafted by the Boomers, who now expect free social care in their declining years!!
And COVID is a natural entry point -- it is the young who have been really shafted by COVID. It is outrageous that young people are being charged 9k in fees and they can't even get to University.
I would get rid of Disaster Starmer and appoint a young (40s), articulate leader as a standard bearer for a younger-generation.
The leader should be some of the people that Starmer is busy sacking like Rayner (age 41) or Nandy (41). Labour could build an election-winning coalition by trying to get the votes of almost everyone under 50.
Labour certainly can't win on the topics the Tories and the SNP want to talk about. And Labour themselves seem to want to talk about topics that are not broad enough to build an election-winning coalition, like trans rights or BLM.
Remember Quebec is still part of Canada, though it hasn't signed the Canadian constitution. Federal politicians just stopped talking about and making it an issue. Sure, the desire for an independent Quebec is still there, but it is not dominating the Canadian political discourse.
In politics, you don't have to accept your opponents framing of the debate.
Obviously, this needs a bold, clever and imaginative politician to drive the debate onto better grounds & Disaster Starmer completely lacks the skill-set.
As I said right at the beginning, Starmer may be worthy but he is not nimble enough to beat Boris or Nicola.
A great post. And very similar to what I would (and indeed did) advocate as the best approach for the LibDems, to try and recapture their campaigning edge, get a bit of attention, and try to rebuild what was, pre-tuition fees, a strong emerging power base among younger voters prior to 2010. For the LDs it offers the additional advantage that their desire for closer links with Europe can be slotted in as a subsidiary issue - as indeed can political reform - rather than sticking out as headlines. The LibDems liberal agenda (votes at 16, decriminalising cannabis, civil liberties etc. slots in nicely as well). As a third (or worse) party they desperately need an overarching theme they can continue to bang away at, and one that isn't all about Europe.
The problem for the LibDems is that they have been driven back to a base of seats that are mostly overweight in the people who would be on the losing side of addressing intergenerational unfairness (because they are better off, rather than old, and won't like the party's former proposal for a Mansion Tax, etc,)
Priorities A full range of NHS services delivered locally (including restoring a full A&E department including intensive and high dependency care, and consultant-led maternity services at Dewsbury and District Hospital.) More school places for children and restoration of parental choice over preferred schools. A "clean" Brexit. "A managed and controlled immigration system. A reduction in foreign aid. A crackdown on crime and anti-social behaviour. Police reform. More support for the armed forces, including veterans, and increased investment in defence. Against the proposed travellers’ site close to Junction 27 in Birstall.
Comments
I would be VERY surprised if contaminated vaccine had not been destroyed
It's the sort of place the Lib Dems could do a lot of damage in, if they weren't rubbish.
Labour's comms seems to be an utter disaster, which is ironic
Incidentally, there are some neat graphs here;
https://news.sky.com/story/election-results-what-the-data-reveals-about-labours-performance-and-the-reasons-for-it-12297591
The median leave vote in 2016 was 53 %; it's a shame the bar charts aren't grouped around that. The Conservative advance really was focussed on heavy Leave areas, where there were UKIP votes to hoover up. Elsewhere- whisper it- they did fall back a bit.
My point is Labour should re-set the debate on intergenerational fairness.
And a much more youthful leader will really help to do this -- a visible pictogram of what is happening.
When Labour did this re-setting before, and came back from opposition (Wilson, Blair), the leader was in his forties.
Young, politically speaking.
Sorry, SKS will not do.
It must be exhausting - he has a full time job and is now on 3 councils, leading two of them.
Everything Thatcher ever stood for has been completely junked.
https://twitter.com/PME_Politics/status/1391127459345674242
So for all his flaws, Starmer has made tangible progress.
And to the shock of some of the "woke watchers", that's not a huge issue around here either. I think it's one of not liking Brexit and the move to the left, which many of this lot don't like at all.
I can't think this is a unique occurrence.
Who else is a leftie loon on the front bench?
Still young when we regularly hear of septuagenarian politicians.
The median leave vote in 2016 was 53 %; it's a shame the bar charts aren't grouped around that. The Conservative advance really was focussed on heavy Leave areas, where there were UKIP votes to hoover up. Elsewhere- whisper it- they did fall back a bit.
That's similar to Matthew Parris' article from yesterday. His vision of the Conservative Party is one that should appeal to economically successful areas, and which should ignore economically unsuccessful ones. To him "Red Wall" voters are the wrong kind of supporters.
Oddly enough, people like Sir Ian Gilmour were criticising the Conservatives of the Seventies for "retreating behind the privet hedge", but that's where some people want the Conservatives to be.
@PA 2m
#Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will carry out a reshuffle of his shadow cabinet team on Sunday, the PA news agency understands
(Un)interesting fact: I used to live on the same street as the new Durham PCC.
https://twitter.com/Louisa_Britton/status/1391305300465094657?s=20
Either sell weed like cigarettes, with plenty of tax on it, or go down the Singapore / Bangkok / Dubai route and throw the book at anyone who touches the stuff. These options both work, the messy middle way of most of the West, just doesn’t.
More than 2/3rds of voters under 40 support independence
Which means the longer you leave it the more likely the result - and everything the SNP does is designed to build resentment and increase the support
I am keeping a low profile as my anecdota re: Wales turned out to be wholly inaccurate, although I do still believe Labour's success was due to incumbency during a crisis narrative rather than Drakeford's status as a Rock God.
Until the Rayner sacking I was still on board with Starmer for the reason stated above (and his low profile didn't worry me, as Drakeford has proven one can be totally devoid of charisma and still win an election) but the demotion of Rayner and Nandy demonstrates he has zero political awareness.
If I was Johnson I would pencil in a July 2021 GE. A landslide, whilst riding high in the polls and before the post Covid crows come home to roost. According to the Guardian some Tory MPs are already exciteably talking about that prospect. Time for Boris to break out the hi-viz again?
In 18 months time we will have the spectacle of the tories desperately trying to tell bedrock voters why they should stay loyal even though they are getting hit for six on taxes, consumer prices are soaring and they STILL can't go to the Marbella Beach Club on holiday.
It will not be pleasant.
https://twitter.com/RuthDavidsonPC/status/1391119654266052611?s=20
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/young-scots-will-change-vote-if-prosperity-at-risk-9kpcsc5ln
It will come down to heart over head / vice versa, at the end of the day
If SKS was a political titan, with great electioneering skills, then of course his age would not be a big deal ....
Perhaps the way to phrase this is -- what is SKS's unique selling point ?
Sorry to go all bigjohnowls, but I cannot see any advantage that SKS actually has -- especially over Nicola & Boris who are the people he is compared against.
True, SKS is probably more intelligent than Nicola and Boris, but they are not candidates for an All Souls College Fellowship.
Current: Con +239, Lab -301, LD -8, UKIP -43, Greens/Ind/Others +115 (+70 Greens, +45 Ind/Others)
(The Green/Ind/Other split wasn't given for four of the scenarios, so I've lumped them together. I'm assuming a UKIP wipeout was the default in all scenarios as well)
Still to come: Con defending 144, Lab defending 94, LD defending 36, UKIP defending 6, Greens/Others defending 13 (11 Greens, 2 Independents).
Scenario 1: National polling scores: Con +240. Lab +60, Green/Ind/Others -2
Scenario 2: Above, adjusted for LD overperformance locally: Con +120, Lab -50, LD -70, Green/Ind/Oth +48
Scenario 3: National picture ignored; solely local and pure Con-v-LD: Con -150, Lab +70, LD +70, Green/Ind/Oth +58
Scenario 4: Local voters swing behind Greens and Indies to oppose Tories: Con +0, Lab +0, LD -70, Green/Ind/Oth +70 (+30 Greens, +40 Ind/Others)
Scenario 5: Excellent Labour ground campaign: Con -150, Lab +300, LD -100, Green/Ind/Oth -2
(UKIP assumed -48 in all of these)
From this, unless the Tories do exceptionally badly in defending the 144 councillors they have out of the 292, they have exceeded every scenario.
Labour have already chalked up a far worse performance than any scenario given, even if they win every single seat yet to be announced (spoiler: they won't)
The Lib Dems have done considerably better than every scenario other than the one where local voters ignored the national picture (and, to be honest, I wasn't holding my breath for that one). They may even end up with a net increase, which looked unlikely this time yesterday.
The Greens have outperformed even the one where they are seen as the key challengers to swing behind.
Cons = Very happy
Greens = Very happy
LDs = Reasonably pleased/relieved, under the circumstances
Labour = Very unhappy
And were a referendum to fail then that really would be it for 25 years and the SNP wouldn't be able to use their rallying cry everyone things went wrong
Feeling a bit grotty today, but I had a cold yesterday and can't really say it's any different /worse.
The problem in replacing Starmer is all those ghoulish figures that would emerge from the shadows like Burgon and Long- Bailey. And heaven forbid one might win.
I have noticed @squareroot2 has been trolling @CorrectHorseBattery by stating Labour are finished and Horse might as well vote Green or LD (who?) clearly exciteable fanboi nonsense in the wake of Hartlepool, however should the ghost of Corbyn reappear again, Root's premonition could indeed come to pass.
It would be terribly ungracious for the SNP not to acknowledge the substantial help given by BJ, Tories and Brexiteers in the building resentment and increasing support stakes.
Which is why AV wouldn't have made that much difference.
Which is also why had the SDP not existed in the 1980s, the Tories would have won even bigger.
There is still, nevertheless, a benefit in having far fewer votes wasted, and in allowing those whose first preference is for the Animal Welfare Party of whatever to transfer their final preference so that it counts toward the actual result.
Glad you've been jabbed though.
Team UK” is the new buzz phrase from Michael Gove. Expect to hear that a lot in the coming months. Doesn’t quite have the same Olympic spirit as “Team GB”.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1391311370273107973?s=20
So, perhaps now is the moment to pay tribute to the posters in the North East, who without fail predicted a Tory win in Hartlepool.
I didn't believe you ...
I think the Nats are beatable if the UK government and Unionist parties stop letting the SNP set the narrative, and make the Nats own the downsides of independence.
Burnham on the other hand clearly does appeal to Tories as he won areas like Altrincham, Bury and his old seat of Leigh which voted Tory in 2019
She’d have probably lost had they made the effort.
The last Prime Minister to gain two seats in by-elections was Macmillan in 1960-61. And in the second one matters were confused as Labour allowed the ineligible former MP, the Viscount Stansgate, to stand again (and he would have won had a judge not disallowed all his votes).
Would be extraordinary if Johnson emulated that, but then, we're living in particularly extraordinary political times.
"This time I am gonna....doh!"
It happens, now and again.
Given that I really hate the smell of the stuff, my solution would be to legalise it for private use but at the same time ban public use. Have a joint in the privacy of your own home or somebody else's - fine. Smoke a joint in public - off to prison you go.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1391317978248060930?s=20
Batley & Spen at the moment .. it is Russian roulette with 5 of the barrels filled with bullets.
His Facebook "follow" count is currently just under 17,000.
No idea how that compares with other backbench MPs, but it was also what he did as a Labour Councillor.
Ben Bradley is just around 22,000 Facebook followers.
The Tory Party looks as though it's re-creating itself as an English version of the SNP, and as it's found itself in Scotland, opposing the idea of 'our nation's party' is quite difficult.
He never won a GE but Miliband's local election results look amazing next to this lot.
Sarwar needed to be getting the positives from SCon voters to achieve the swing he needed.
He should have insisted on something like the Home Office, with all it's risks.
We would also have avoided having Mrs M as PM! (probably.
That's awfully good.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/d30xfonwnh/YouGov - UK break up attitudes (Britain England).pdf
They are very clear that it is absolutely nothing to do with them. So here's my next prediction. Stockton will be Tory at the next local elections. Likely Sunderland too. And deservedly so.
However Curtiss have Labour on a lower share (29%) than Rallings and Thrasher (30%) so I'm not sure what your point is.
Much as I loathe Johnson, it could be a lot worse.
If the Libs moderated their offering somewhat away from the green/woke happy-clappyness, they could cut a swathe through the home counties and the shires.
And this is the problem. Why didn't they, for example, fight harder for Gladstone at University of Liverpool FFS? Their greatest prime minister. One of the greatest from any party.
Indeed Mori found this year that 62% of 2019 Tory voters said the UK government should not have allowed the Scottish Government to hold an indyref2 even if the SNP had won a majority on Thursday within the next 5 years.
By contrast 65% of Labour voters and 53% of LD voters said the Scottish government should have been allowed an indyref2 by the UK government had the SNP won a majority (as did an unsurprising 91% of SNP voters)
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-04/scotland-future-of-the-union-tables-april-2021.pdf
The problem for the LibDems is that they have been driven back to a base of seats that are mostly overweight in the people who would be on the losing side of addressing intergenerational unfairness (because they are better off, rather than old, and won't like the party's former proposal for a Mansion Tax, etc,)
Heavy Woollen District Independents
Priorities
A full range of NHS services delivered locally (including restoring a full A&E department including intensive and high dependency care, and consultant-led maternity services at Dewsbury and District Hospital.)
More school places for children and restoration of parental choice over preferred schools.
A "clean" Brexit.
"A managed and controlled immigration system.
A reduction in foreign aid.
A crackdown on crime and anti-social behaviour.
Police reform.
More support for the armed forces, including veterans, and increased investment in defence.
Against the proposed travellers’ site close to Junction 27 in Birstall.