I always thought the Greens would likely benefit from the hostility to Corbyn and Co from Labour’s ‘New Management’. Plenty of Jezza’s supporters won’t vote for Sir Keir, & the Greens look like the obvious place to go.
So I’d expect their polling boost to be ‘sustainable’
Yes, but is it renewable?
Would be interesting if Jezza stood as a Green in Islington North next time
For every vote they gain by going hard Labour, the Green's lose someone like me the other side.
Boris's holiday us the equivalent wallpaper. It cost the state nothing. If Labour want to continue their attacks on dead cats who cares.
How about if the holiday was paid for by Putin?
There is an important reason we ask our representatives to disclose where they get cash from. That he is not willing to say where it came from is not a good sign.
Off thread. I see Martin Bashir has quit the BBC before the release of the enquiry report into his behaviour over the Diana Interview. He should have been sacked IMHO
Is this similar to the Ballymurphy discussion the other day; ie should the Beeb be held to much higher ethical standards than the rest of the media, as the Army should be compared to paramilitaries?
Lying and forgery should be off limits by any standard.
For sure (as should be shooting innocent people in the back), but if we found some new evidence that a NOTW journalist had done what Bashir did 25 years ago, would there be the public interest element in properly investigating it that seems so rampantly obvious in the Bashir case?
Perhaps if it was a Times journalist who was lying 33 years ago, then yes it would now be in the public interest for more people to know about it.
I'd certainly concede that if new evidence of ABdPJ having forged documents to con vulnerable people into sensitive interviews were to emerge, it would be an even bigger issue than the Bashir one.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
Thank you for all your contributions Mr Herdson - the Saturday morning piece is one of the highlights of the week - and this, like the others is careful, considered and thought provoking. I will never forget your eve of GE17 posting on how the Tories were going to fluff it! A sobering moment.
I always thought the Greens would likely benefit from the hostility to Corbyn and Co from Labour’s ‘New Management’. Plenty of Jezza’s supporters won’t vote for Sir Keir, & the Greens look like the obvious place to go.
So I’d expect their polling boost to be ‘sustainable’
Yes, but is it renewable?
Would be interesting if Jezza stood as a Green in Islington North next time
It would. And it would burnish the Green credentials if they were recycling the rubbish from other parties as well.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Would the three left parties and PC/SNP (if Scotland is still in the U.K.) consider it worthwhile to run a single slate in the next election for the purpose of implementing PR ( I am saying this as a wide framework) in a quickly held follow up election? Otherwise, without a strong UKIP type party there is a chance of a default conservative rule for times to come.
No need for SNP to be on the slate. They're already dominant in Scotland at Westminster and already wanting PR for Westminster. Very long standing party policy. Which simplifies things, especially given the likely reaction of SLAB to any proposal of cooperation.
Very interesting article on the Greens starting to make inroads into working-class areas here, and bad news for all the boilerplate "elite lefty liberals" cliches.
"The Greens are changing tack at a council level, seeking to campaign less on the wider issue of climate emergency and instead focusing heavily on people’s local environments and day-to-day needs around housing, transport and community spaces. In the past 10 years, the party has targeted and won council seats in poorer areas, often on peripheral estates where the epithet “left behind” can easily be replaced by “segregated by class”.
Chelmsley Wood, the large outer Birmingham estate where I grew up and went to school, went from having one BNP and two Labour members on Solihull council in 2006 to three Green councillors in less than a decade. The election of a BNP councillor on a very low turnout back then should have been the cause of great angst for its remaining Labour representatives, says Chris Williams, a former Solihull councillor who has just become the Green party’s national head of elections.
“It’s like with Hartlepool,” he told me this week. “You thought, would it be the piercing pain that forced [Labour to] change?’ The Greens in Solihull, rather than wait for Labour to jump into action against the BNP after 2006, started door-knocking intensively, asking people what they needed help with and how they would like to see the estate improve.
In a borough cleaved sharply by class and income, housing quickly became central to their efforts. About 60% of social housing tenants in Solihull live in the north of the borough, with a high proportion of the remainder either right-to-buy leaseholders or people privately renting ex-council homes. Not only was the BNP councillor ejected after one term, the Greens now hold nearly all the council seats in north Solihull: having gained one seat last week, it is the second largest party on the council behind the Tories. Labour, meanwhile, languishes in fourth place with just two seats.
“The feeling on the ground was that over the past two or three decades, people were having things done to them,” says Williams. “They kept being told [by Labour]: ‘We know what’s good for you,’ rather than listening and engaging. The whole ‘take back control’ slogan of the leave campaign was exactly what people wanted to hear.” Indeed: 72.4% of voters in Williams’s Chelmsley Wood ward voted to leave the EU in 2016.
FPT - what's happening to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry is a crime. Just a crime.
The Government should have bought it and turned it into a national museum.
There’s a very fine country house on the edge of Luton called Luton Hoo. It was bought by a hotel group, after the owner sadly committed suicide. And they have done an incredible job in restoring it (though personally, I used to love its air of faded grandeur). I don’t see why something similar could not be done in this case.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the bell foundry is handled (though it may be the wrong sort of heritage to meet the culture warriors' needs, for all I know).
PS Given the sort of repurposing that has taken place, for example, with old railway stations and their ancillary buildings eg in the Kings Cross railway lands.
Boris's holiday us the equivalent wallpaper. It cost the state nothing. If Labour want to continue their attacks on dead cats who cares.
Whether they choose to attack him on it and whether the public cares, is irrelevant to whether or not he complied with the required rules.
These things are not difficult to handle properly, so its entirely his own damn fault if he has not done so. Rules are rules. If a rule is a problem it should be changed, but until then you have to comply with it.
So often with standards matters the actual offence, as it were, is very petty or trivial, and it's only an issue because someone was lazy about it, or not open and transparent about it. And stubborn people who refuse to accept any possibility of a mistake then drag out the process and escalate what should not be a big deal - they then whinge about the process being long and disproportionate when they chose to make it so.
It's that simple - if theres a problem, it was entirely needless. If theres not a problem, then that will be clear to all without him making it look a problem.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Is there no requirement on MPs to be co-operative?
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
Another thought that should disturb the Liberal Democrats is that of their eleven seats, only two were held by the party in 2015 - Orkney and Shetland and Westmorland and Lonsdale. All the others have been held for four years or less.
Why there needs to be a centre left realignment is that the LDs come second in 91 seats, mostly second to the Tories, and the LDs are the sub for Labour in large chunks of England more than a Tory protest. If LDs were a sub for the Tories there would be lots of seats where Lab and LDs were one and two. They don't exist in any number.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Being unhelpful and uncooperative is absolutely typical behaviour for that type of subject member. They could resolve issues or questions which have arisen but instead bitch and moan and obfuscate, and may well get off in the end but could have much sooner if they'd just been helpful. Then they complain that they were put through a process which had an easy answer, which they refused to just be open about.
Its infuriating when people are a major part of dragging things out or raising questions, but out of some misplaced idea of defending themselves refuse to cooperate and reach an easy resolution earlier.
I had the thought that talk of 'progressive alliances' and encouraging votes for the Greens helps them far more than it does the Labour and especially the LibDems.
Given the credibility boost the UK Greens are likely to get from the success of those in Germany its possible that they could steadily outperform the LibDems.
And where would that leave the LibDems searching for votes ? Possibly as a libertarian small-government party for disaffected Conservatives.
David, enjoy what will hopefully prove to be just a sabbatical from thread header writing. Your contributions rarely fail to provoke a good discussion, before we inevitably wander off to discuss the latest updates from the Second Punic Wars or some polling on Die Hard: A Christmas Movie?
We are really blessed here to have some minds able to articulate complex ideas in a way that doesn't come across as didactic. I would add that with David stepping back, that frees up at least one slot a week from guest contributors. Some of the more intriguing threads have been contributions from those who normally live their pb lives below the line. If you think you might have a thread idea, run it by the moderators. As long as it isn't damning of the contribution of Radiohead to modern culture or advocates lashings of pineapple on pizza, I'm sure they would be delighted to hear from you.
Heavens, if I can get my arse in gear, you might even get one from me soon too!
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Is there no requirement on MPs to be co-operative?
Yes, I think that there is in which case she could reasonably reach the conclusion that he hasn't been and report accordingly but she seems to be in danger of overreach.
The only ones happy with the Greens doing well are the Tories . Voting Green will split the progressive vote at a GE . . Unless Labour and the Greens come to some agreement then a vote for them is effectively a vote for the Tories who will scoop up more seats . Similarly Labour and the Lib Dems need to come to an agreement . The time for party purity is over ! Unless that is the non Tories want to keep this cesspit government in power for the foreseeable future.
Yes. The England and Wales vote (NI and S are special cases) is always centrist, with the great majority being content with any centrist government. Democracy can't work otherwise because it requires the real consent of the defeated.
With FPTP the two dominant parties agree to that deal because they can get a turn. No-one else has the power to change it.
We head again toward a 1983 situation where it is quite possible that the centre left can win the vote by miles and still lose heavily.
The stronger that Lab, LD and Greens get, the more they do the Tories work for them, as long as they are all strong and all stand.
The time for realignment has come. In each seat there should only be one centre right and one centre left party standing.
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
David, enjoy what will hopefully prove to be just a sabbatical from thread header writing. Your contributions rarely fail to provoke a good discussion, before we inevitably wander off to discuss the latest updates from the Second Punic Wars or some polling on Die Hard: A Christmas Movie?
We are really blessed here to have some minds able to articulate complex ideas in a way that doesn't come across as didactic. I would add that with David stepping back, that frees up at least one slot a week from guest contributors. Some of the more intriguing threads have been contributions from those who normally live their pb lives below the line. If you think you might have a thread idea, run it by the moderators. As long as it isn't damning of the contribution of Radiohead to modern culture or advocates lashings of pineapple on pizza, I'm sure they would be delighted to hear from you.
Heavens, if I can get my arse in gear, you might even get one from me soon too!
A rare occasion when I find myself in complete agreement with you.
@david_herdson's Saturday articles have been a staple of this site for many years and while I've not always agreed with them, they have always been infused with quality and common sense.
I would consider @david_herdson one of this site's most successful provocateurs. No need for whiny self-indulgent expletive-ridden capital-letter saturated rants. All you need is concise and coherent argument to invite a response.
I hope @david_herdson considers we have satisfactorily risen to his weekly challenge.
All the best.my friend, and I look forward to the next contribution.
Off thread. I see Martin Bashir has quit the BBC before the release of the enquiry report into his behaviour over the Diana Interview. He should have been sacked IMHO
Is this similar to the Ballymurphy discussion the other day; ie should the Beeb be held to much higher ethical standards than the rest of the media, as the Army should be compared to paramilitaries?
Lying and forgery should be off limits by any standard.
For sure (as should be shooting innocent people in the back), but if we found some new evidence that a NOTW journalist had done what Bashir did 25 years ago, would there be the public interest element in properly investigating it that seems so rampantly obvious in the Bashir case?
Perhaps if it was a Times journalist who was lying 33 years ago, then yes it would now be in the public interest for more people to know about it.
I'd certainly concede that if new evidence of ABdPJ having forged documents to con vulnerable people into sensitive interviews were to emerge, it would be an even bigger issue than the Bashir one.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
If Boris's godfather had backed up Boris and confirmed the quote, it would have been professional suicide, or at least made him look a right chump.
Edward II's long-lost palace had been discovered. Boris quoted his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, as saying the king would cavort there with his catamite, Piers Gaveston (later to play a walk-on part in a David Cameron controversy).
Trouble is, Gaveston had been beheaded a dozen years before the palace was built, and was in any case the same age as Edward so not a catamite.
So Boris made Lucas seem like an idiot and not a serious historian who would rise to be top dog at Oxford. But note that when hauled over the coals by the Times editor, Boris published a correction which again made it look like Lucas was mistaken, and it was for this second offence that he was sacked.
See for instance, Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth. Look it up on Amazon and press "look inside".
Naughty David, a blatant attempt to try and split the anti Tory vote and a lead that is more polemic than analysis!
The anti-Tory vote *is* split. That's why there are different parties. The chimera that there are simply pro- and anti-Tory voters is the mirage that the centre-left has been chasing for at least a quarter of a century, Coalition notwithstanding.
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
Just to add on the general commendation on David Herdson's threads ; one of the sharpest minds here, and wishing you good luck on your general sabbatical from PB.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Being unhelpful and uncooperative is absolutely typical behaviour for that type of subject member. They could resolve issues or questions which have arisen but instead bitch and moan and obfuscate, and may well get off in the end but could have much sooner if they'd just been helpful. Then they complain that they were put through a process which had an easy answer, which they refused to just be open about.
Its infuriating when people are a major part of dragging things out or raising questions, but out of some misplaced idea of defending themselves refuse to cooperate and reach an easy resolution earlier.
I suspect that Boris doesn't really know what the cost of the holiday would have been. Ross has organised this for him and it will have cost Ross some points or whatever. What value you put on those points may be a matter of opinion rather than fact. If Ross says it is £15k I very much doubt that anyone will ever prove otherwise and if that is what he told Boris then Boris made the correct declaration. She may well have been asking for documents and material that Boris just didn't have or he may just be wriggling again as he so often does. Can't really tell.
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
Why are the cat and the rat allowed biological weapons in unarmed combat?
I'll bring rat poison. (edit, or bleach to clean them!)
'Unarmed' here means without hominid tools, I must admit. And how do you grab it to squirt it? Difficult to clean retractable claws and rats' bladder contents, too.
(Komodo Dragons also use biological weapons BTW - bite you with filthy teeth,which they never brush so they are saturated with rotting meat, so lots of necrotic bacteria. If you are really big (buffalo size), they run off, stop, and wait for you to die of generalised septicaemia, tracking you all the time. But humans? nah, no problem, their equivalent of instant pot noodle dinner, slowed only by getting the plastic covering off.)
BTW I'm astounded at much else in that table - I'd have had 50% for the Homo sapiens, but maybe it's an American thing always to assume one will win? And horses are bloody lethal in a fight.
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
While I'm sure I could beat a rat or cat in a fight, I'm sure I'd get some very nasty bites and scratches along the way. Both creatures can be absolutely ferocious when cornered.
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
Why are the cat and the rat allowed biological weapons in unarmed combat?
I'll bring rat poison. (edit, or bleach to clean them!)
'Unarmed' here means without hominid tools, I must admit. And how do you grab it to squirt it? Difficult to clean retractable claws and rats' bladder contents, too.
(Komodo Dragons also use biological weapons BTW - bite you with filthy teeth,which they never brush so they are saturated with rotting meat, so lots of necrotic bacteria. If you are really big (buffalo size), they run off, stop, and wait for you to die of generalised septicaemia, tracking you all the time. But humans? nah, no problem, their equivalent of instant pot noodle dinner, slowed only by getting the plastic covering off.)
BTW I'm astounded at much else in that table - I'd have had 50% for the Homo sapiens, but maybe it's an American thing always to assume one will win? And horses are bloody lethal in a fight.
They're also huge, wouldn't have a chance without a weapon.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Have you perhaps misread the Mail? "She" is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, not the Mail's reporter. Presumably the evidence and her reasoning is in her report that the Prime Minister is sitting on.
Boris's holiday us the equivalent wallpaper. It cost the state nothing. If Labour want to continue their attacks on dead cats who cares.
This is wrong on two fronts:
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
FPT - what's happening to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry is a crime. Just a crime.
The Government should have bought it and turned it into a national museum.
There’s a very fine country house on the edge of Luton called Luton Hoo. It was bought by a hotel group, after the owner sadly committed suicide. And they have done an incredible job in restoring it (though personally, I used to love its air of faded grandeur). I don’t see why something similar could not be done in this case.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the bell foundry is handled (though it may be the wrong sort of heritage to meet the culture warriors' needs, for all I know).
PS Given the sort of repurposing that has taken place, for example, with old railway stations and their ancillary buildings eg in the Kings Cross railway lands.
St. Pancras is beautiful, especially the state rooms.
Mr. Carnyx, I have vague memories of the bacteria-mouth aspect of Komodo dragons actually turning out to be slow acting poison. They bite prey and just chill out until it drops dead. Could be wrong, but I read up a bit on them years ago for dragon research (they're also capable of parthenogenesis, giving birth without need a father).
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
While I'm sure I could beat a rat or cat in a fight, I'm sure I'd get some very nasty bites and scratches along the way. Both creatures can be absolutely ferocious when cornered. .
That's why people rate themselves so poorly - sure, in a scrap to the death we'd probably win, but human beings think too much and wouldn't have the same level of commitment to the fight.
Agree with everyone else; thanks Mr H for the thoughtful contributions over the years. I always wonder whether politics, and indeed life, is like tides. Which are, after all, very basic features of life on Earth. And while tides come in and out inexorably, they don't do so without a certain amount of to and fro. Although a few years ago the Greens made a massive advance and then fell back, they didn't fall back quite as far. So I think they'll fall back from this, but again not quite as far, and the next time they advance they'll do so to a higher point. Of, course, as well, 'there is a ride in the affairs of men, which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune."
As a one time Lib activist and sometime LD party member and voter, I wonder whether the mess-up over the Coalition won't prove fatal. Once tides start to go out, they can't be stopped.
Tides do, of course, stop in time but yes, I don't think many Lib Dems realise quite how existential the crisis facing their party is. So many still seem to believe in the magic power of the isolated by-election, as here.
It's no longer enough to just be 'not the other two': there are other options available for that, and each with a much stronger identity and set of principles. Fuzzy localism is fine of itself but - as in 2010 - is a strategic dead-end because it all falls apart when the weak tactical votes face are confronted with the realities of power.
There is a very real chance that the Greens could supplant them, though that involves a considerable amount of agency on the part of both parties and, as I mentioned in the header, I'm far from convinced that the Greens have the mindset to capitalise on the opportunity.
Naughty David, a blatant attempt to try and split the anti Tory vote and a lead that is more polemic than analysis!
The anti-Tory vote *is* split. That's why there are different parties. The chimera that there are simply pro- and anti-Tory voters is the mirage that the centre-left has been chasing for at least a quarter of a century, Coalition notwithstanding.
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
Why so disaffected with the Wakefield Conservatives ?
I can understand you so being with Boris and his gang but why at local level as well ?
Agree with everyone else; thanks Mr H for the thoughtful contributions over the years. I always wonder whether politics, and indeed life, is like tides. Which are, after all, very basic features of life on Earth. And while tides come in and out inexorably, they don't do so without a certain amount of to and fro. Although a few years ago the Greens made a massive advance and then fell back, they didn't fall back quite as far. So I think they'll fall back from this, but again not quite as far, and the next time they advance they'll do so to a higher point. Of, course, as well, 'there is a ride in the affairs of men, which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune."
As a one time Lib activist and sometime LD party member and voter, I wonder whether the mess-up over the Coalition won't prove fatal. Once tides start to go out, they can't be stopped.
I sort of wonder whether English Labour Party is worrying about the tide going out as well (it has in Scotland)
Not without a party to replace it. See also, the Tories under Blair, despite the lows of the Hague and IDS era.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Have you perhaps misread the Mail? "She" is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, not the Mail's reporter. Presumably the evidence and her reasoning is in her report that the Prime Minister is sitting on.
Even commissioners can conclude a bit much from the evidence they have, but if her questions have answers or are incorrect there is an easy way for Boris to fix that in the time it takes to send an email.
If he starts attacking the process that will be a key sign - people always end up questioning every dot and comma of the rules when the facts are not on their side.
Mr. Carnyx, I have vague memories of the bacteria-mouth aspect of Komodo dragons actually turning out to be slow acting poison. They bite prey and just chill out until it drops dead. Could be wrong, but I read up a bit on them years ago for dragon research (they're also capable of parthenogenesis, giving birth without need a father).
Yes! You are quite correct - I am obviously out of date.
The only ones happy with the Greens doing well are the Tories . Voting Green will split the progressive vote at a GE . . Unless Labour and the Greens come to some agreement then a vote for them is effectively a vote for the Tories who will scoop up more seats . Similarly Labour and the Lib Dems need to come to an agreement . The time for party purity is over ! Unless that is the non Tories want to keep this cesspit government in power for the foreseeable future.
Yes. The England and Wales vote (NI and S are special cases) is always centrist, with the great majority being content with any centrist government. Democracy can't work otherwise because it requires the real consent of the defeated.
With FPTP the two dominant parties agree to that deal because they can get a turn. No-one else has the power to change it.
We head again toward a 1983 situation where it is quite possible that the centre left can win the vote by miles and still lose heavily.
The stronger that Lab, LD and Greens get, the more they do the Tories work for them, as long as they are all strong and all stand.
The time for realignment has come. In each seat there should only be one centre right and one centre left party standing.
Fine, but you don't get to be in the debates unless you're a national party. Otherwise the tories might as well split in to 10 regional factions with 35 MPs each and get 10 voices on the podium.
Boris's holiday us the equivalent wallpaper. It cost the state nothing. If Labour want to continue their attacks on dead cats who cares.
This is wrong on two fronts:
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
I suspect Boris is not aware of the concept of apparent bias in decision making, even though he has been in public office for decades and damn well should be.
The idea of both being fair/honest and being seen to be so is important, and is to help and defend decision makers and their decisions, not punish them.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Off thread. I see Martin Bashir has quit the BBC before the release of the enquiry report into his behaviour over the Diana Interview. He should have been sacked IMHO
Is this similar to the Ballymurphy discussion the other day; ie should the Beeb be held to much higher ethical standards than the rest of the media, as the Army should be compared to paramilitaries?
Lying and forgery should be off limits by any standard.
For sure (as should be shooting innocent people in the back), but if we found some new evidence that a NOTW journalist had done what Bashir did 25 years ago, would there be the public interest element in properly investigating it that seems so rampantly obvious in the Bashir case?
Perhaps if it was a Times journalist who was lying 33 years ago, then yes it would now be in the public interest for more people to know about it.
I'd certainly concede that if new evidence of ABdPJ having forged documents to con vulnerable people into sensitive interviews were to emerge, it would be an even bigger issue than the Bashir one.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
If Boris's godfather had backed up Boris and confirmed the quote, it would have been professional suicide, or at least made him look a right chump.
Edward II's long-lost palace had been discovered. Boris quoted his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, as saying the king would cavort there with his catamite, Piers Gaveston (later to play a walk-on part in a David Cameron controversy).
Trouble is, Gaveston had been beheaded a dozen years before the palace was built, and was in any case the same age as Edward so not a catamite.
So Boris made Lucas seem like an idiot and not a serious historian who would rise to be top dog at Oxford. But note that when hauled over the coals by the Times editor, Boris published a correction which again made it look like Lucas was mistaken, and it was for this second offence that he was sacked.
See for instance, Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth. Look it up on Amazon and press "look inside".
Blimey. He hasn't changed much, then!
My dad (who's been a Tory voter since he took down the Che Guevara poster he had up as a student, and some time member, but just voted for the Greens in the locals because he hates Boris so much) has a copy he'll lend me.
Mr. Carnyx, I have vague memories of the bacteria-mouth aspect of Komodo dragons actually turning out to be slow acting poison. They bite prey and just chill out until it drops dead. Could be wrong, but I read up a bit on them years ago for dragon research (they're also capable of parthenogenesis, giving birth without need a father).
So sort of like with having it off with Boris (the parthenogenesis rather than bacteria mouth. Probably).
Naughty David, a blatant attempt to try and split the anti Tory vote and a lead that is more polemic than analysis!
The anti-Tory vote *is* split. That's why there are different parties. The chimera that there are simply pro- and anti-Tory voters is the mirage that the centre-left has been chasing for at least a quarter of a century, Coalition notwithstanding.
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
The Tory vote has been split, but with a different discipline. The party which embraces Ken Clarke and Steve Baker wins elections. Those who leave the party, as Heseltine and Clarke, as well as Baker and Francois well know have nowhere to go so they stay. The centre left should have learned from the election of 1983, which they won by a mile while losing by a mile, that it doesn't work.
And BTW if the Labour party had the same discipline about the revolutionary/anti semitic left that Tories do about the racist and fascist right it would be much easier for the centre left to coalesce.
Tories marginalise, expel and adapt to destroy them. For too long Labour has believed that methodism and Lenin belong in the same party.
David's semi-retirement is a real loss for us. I know that a regular commitment can feel like a trudge, but I hope you'll contribute frequently when you feel like it, David.
On topic, the Greens are hard to predict because they leave the decisions to their local parties. I was dislodged in 2010 because of a Green intervention (getting <1% in a marginal but enough to make a difference), and there are lots of other examples, but locally this year they only stood in 2 out of 9 divisions in order to help the LDs. and there are lots of examples of that too including cases where Labour benefits. But lack of central direction is a core cultural value for many Greens (which incidentally gives them a point of dialogue with libertarians in other parties). It'll come down to what Greens in C&A want.
Mr. Carnyx, I have vague memories of the bacteria-mouth aspect of Komodo dragons actually turning out to be slow acting poison. They bite prey and just chill out until it drops dead. Could be wrong, but I read up a bit on them years ago for dragon research (they're also capable of parthenogenesis, giving birth without need a father).
Yes! You are quite correct - I am obviously out of date.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Everyone on twitter's commenting and laughing about the 10% of men that think they could beat a lion in a fight.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
They're being sensible, I think: doing a quick risk/benefit calculation of e.g. getting a cat's claw in the eye, or a bug from a cat scratch or a rat bite.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
Why are the cat and the rat allowed biological weapons in unarmed combat?
I'll bring rat poison. (edit, or bleach to clean them!)
'Unarmed' here means without hominid tools, I must admit. And how do you grab it to squirt it? Difficult to clean retractable claws and rats' bladder contents, too.
(Komodo Dragons also use biological weapons BTW - bite you with filthy teeth,which they never brush so they are saturated with rotting meat, so lots of necrotic bacteria. If you are really big (buffalo size), they run off, stop, and wait for you to die of generalised septicaemia, tracking you all the time. But humans? nah, no problem, their equivalent of instant pot noodle dinner, slowed only by getting the plastic covering off.)
BTW I'm astounded at much else in that table - I'd have had 50% for the Homo sapiens, but maybe it's an American thing always to assume one will win? And horses are bloody lethal in a fight.
Lol!
I'm still pretty confident in my ability to beat a cat or a rat in a fight. They have very small necks, and I can get treated if they do bite or scratch me.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
That is precisely what Boris is saying: that it was only worth £15,000 because it was a last-minute arrangement.
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
Angela Rayner got free engraving, and was vilified.
BoZo gets a bung and the nobody cares...
I recognize the political reality, but unlike the fanbois I don't have to be happy about it.
It's worth mentioning the Green success earlier in the month was partly the result of "informal" deals with the LDs and other parties.
I had a closer look at Surrey where the Conservatives lost 14 seats and particularly at the Guildford divisions.
In Shere, the LDs didn't stand but the Greens stood against the Guildford Greenbelt Group splitting the anti-Conservative vote and allowing the Conservatives to hold the seat by just 78. With the Greens winning 862 votes, it's fair to say had the Greens not stood, the Conservatives would have lost the seat.
In Guildford South-East, the Greens didn't stand but the LDs did but the Conservative still lost, this time to the Residents for Guildford and Villages (RGV), who did so well in the 2019 Borough elections.
In Guildford West, the sitting LD was allowed a free run against both Conservative and Labour but in Shalford and Worplesdon, the LDs and the RGV both contested the seats. In Ash, the LDs had a free run and took the seat. In Horsleys, the Greens again stood aside and Cabinet Julie Iles lost to the RGV despite the LDs also running.
The LDs fought off a strong RGV challenge in Guildford East but held Guildford North in the absence of any RGV or Green candidate.
All this tells me is the absence of any broad strategic thinking but a local hotch-potch of informal arrangements which are often the result of personalities who either get along or don't. It's also a question of areas of local strength or weakness.
There's also the presence (locally) of often anti-development groups who generally find the Greens quite easy to deal with (Shere being an obvious exception - don't know why) but the LDs less so. These groups are able to garner a lot of local support and, to give them their due, campaign hard and effectively.
What does this mean for national politics? The chimera of a broad progressive anti-Conservative alliance is probably just that. I can certainly envisage seats where there will be "deals" between the LDs, Greens and perhaps the odd Independent but the anti-Conservative parties are also often anti-Labour so what will need to happen is what happened in the run-up to 1997 when the electorate worked it out for themselves (not always correctly) which party was best placed to defeat the Conservatives where they lived.
What a weird old morning - just watched an episode of Champion the Wonder Horse of all things. Seemed to me the dog in the episode did just as much work saving a small child as the horse, and fought off armed robbers whenthe horse did not, and who gets the top billing? Unfair.
But I take having watched that as a sign I need to get off my arse and go outside. Cheerio.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 30m So excuse me if I take SAGE predictions of doom and gloom every time we open up with a large pinch of salt. Their computer models have been wrong every single time. 5/
Thank you for this and a long series of excellent articles.
As to the Green's the right approach all depends what you want to achieve. At the moment the centre left struggles to think about forming a government. But in the disaster for the centre left of 2019 Tories got 13.9 m votes, Lab+LD got the same, and Lab+LD +G got about 14.8 m.
If you want to achieve the realistic possibility of 15 years more of this, then the Greens should be fighting their electoral corner in every way. This is what they don't do in Scottish Parliament elections of course.
Until the centre left coalesces around policy and strategy they are at risk of repeating the election of 1983, which is remembered as a Tory landslide forgetting that in 1983 Tories got 13m votes and Lab + SDP got 16 m.
In 2019, the Brexit divisions were so stark that some degree of bloc alignment might have been possible - though the presence of Corbyn as Labour leader worked strongly against that - but in general that kind of armchair strategy, trying to push around voters like counters on a board, rarely works.
Look at the second preferences from the SV elections, last week. There's enough evidence from elections where most or all first-preference votes dropped were from the centre-left that a fair chunk will still migrate to the Tories, or to abstain, if denied their first choice.
The 1983 example you give is telling. Yes, Lab + Alliance outpolled the Tories but polling at the time suggested that overall, Alliance voters preferred the Tories to Labour. Had it been a straight Con/Lab fight, Thatcher would have won by even more.
Thank you for this and a long series of excellent articles.
As to the Green's the right approach all depends what you want to achieve. At the moment the centre left struggles to think about forming a government. But in the disaster for the centre left of 2019 Tories got 13.9 m votes, Lab+LD got the same, and Lab+LD +G got about 14.8 m.
If you want to achieve the realistic possibility of 15 years more of this, then the Greens should be fighting their electoral corner in every way. This is what they don't do in Scottish Parliament elections of course.
Until the centre left coalesces around policy and strategy they are at risk of repeating the election of 1983, which is remembered as a Tory landslide forgetting that in 1983 Tories got 13m votes and Lab + SDP got 16 m.
In 2019, the Brexit divisions were so stark that some degree of bloc alignment might have been possible - though the presence of Corbyn as Labour leader worked strongly against that - but in general that kind of armchair strategy, trying to push around voters like counters on a board, rarely works.
Look at the second preferences from the SV elections, last week. There's enough evidence from elections where most or all first-preference votes dropped were from the centre-left that a fair chunk will still migrate to the Tories, or to abstain, if denied their first choice.
The 1983 example you give is telling. Yes, Lab + Alliance outpolled the Tories but polling at the time suggested that overall, Alliance voters preferred the Tories to Labour. Had it been a straight Con/Lab fight, Thatcher would have won by even more.
Ah, but had it been a straight Tory/Alliance fight....
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
Angela Rayner got free engraving, and was vilified.
BoZo gets a bung and the nobody cares...
I recognize the political reality, but unlike the fanbois I don't have to be happy about it.
How happy are you about Cameron's sleazy dealings with Greensill ?
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Damning stat of the day:
Only one Liberal Democrat Westminster seat has been held by two or more (actually, three) consecutive Liberal Democrat MPs. All the others were won from another party by the current incumbent.
Three MPs - but their service spans over 70 years.
Off thread. I see Martin Bashir has quit the BBC before the release of the enquiry report into his behaviour over the Diana Interview. He should have been sacked IMHO
Is this similar to the Ballymurphy discussion the other day; ie should the Beeb be held to much higher ethical standards than the rest of the media, as the Army should be compared to paramilitaries?
Lying and forgery should be off limits by any standard.
For sure (as should be shooting innocent people in the back), but if we found some new evidence that a NOTW journalist had done what Bashir did 25 years ago, would there be the public interest element in properly investigating it that seems so rampantly obvious in the Bashir case?
Perhaps if it was a Times journalist who was lying 33 years ago, then yes it would now be in the public interest for more people to know about it.
I'd certainly concede that if new evidence of ABdPJ having forged documents to con vulnerable people into sensitive interviews were to emerge, it would be an even bigger issue than the Bashir one.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
If Boris's godfather had backed up Boris and confirmed the quote, it would have been professional suicide, or at least made him look a right chump.
Edward II's long-lost palace had been discovered. Boris quoted his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, as saying the king would cavort there with his catamite, Piers Gaveston (later to play a walk-on part in a David Cameron controversy).
Trouble is, Gaveston had been beheaded a dozen years before the palace was built, and was in any case the same age as Edward so not a catamite.
So Boris made Lucas seem like an idiot and not a serious historian who would rise to be top dog at Oxford. But note that when hauled over the coals by the Times editor, Boris published a correction which again made it look like Lucas was mistaken, and it was for this second offence that he was sacked.
See for instance, Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth. Look it up on Amazon and press "look inside".
Blimey. He hasn't changed much, then!
My dad (who's been a Tory voter since he took down the Che Guevara poster he had up as a student, and some time member, but just voted for the Greens in the locals because he hates Boris so much) has a copy he'll lend me.
Oborne previously wrote The Rise of Political Lying about "the exponential rise of political falsehood during the Major and Blair governments".
Boris is in a class of his own, I think, though he is a more fluent writer than Oborne.
ETA Jim Hacker adapted Daniel Moynahan's phrase about Henry Kissinger: He does not lie because it's in his interests. He lies because it's in his nature.
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Politics may a ruthless and competitive business as David says but it is not as if the main parties are pulling up trees or squeezing the daylight out of them either. There should be plenty remainer Tories who are pissed off with the direction of the party (they can't surely all just be on PB) and disillusionment with Labour remains widespread. If the Lib Dems are not going to thrive in such an environment when can they?
So there is a clear vacancy for the NOTA party at present and it does appear that the Greens are up for the application. It seems all too likely that their sister party will be in government in Germany soon as well which will give them a boost in credibility as the lights don't go off and industry continues to thrive. I can see them becoming a significant third force in this country over the coming decade.
I have asked on here a few times this year what is the point of the LibDems in the 2020s and yet to receive a convincing answer. The forces of liberalism and centrist politics are probably better served as factions within the two big parties than as an independent party, at national level at least. Labour currently have a policy void to fill, and who knows what the Tories will become when "Boris" leaves the scene, they yo-yo from an ideology to the next, remarkably maintaining many loyal cheerleaders throughout.
While there are Centrist factions in both Labour and Conservatives, the stateism of the one, and nationalism of the other don't fit well with many centrist.
Representation is problematic under FPTP, we see in elections such as last weeks that around 15% of voters are voting LD. That is a long way off governing, but is a significant electorate.
If we had PR then of course the point of the LDs is obvious. We don't though. And they dont seem to like coalitions. Are the 15% getting a good or bad deal in representation?
Is it though? The Lib Dems have routinely done *worse* at PR elections in terms of vote share. And that was when they had a clearer identity than they do now. Take away the personal votes of the current constituency MPs and where does that leave them? (STV might help a bit but it would also impose a higher threshold than they could reach in most constituencies).
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Damning stat of the day:
Only one Liberal Democrat Westminster seat has been held by two or more (actually, three) consecutive Liberal Democrat MPs. All the others were won from another party by the current incumbent.
Three MPs - but their service spans over 70 years.
Agree with everyone else; thanks Mr H for the thoughtful contributions over the years. I always wonder whether politics, and indeed life, is like tides. Which are, after all, very basic features of life on Earth. And while tides come in and out inexorably, they don't do so without a certain amount of to and fro. Although a few years ago the Greens made a massive advance and then fell back, they didn't fall back quite as far. So I think they'll fall back from this, but again not quite as far, and the next time they advance they'll do so to a higher point. Of, course, as well, 'there is a ride in the affairs of men, which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune."
As a one time Lib activist and sometime LD party member and voter, I wonder whether the mess-up over the Coalition won't prove fatal. Once tides start to go out, they can't be stopped.
Tides do, of course, stop in time but yes, I don't think many Lib Dems realise quite how existential the crisis facing their party is. So many still seem to believe in the magic power of the isolated by-election, as here.
It's no longer enough to just be 'not the other two': there are other options available for that, and each with a much stronger identity and set of principles. Fuzzy localism is fine of itself but - as in 2010 - is a strategic dead-end because it all falls apart when the weak tactical votes face are confronted with the realities of power.
There is a very real chance that the Greens could supplant them, though that involves a considerable amount of agency on the part of both parties and, as I mentioned in the header, I'm far from convinced that the Greens have the mindset to capitalise on the opportunity.
Elsewhere the voting system has facilitated the emergence of new political movements. En Marche in France, FiveStar in Italy, Podemos in Spain, the Greens in Germany and so on.
The UK is stuck in the strait-jacket of FPTP and it is not healthy. It will never change because it has allowed the Tories to govern the country unfettered for most of my lifetime with about 40% of the vote.
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
Angela Rayner got free engraving, and was vilified.
BoZo gets a bung and the nobody cares...
I recognize the political reality, but unlike the fanbois I don't have to be happy about it.
You recognize political reality now? Truly we live in an age of wonders...
Another thought that should disturb the Liberal Democrats is that of their eleven seats, only two were held by the party in 2015 - Orkney and Shetland and Westmorland and Lonsdale. All the others have been held for four years or less.
And they very nearly lost both: W&L in 2017 and O&S in 2015.
'Second doses will also be speeded-up for older age groups in affected areas - in a move described by Prof Harnden as providing "better short-term protection" in an "urgent situation".'
So it looks like I was correct in thinking that this was about maximising protection. Which makes sense - the risk to the older groups from COVID in general is orders of magnitude higher.
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Damning stat of the day:
Only one Liberal Democrat Westminster seat has been held by two or more (actually, three) consecutive Liberal Democrat MPs. All the others were won from another party by the current incumbent.
Three MPs - but their service spans over 70 years.
Presumably Grimond's old seat?
Even Orkney and Shetland almost went SNP in 2015, and no longer has the stonking majority the Liberals/LDs always used to have there.
I'm interested in the Conservative who won it in 1935 until 1950, as without him it was a Whig/Liberal seat possibly back to 1835 (maybe - it has a Liberal Unionist 1900-1902 shaded in blue, so I guess that was a Toryish moniker), or back to 1807 but for a two year Conservative stint.
David's semi-retirement is a real loss for us. I know that a regular commitment can feel like a trudge, but I hope you'll contribute frequently when you feel like it, David.
But lack of central direction is a core cultural value for many Greens (which incidentally gives them a point of dialogue with libertarians in other parties). It'll come down to what Greens in C&A want.
The last sentence interests me.
So why are they so obsessive about big gallumphing interventions by Government, rather than more locally-based, flexible, and efficient, answers, driven by regulated markets?
An example: I look at doing External Wall Insulation every so often, and I have yet to find a house where it is cost effective or energy effective, once all the normal easy things have been done.
The last time I looked there was a grant of 4-6k available on a 14k project to do it. Yet when I spoke to the company actually doing the work they would have done it for 9k as a private customer. So the entire Govt funding would be absorbed by oiling the administrative wheels.
I've always framed it that Greens are socialist before they are green, which imo wrecks everything (you will not agree!).
Another example may be the fuss when solar panel FIT subsidies were reduced, and were acting as a Government cash-cow for property companies. To this day were I to invest in a house with the early FIT arrangaments it is worth up to an extra 1% or so on the rental return in most places. Greens demanded their continuance.
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
Angela Rayner got free engraving, and was vilified.
BoZo gets a bung and the nobody cares...
I recognize the political reality, but unlike the fanbois I don't have to be happy about it.
The trouble is Boris exploits and exposes the weakness in our democratic conventions that rely on our leaders' sense of honour.
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Damning stat of the day:
Only one Liberal Democrat Westminster seat has been held by two or more (actually, three) consecutive Liberal Democrat MPs. All the others were won from another party by the current incumbent.
Three MPs - but their service spans over 70 years.
Presumably Grimond's old seat?
Yes - Orkney and Shetland.
Although I was in fact not quite correct. I had forgotten Vince Cable had returned to Parliament (pretty damning of his performance given he was also leader for a time!) so Twickenham has been held by consecutive Lib Dems as well.
However, Orkney and Shetland is the only seat held continuously since the start of the millennium. It is one of only two to have returned a Liberal Democrat MP at three or more consecutive elections. And it is the only current seat where three Liberal Democrat MPs have been consecutively returned for the party or where more than one has won multiple elections.
Now that shows a party with no heartland.
That also shows a party with the potential to fall further...
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
FPT - what's happening to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry is a crime. Just a crime.
The Government should have bought it and turned it into a national museum.
Maybe sort out the 100,000+ children living in poverty before channeling the tax payers' largesse toward a bourgeois church bell themed Disneyland.
The WBF should have let it be known that they were involved in casting slave ships’ bells, manacles and Cecil Rhodes’ cock ring. They would then have been cancelled, the Tele and Spiked would have written a hundred pieces on why they’re a vital part of our heritage and the government would have leapt to their defence faster than BJ chasing a freebie. Maybe it’s not too late.
You joke, but there's a lot in that. Which is why it's funny, of course.
Thank you for this and a long series of excellent articles.
As to the Green's the right approach all depends what you want to achieve. At the moment the centre left struggles to think about forming a government. But in the disaster for the centre left of 2019 Tories got 13.9 m votes, Lab+LD got the same, and Lab+LD +G got about 14.8 m.
If you want to achieve the realistic possibility of 15 years more of this, then the Greens should be fighting their electoral corner in every way. This is what they don't do in Scottish Parliament elections of course.
Until the centre left coalesces around policy and strategy they are at risk of repeating the election of 1983, which is remembered as a Tory landslide forgetting that in 1983 Tories got 13m votes and Lab + SDP got 16 m.
In 2019, the Brexit divisions were so stark that some degree of bloc alignment might have been possible - though the presence of Corbyn as Labour leader worked strongly against that - but in general that kind of armchair strategy, trying to push around voters like counters on a board, rarely works.
Look at the second preferences from the SV elections, last week. There's enough evidence from elections where most or all first-preference votes dropped were from the centre-left that a fair chunk will still migrate to the Tories, or to abstain, if denied their first choice.
The 1983 example you give is telling. Yes, Lab + Alliance outpolled the Tories but polling at the time suggested that overall, Alliance voters preferred the Tories to Labour. Had it been a straight Con/Lab fight, Thatcher would have won by even more.
Ah, but had it been a straight Tory/Alliance fight....
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Politics may a ruthless and competitive business as David says but it is not as if the main parties are pulling up trees or squeezing the daylight out of them either. There should be plenty remainer Tories who are pissed off with the direction of the party (they can't surely all just be on PB) and disillusionment with Labour remains widespread. If the Lib Dems are not going to thrive in such an environment when can they?
So there is a clear vacancy for the NOTA party at present and it does appear that the Greens are up for the application. It seems all too likely that their sister party will be in government in Germany soon as well which will give them a boost in credibility as the lights don't go off and industry continues to thrive. I can see them becoming a significant third force in this country over the coming decade.
I have asked on here a few times this year what is the point of the LibDems in the 2020s and yet to receive a convincing answer. The forces of liberalism and centrist politics are probably better served as factions within the two big parties than as an independent party, at national level at least. Labour currently have a policy void to fill, and who knows what the Tories will become when "Boris" leaves the scene, they yo-yo from an ideology to the next, remarkably maintaining many loyal cheerleaders throughout.
While there are Centrist factions in both Labour and Conservatives, the stateism of the one, and nationalism of the other don't fit well with many centrist.
Representation is problematic under FPTP, we see in elections such as last weeks that around 15% of voters are voting LD. That is a long way off governing, but is a significant electorate.
If we had PR then of course the point of the LDs is obvious. We don't though. And they dont seem to like coalitions. Are the 15% getting a good or bad deal in representation?
Is it though? The Lib Dems have routinely done *worse* at PR elections in terms of vote share. And that was when they had a clearer identity than they do now. Take away the personal votes of the current constituency MPs and where does that leave them? (STV might help a bit but it would also impose a higher threshold than they could reach in most constituencies).
The Euro elections went quite well. And the London PR list share was greater than the constituency share. In Scottish and Welsh elections the constituency share is flattered by tactical voting from other parties; look at areas away from these isolated pockets of strength and the evidence suggests FPTP does discourage people from casting a vote for smaller parties, which is only logical.
Off thread. I see Martin Bashir has quit the BBC before the release of the enquiry report into his behaviour over the Diana Interview. He should have been sacked IMHO
Is this similar to the Ballymurphy discussion the other day; ie should the Beeb be held to much higher ethical standards than the rest of the media, as the Army should be compared to paramilitaries?
Lying and forgery should be off limits by any standard.
For sure (as should be shooting innocent people in the back), but if we found some new evidence that a NOTW journalist had done what Bashir did 25 years ago, would there be the public interest element in properly investigating it that seems so rampantly obvious in the Bashir case?
Perhaps if it was a Times journalist who was lying 33 years ago, then yes it would now be in the public interest for more people to know about it.
I'd certainly concede that if new evidence of ABdPJ having forged documents to con vulnerable people into sensitive interviews were to emerge, it would be an even bigger issue than the Bashir one.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
If Boris's godfather had backed up Boris and confirmed the quote, it would have been professional suicide, or at least made him look a right chump.
Edward II's long-lost palace had been discovered. Boris quoted his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, as saying the king would cavort there with his catamite, Piers Gaveston (later to play a walk-on part in a David Cameron controversy).
Trouble is, Gaveston had been beheaded a dozen years before the palace was built, and was in any case the same age as Edward so not a catamite.
So Boris made Lucas seem like an idiot and not a serious historian who would rise to be top dog at Oxford. But note that when hauled over the coals by the Times editor, Boris published a correction which again made it look like Lucas was mistaken, and it was for this second offence that he was sacked.
See for instance, Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth. Look it up on Amazon and press "look inside".
Blimey. He hasn't changed much, then!
My dad (who's been a Tory voter since he took down the Che Guevara poster he had up as a student, and some time member, but just voted for the Greens in the locals because he hates Boris so much) has a copy he'll lend me.
Oborne previously wrote The Rise of Political Lying about "the exponential rise of political falsehood during the Major and Blair governments".
Boris is in a class of his own, I think, though he is a more fluent writer than Oborne.
ETA Jim Hacker adapted Daniel Moynahan's phrase about Henry Kissinger: He does not lie because it's in his interests. He lies because it's in his nature.
Just seems odd to me that Oborne was so gushingly supportive of Boris so recently.
Did he not know about his lying before that? Or was he expecting some sort of Damascene conversion in Boris that gave him probity on becoming PM? Both of those seem unlikely to me.
I wonder if maybe he was expecting some sort of job or honour promised to him, and has taken umbrage that Boris hasn't delivered.
Naughty David, a blatant attempt to try and split the anti Tory vote and a lead that is more polemic than analysis!
The anti-Tory vote *is* split. That's why there are different parties. The chimera that there are simply pro- and anti-Tory voters is the mirage that the centre-left has been chasing for at least a quarter of a century, Coalition notwithstanding.
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
You are at core a traditional conservative, though, from my understanding of your views and perspectives.
It's just you cannot vote for the current Conservative Party under its current owner.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
Most of us pay for our own holidays, don't we? Those of us on the left disapproved of Blair benefiting from freebies just as much as we disapprove of Boris benefiting from freebies, so I don't see your point. It doesn't really matter whether it's £15k or £30K; it's a free luxury holiday that red wall voters can only dream of.
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Politics may a ruthless and competitive business as David says but it is not as if the main parties are pulling up trees or squeezing the daylight out of them either. There should be plenty remainer Tories who are pissed off with the direction of the party (they can't surely all just be on PB) and disillusionment with Labour remains widespread. If the Lib Dems are not going to thrive in such an environment when can they?
So there is a clear vacancy for the NOTA party at present and it does appear that the Greens are up for the application. It seems all too likely that their sister party will be in government in Germany soon as well which will give them a boost in credibility as the lights don't go off and industry continues to thrive. I can see them becoming a significant third force in this country over the coming decade.
I have asked on here a few times this year what is the point of the LibDems in the 2020s and yet to receive a convincing answer. The forces of liberalism and centrist politics are probably better served as factions within the two big parties than as an independent party, at national level at least. Labour currently have a policy void to fill, and who knows what the Tories will become when "Boris" leaves the scene, they yo-yo from an ideology to the next, remarkably maintaining many loyal cheerleaders throughout.
Electorally over the long term the answer is that they give dissatisfied Tories who would never vote Labour, someone to vote for. The missing element right now is large numbers of dissatisfied Tories. As and when that changes, the answers to the questions being raised about Labour, the LibDems and the Greens might look different.
There are lots of dissatisfied CP voters but unfortunately the image of late from LibDems (who I vote for ... just) seem to have become unhinged from liberalism. I thought this might change with Davey who is an Orange Booker. Still hoping.
The LIbDems need to start attacking the LP as much as they do the CP and importantly need to make clear that the mad-left woke are not in any way liberal.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
Agree with everyone else; thanks Mr H for the thoughtful contributions over the years. I always wonder whether politics, and indeed life, is like tides. Which are, after all, very basic features of life on Earth. And while tides come in and out inexorably, they don't do so without a certain amount of to and fro. Although a few years ago the Greens made a massive advance and then fell back, they didn't fall back quite as far. So I think they'll fall back from this, but again not quite as far, and the next time they advance they'll do so to a higher point. Of, course, as well, 'there is a ride in the affairs of men, which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune."
As a one time Lib activist and sometime LD party member and voter, I wonder whether the mess-up over the Coalition won't prove fatal. Once tides start to go out, they can't be stopped.
Tides do, of course, stop in time but yes, I don't think many Lib Dems realise quite how existential the crisis facing their party is. So many still seem to believe in the magic power of the isolated by-election, as here.
It's no longer enough to just be 'not the other two': there are other options available for that, and each with a much stronger identity and set of principles. Fuzzy localism is fine of itself but - as in 2010 - is a strategic dead-end because it all falls apart when the weak tactical votes face are confronted with the realities of power.
There is a very real chance that the Greens could supplant them, though that involves a considerable amount of agency on the part of both parties and, as I mentioned in the header, I'm far from convinced that the Greens have the mindset to capitalise on the opportunity.
Elsewhere the voting system has facilitated the emergence of new political movements. En Marche in France, FiveStar in Italy, Podemos in Spain, the Greens in Germany and so on.
The UK is stuck in the strait-jacket of FPTP and it is not healthy. It will never change because it has allowed the Tories to govern the country unfettered for most of my lifetime with about 40% of the vote.
In Spain despite PR Citizens has sink without trace and Podemos has also lost a lot of support. The PP and PSOE are now much more dominant again.
Agree with everyone else; thanks Mr H for the thoughtful contributions over the years. I always wonder whether politics, and indeed life, is like tides. Which are, after all, very basic features of life on Earth. And while tides come in and out inexorably, they don't do so without a certain amount of to and fro. Although a few years ago the Greens made a massive advance and then fell back, they didn't fall back quite as far. So I think they'll fall back from this, but again not quite as far, and the next time they advance they'll do so to a higher point. Of, course, as well, 'there is a ride in the affairs of men, which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune."
As a one time Lib activist and sometime LD party member and voter, I wonder whether the mess-up over the Coalition won't prove fatal. Once tides start to go out, they can't be stopped.
Tides do, of course, stop in time but yes, I don't think many Lib Dems realise quite how existential the crisis facing their party is. So many still seem to believe in the magic power of the isolated by-election, as here.
It's no longer enough to just be 'not the other two': there are other options available for that, and each with a much stronger identity and set of principles. Fuzzy localism is fine of itself but - as in 2010 - is a strategic dead-end because it all falls apart when the weak tactical votes face are confronted with the realities of power.
There is a very real chance that the Greens could supplant them, though that involves a considerable amount of agency on the part of both parties and, as I mentioned in the header, I'm far from convinced that the Greens have the mindset to capitalise on the opportunity.
Well, they got me voting for them last week because they tried Liberalism.
There's an obvious space for them in an age of state control, ever greater impingments on personal privacy, restricted choice, caveated freedoms and attitudes to identity so extreme they become illiberal - but I don't see them taking it.
It's not even that hard to get started. All it takes is for Ed Davey to say to the media he's going to give a powerful speech on what it means to be liberal and the future of liberalism, very well trailed, and then give a very good speech which is well briefed out afterwards.
It's worth mentioning the Green success earlier in the month was partly the result of "informal" deals with the LDs and other parties.
I had a closer look at Surrey where the Conservatives lost 14 seats and particularly at the Guildford divisions.
In Shere, the LDs didn't stand but the Greens stood against the Guildford Greenbelt Group splitting the anti-Conservative vote and allowing the Conservatives to hold the seat by just 78. With the Greens winning 862 votes, it's fair to say had the Greens not stood, the Conservatives would have lost the seat.
In Guildford South-East, the Greens didn't stand but the LDs did but the Conservative still lost, this time to the Residents for Guildford and Villages (RGV), who did so well in the 2019 Borough elections.
In Guildford West, the sitting LD was allowed a free run against both Conservative and Labour but in Shalford and Worplesdon, the LDs and the RGV both contested the seats. In Ash, the LDs had a free run and took the seat. In Horsleys, the Greens again stood aside and Cabinet Julie Iles lost to the RGV despite the LDs also running.
The LDs fought off a strong RGV challenge in Guildford East but held Guildford North in the absence of any RGV or Green candidate.
All this tells me is the absence of any broad strategic thinking but a local hotch-potch of informal arrangements which are often the result of personalities who either get along or don't. It's also a question of areas of local strength or weakness.
Same in South Oxfordshire in the CC elections, in all 3 Green wins the LDs weren't standing, in return for the Greens not standing in LD targets.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Politics may a ruthless and competitive business as David says but it is not as if the main parties are pulling up trees or squeezing the daylight out of them either. There should be plenty remainer Tories who are pissed off with the direction of the party (they can't surely all just be on PB) and disillusionment with Labour remains widespread. If the Lib Dems are not going to thrive in such an environment when can they?
So there is a clear vacancy for the NOTA party at present and it does appear that the Greens are up for the application. It seems all too likely that their sister party will be in government in Germany soon as well which will give them a boost in credibility as the lights don't go off and industry continues to thrive. I can see them becoming a significant third force in this country over the coming decade.
I have asked on here a few times this year what is the point of the LibDems in the 2020s and yet to receive a convincing answer. The forces of liberalism and centrist politics are probably better served as factions within the two big parties than as an independent party, at national level at least. Labour currently have a policy void to fill, and who knows what the Tories will become when "Boris" leaves the scene, they yo-yo from an ideology to the next, remarkably maintaining many loyal cheerleaders throughout.
Electorally over the long term the answer is that they give dissatisfied Tories who would never vote Labour, someone to vote for. The missing element right now is large numbers of dissatisfied Tories. As and when that changes, the answers to the questions being raised about Labour, the LibDems and the Greens might look different.
There are lots of dissatisfied CP voters but unfortunately the image of late from LibDems (who I vote for ... just) seem to have become unhinged from liberalism. I thought this might change with Davey who is an Orange Booker. Still hoping.
The LIbDems need to start attacking the LP as much as they do the CP and importantly need to make clear that the mad-left woke are not in any way liberal.
Don't you think that Ed Davey may be part of the problem, not the solution? I'm sure he's a decent chap, but he's pretty invisible and dull and worthy rather than energising. Similar problem to Starmer, but without the high profile?
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
Most of us pay for our own holidays, don't we? Those of us on the left disapproved of Blair benefiting from freebies just as much as we disapprove of Boris benefiting from freebies, so I don't see your point. It doesn't really matter whether it's £15k or £30K; it's a free luxury holiday that red wall voters can only dream of.
I've stayed at good friends' places abroad for free or knockdown prices. I don't think it's all that unusual. And I think a lot of those red wall voters could easily imagine themselves accepting a freebie if they had the chance!
On topic it seems to me that the Lib Dems are dying. Their poor performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections included the painful reality that they did not get a single list seat being entirely dependent on a few constituencies which are in turn fairly dependent upon personal votes. Their performance in Airdrie and Shotts was as derisory as their performance in Hartlepool.
Politics may a ruthless and competitive business as David says but it is not as if the main parties are pulling up trees or squeezing the daylight out of them either. There should be plenty remainer Tories who are pissed off with the direction of the party (they can't surely all just be on PB) and disillusionment with Labour remains widespread. If the Lib Dems are not going to thrive in such an environment when can they?
So there is a clear vacancy for the NOTA party at present and it does appear that the Greens are up for the application. It seems all too likely that their sister party will be in government in Germany soon as well which will give them a boost in credibility as the lights don't go off and industry continues to thrive. I can see them becoming a significant third force in this country over the coming decade.
I have asked on here a few times this year what is the point of the LibDems in the 2020s and yet to receive a convincing answer. The forces of liberalism and centrist politics are probably better served as factions within the two big parties than as an independent party, at national level at least. Labour currently have a policy void to fill, and who knows what the Tories will become when "Boris" leaves the scene, they yo-yo from an ideology to the next, remarkably maintaining many loyal cheerleaders throughout.
While there are Centrist factions in both Labour and Conservatives, the stateism of the one, and nationalism of the other don't fit well with many centrist.
Representation is problematic under FPTP, we see in elections such as last weeks that around 15% of voters are voting LD. That is a long way off governing, but is a significant electorate.
If we had PR then of course the point of the LDs is obvious. We don't though. And they dont seem to like coalitions. Are the 15% getting a good or bad deal in representation?
Is it though? The Lib Dems have routinely done *worse* at PR elections in terms of vote share. And that was when they had a clearer identity than they do now. Take away the personal votes of the current constituency MPs and where does that leave them? (STV might help a bit but it would also impose a higher threshold than they could reach in most constituencies).
I am not saying the LDs will poll better (or worse) under PR, I am saying the logic of their existence is clear under PR - to represent whatever segment of the electorate that like their policies.
Under FPTP post coalition, the voters that vote for them get very little if any representation. Even when they do well it seems they wont want another coalition, and they cannot win themselves. So, at best, they can be an ideas farm, for Labour and the Tories. I find it very hard to see why such ideas would not be better represented as factions within the Labour party who are currently looking for ideas, and the Tories who are happy to follow any ideas that might win whichever election is next.
A big caveat is the above is all true for Westminster politics but not so in local politics, where the raison d'etre is stronger.
The article suggests that she has concluded that the holiday was worth more than what was declared. Her basis for doing so is a daily rate. But 10 days may well achieve a discount. If she has evidence that the true cost was higher she should produce it. Given the somewhat opaque methods and unwillingness to cooperate by the company managing the villas I very much doubt that she has this.
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
Boris can always say that "At the price she is suggesting it should have cost, I wouldn't have taken it. Not remotely worth the grief."
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
Or Johnson and eBay Melania could pay for their own holidays to avoid months of obfuscation and suspicion. That's always an option.
Perhaps Boris needs to work on his "dwindled and haggard" look, after dealing with Covid? Then he'd get freebies....
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
Most of us pay for our own holidays, don't we? Those of us on the left disapproved of Blair benefiting from freebies just as much as we disapprove of Boris benefiting from freebies, so I don't see your point. It doesn't really matter whether it's £15k or £30K; it's a free luxury holiday that red wall voters can only dream of.
I've stayed at good friends' places abroad for free or knockdown prices. I don't think it's all that unusual. And I think a lot of those red wall voters could easily imagine themselves accepting a freebie if they had the chance!
Naughty David, a blatant attempt to try and split the anti Tory vote and a lead that is more polemic than analysis!
The anti-Tory vote *is* split. That's why there are different parties. The chimera that there are simply pro- and anti-Tory voters is the mirage that the centre-left has been chasing for at least a quarter of a century, Coalition notwithstanding.
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
You are at core a traditional conservative, though, from my understanding of your views and perspectives.
It's just you cannot vote for the current Conservative Party under its current owner.
Yes. I'd regard myself as a liberal conservative. And I would quite like a centre-right party to vote for that is fiscally prudent, is confident of British nationality without being jingoistic, has confidence in appropriately regulated market mechanisms and in individuals to take - in the round - better choices than the state would take for them, in freedom of speech and thought, and so on. But I don't have one at the moment.
Comments
There is an important reason we ask our representatives to disclose where they get cash from. That he is not willing to say where it came from is not a good sign.
His actual misdemeanour at the Times seems fairly trivial in comparison. I don't know all the details, but the most shocking thing to me about it is that his godfather didn't back him up and just confirm the quote..
Ros Atkins on Liz Cheney's sacking:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-57118304
She has also concluded that Mr Ross did not pay for this. Mr Ross denied paying for it originally but now says that he did. Again, what is her evidence or her basis for rejecting what Mr Ross is now saying? The answer seems to be that it wasn't in fact his villa but that has been answered.
I have no doubt that Boris has been unhelpful and uncooperative here but unless she has more material than has been made public to date it seems to me that at most she has some questions rather than assertions.
"The Greens are changing tack at a council level, seeking to campaign less on the wider issue of climate emergency and instead focusing heavily on people’s local environments and day-to-day needs around housing, transport and community spaces. In the past 10 years, the party has targeted and won council seats in poorer areas, often on peripheral estates where the epithet “left behind” can easily be replaced by “segregated by class”.
Chelmsley Wood, the large outer Birmingham estate where I grew up and went to school, went from having one BNP and two Labour members on Solihull council in 2006 to three Green councillors in less than a decade. The election of a BNP councillor on a very low turnout back then should have been the cause of great angst for its remaining Labour representatives, says Chris Williams, a former Solihull councillor who has just become the Green party’s national head of elections.
“It’s like with Hartlepool,” he told me this week. “You thought, would it be the piercing pain that forced [Labour to] change?’ The Greens in Solihull, rather than wait for Labour to jump into action against the BNP after 2006, started door-knocking intensively, asking people what they needed help with and how they would like to see the estate improve.
In a borough cleaved sharply by class and income, housing quickly became central to their efforts. About 60% of social housing tenants in Solihull live in the north of the borough, with a high proportion of the remainder either right-to-buy leaseholders or people privately renting ex-council homes. Not only was the BNP councillor ejected after one term, the Greens now hold nearly all the council seats in north Solihull: having gained one seat last week, it is the second largest party on the council behind the Tories. Labour, meanwhile, languishes in fourth place with just two seats.
“The feeling on the ground was that over the past two or three decades, people were having things done to them,” says Williams. “They kept being told [by Labour]: ‘We know what’s good for you,’ rather than listening and engaging. The whole ‘take back control’ slogan of the leave campaign was exactly what people wanted to hear.” Indeed: 72.4% of voters in Williams’s Chelmsley Wood ward voted to leave the EU in 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/15/the-green-party-can-show-labour-how-to-connect-with-its-former-heartlands
PS Given the sort of repurposing that has taken place, for example, with old railway stations and their ancillary buildings eg in the Kings Cross railway lands.
These things are not difficult to handle properly, so its entirely his own damn fault if he has not done so. Rules are rules. If a rule is a problem it should be changed, but until then you have to comply with it.
So often with standards matters the actual offence, as it were, is very petty or trivial, and it's only an issue because someone was lazy about it, or not open and transparent about it. And stubborn people who refuse to accept any possibility of a mistake then drag out the process and escalate what should not be a big deal - they then whinge about the process being long and disproportionate when they chose to make it so.
It's that simple - if theres a problem, it was entirely needless. If theres not a problem, then that will be clear to all without him making it look a problem.
I'm far more interested in, and concerned for, the 25% of men who don't believe they defeat a cat or a rat in unarmed combat!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-scratch_disease
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1797630/
and Weil's Disease etc.
Get a dog in.
PS And the honey badger and Komodo Dragon are being badly underestimated. If this was a betting occasion I'd pile into those two.
Its infuriating when people are a major part of dragging things out or raising questions, but out of some misplaced idea of defending themselves refuse to cooperate and reach an easy resolution earlier.
I had the thought that talk of 'progressive alliances' and encouraging votes for the Greens helps them far more than it does the Labour and especially the LibDems.
Given the credibility boost the UK Greens are likely to get from the success of those in Germany its possible that they could steadily outperform the LibDems.
And where would that leave the LibDems searching for votes ? Possibly as a libertarian small-government party for disaffected Conservatives.
We are really blessed here to have some minds able to articulate complex ideas in a way that doesn't come across as didactic. I would add that with David stepping back, that frees up at least one slot a week from guest contributors. Some of the more intriguing threads have been contributions from those who normally live their pb lives below the line. If you think you might have a thread idea, run it by the moderators. As long as it isn't damning of the contribution of Radiohead to modern culture or advocates lashings of pineapple on pizza, I'm sure they would be delighted to hear from you.
Heavens, if I can get my arse in gear, you might even get one from me soon too!
With FPTP the two dominant parties agree to that deal because they can get a turn. No-one else has the power to change it.
We head again toward a 1983 situation where it is quite possible that the centre left can win the vote by miles and still lose heavily.
The stronger that Lab, LD and Greens get, the more they do the Tories work for them, as long as they are all strong and all stand.
The time for realignment has come. In each seat there should only be one centre right and one centre left party standing.
I'll bring rat poison. (edit, or bleach to clean them!)
@david_herdson's Saturday articles have been a staple of this site for many years and while I've not always agreed with them, they have always been infused with quality and common sense.
I would consider @david_herdson one of this site's most successful provocateurs. No need for whiny self-indulgent expletive-ridden capital-letter saturated rants. All you need is concise and coherent argument to invite a response.
I hope @david_herdson considers we have satisfactorily risen to his weekly challenge.
All the best.my friend, and I look forward to the next contribution.
Edward II's long-lost palace had been discovered. Boris quoted his godfather, the Oxford historian Colin Lucas, as saying the king would cavort there with his catamite, Piers Gaveston (later to play a walk-on part in a David Cameron controversy).
Trouble is, Gaveston had been beheaded a dozen years before the palace was built, and was in any case the same age as Edward so not a catamite.
So Boris made Lucas seem like an idiot and not a serious historian who would rise to be top dog at Oxford. But note that when hauled over the coals by the Times editor, Boris published a correction which again made it look like Lucas was mistaken, and it was for this second offence that he was sacked.
See for instance, Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth. Look it up on Amazon and press "look inside".
Besides, I'm not a Tory any more and have no partisan interest in their success. I voted Yorkshire Party in the W Yorks mayoral and spoiled my ballot (for the first time, by writing a limerick on it) for the council election.
(Komodo Dragons also use biological weapons BTW - bite you with filthy teeth,which they never brush so they are saturated with rotting meat, so lots of necrotic bacteria. If you are really big (buffalo size), they run off, stop, and wait for you to die of generalised septicaemia, tracking you all the time. But humans? nah, no problem, their equivalent of instant pot noodle dinner, slowed only by getting the plastic covering off.)
BTW I'm astounded at much else in that table - I'd have had 50% for the Homo sapiens, but maybe it's an American thing always to assume one will win? And horses are bloody lethal in a fight.
The Komodo Dragon is absolutely terrifying.
a) the wallpaper did cost the state the maximum allowance and possibly using carried back/forward, although this is not the issue, but your statement is factually inaccurate.
b) I don't know the fine details of the holiday so have no idea if it is an issue, but just because the state doesn't pay does not make it all right. On that basis do you feel it is ok for ministers to accept bribes, brown envelopes, etc, etc, etc on the basis that 'it didn't impact any decision I made'
It's no longer enough to just be 'not the other two': there are other options available for that, and each with a much stronger identity and set of principles. Fuzzy localism is fine of itself but - as in 2010 - is a strategic dead-end because it all falls apart when the weak tactical votes face are confronted with the realities of power.
There is a very real chance that the Greens could supplant them, though that involves a considerable amount of agency on the part of both parties and, as I mentioned in the header, I'm far from convinced that the Greens have the mindset to capitalise on the opportunity.
I can understand you so being with Boris and his gang but why at local level as well ?
If he starts attacking the process that will be a key sign - people always end up questioning every dot and comma of the rules when the facts are not on their side.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/komodo-dragon-venom
The idea of both being fair/honest and being seen to be so is important, and is to help and defend decision makers and their decisions, not punish them.
If a suite at the Ritz was unoccupied at 10 pm and was offered for £200 instead of £1,000, just get some income rather than zero, it is not right that the "value" should be declared as £1,000.
And the fact remains that if you're getting bitten by a Komodo dragon then you're screwed either way.
My dad (who's been a Tory voter since he took down the Che Guevara poster he had up as a student, and some time member, but just voted for the Greens in the locals because he hates Boris so much) has a copy he'll lend me.
I just wonder what Boris did to Oborne between this Aug19 article and that book.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7381219/PETER-OBORNE-wanted-fail-Boris-Johnson-triumphed-Berlin.html
And BTW if the Labour party had the same discipline about the revolutionary/anti semitic left that Tories do about the racist and fascist right it would be much easier for the centre left to coalesce.
Tories marginalise, expel and adapt to destroy them. For too long Labour has believed that methodism and Lenin belong in the same party.
On topic, the Greens are hard to predict because they leave the decisions to their local parties. I was dislodged in 2010 because of a Green intervention (getting <1% in a marginal but enough to make a difference), and there are lots of other examples, but locally this year they only stood in 2 out of 9 divisions in order to help the LDs. and there are lots of examples of that too including cases where Labour benefits. But lack of central direction is a core cultural value for many Greens (which incidentally gives them a point of dialogue with libertarians in other parties). It'll come down to what Greens in C&A want.
a) dragon/Komodo dragon venom
b) parthenogenesis
What a public service it provides.
PS The following songs contain the term "Parthenogenisis" in the lyrics:
1. Nemesis by Shriekback
2. Talk to you by Birth Control
In addition, Canned Heat had an instrumental track called Parthenogenisis on their 1968 double album, Living the Blues.
I'm still pretty confident in my ability to beat a cat or a rat in a fight. They have very small necks, and I can get treated if they do bite or scratch me.
Thank-you for this piece. And for all the others.
Often a highlight of the week.
BoZo gets a bung and the nobody cares...
I recognize the political reality, but unlike the fanbois I don't have to be happy about it.
I had a closer look at Surrey where the Conservatives lost 14 seats and particularly at the Guildford divisions.
In Shere, the LDs didn't stand but the Greens stood against the Guildford Greenbelt Group splitting the anti-Conservative vote and allowing the Conservatives to hold the seat by just 78. With the Greens winning 862 votes, it's fair to say had the Greens not stood, the Conservatives would have lost the seat.
In Guildford South-East, the Greens didn't stand but the LDs did but the Conservative still lost, this time to the Residents for Guildford and Villages (RGV), who did so well in the 2019 Borough elections.
In Guildford West, the sitting LD was allowed a free run against both Conservative and Labour but in Shalford and Worplesdon, the LDs and the RGV both contested the seats. In Ash, the LDs had a free run and took the seat. In Horsleys, the Greens again stood aside and Cabinet Julie Iles lost to the RGV despite the LDs also running.
The LDs fought off a strong RGV challenge in Guildford East but held Guildford North in the absence of any RGV or Green candidate.
All this tells me is the absence of any broad strategic thinking but a local hotch-potch of informal arrangements which are often the result of personalities who either get along or don't. It's also a question of areas of local strength or weakness.
There's also the presence (locally) of often anti-development groups who generally find the Greens quite easy to deal with (Shere being an obvious exception - don't know why) but the LDs less so. These groups are able to garner a lot of local support and, to give them their due, campaign hard and effectively.
What does this mean for national politics? The chimera of a broad progressive anti-Conservative alliance is probably just that. I can certainly envisage seats where there will be "deals" between the LDs, Greens and perhaps the odd Independent but the anti-Conservative parties are also often anti-Labour so what will need to happen is what happened in the run-up to 1997 when the electorate worked it out for themselves (not always correctly) which party was best placed to defeat the Conservatives where they lived.
But I take having watched that as a sign I need to get off my arse and go outside. Cheerio.
@JuliaHB1
·
30m
So excuse me if I take SAGE predictions of doom and gloom every time we open up with a large pinch of salt. Their computer models have been wrong every single time. 5/
https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1393486766619996162
Look at the second preferences from the SV elections, last week. There's enough evidence from elections where most or all first-preference votes dropped were from the centre-left that a fair chunk will still migrate to the Tories, or to abstain, if denied their first choice.
The 1983 example you give is telling. Yes, Lab + Alliance outpolled the Tories but polling at the time suggested that overall, Alliance voters preferred the Tories to Labour. Had it been a straight Con/Lab fight, Thatcher would have won by even more.
Crudely deriving from the 2019 GE, that's a net loss of 419k votes
Tories aren't really shedding votes to any one party, and are also getting 22% of 2109 LDs
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/bdgo9ekylx/TheTimes_Voting_Intention_Track_210512_W.pdf
The current sitting PM got, what exactly, from whom, and did what in return?
See the difference?
Boris is in a class of his own, I think, though he is a more fluent writer than Oborne.
ETA Jim Hacker adapted Daniel Moynahan's phrase about Henry Kissinger: He does not lie because it's in his interests. He lies because it's in his nature.
The UK is stuck in the strait-jacket of FPTP and it is not healthy. It will never change because it has allowed the Tories to govern the country unfettered for most of my lifetime with about 40% of the vote.
'Second doses will also be speeded-up for older age groups in affected areas - in a move described by Prof Harnden as providing "better short-term protection" in an "urgent situation".'
So it looks like I was correct in thinking that this was about maximising protection. Which makes sense - the risk to the older groups from COVID in general is orders of magnitude higher.
I'm interested in the Conservative who won it in 1935 until 1950, as without him it was a Whig/Liberal seat possibly back to 1835 (maybe - it has a Liberal Unionist 1900-1902 shaded in blue, so I guess that was a Toryish moniker), or back to 1807 but for a two year Conservative stint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney_and_Shetland_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
So why are they so obsessive about big gallumphing interventions by Government, rather than more locally-based, flexible, and efficient, answers, driven by regulated markets?
An example: I look at doing External Wall Insulation every so often, and I have yet to find a house where it is cost effective or energy effective, once all the normal easy things have been done.
The last time I looked there was a grant of 4-6k available on a 14k project to do it. Yet when I spoke to the company actually doing the work they would have done it for 9k as a private customer. So the entire Govt funding would be absorbed by oiling the administrative wheels.
I've always framed it that Greens are socialist before they are green, which imo wrecks everything (you will not agree!).
Another example may be the fuss when solar panel FIT subsidies were reduced, and were acting as a Government cash-cow for property companies. To this day were I to invest in a house with the early FIT arrangaments it is worth up to an extra 1% or so on the rental return in most places. Greens demanded their continuance.
Why?
Like, oh I dunno - Brexit.
That the reason for the hate?
Although I was in fact not quite correct. I had forgotten Vince Cable had returned to Parliament (pretty damning of his performance given he was also leader for a time!) so Twickenham has been held by consecutive Lib Dems as well.
However, Orkney and Shetland is the only seat held continuously since the start of the millennium. It is one of only two to have returned a Liberal Democrat MP at three or more consecutive elections. And it is the only current seat where three Liberal Democrat MPs have been consecutively returned for the party or where more than one has won multiple elections.
Now that shows a party with no heartland.
That also shows a party with the potential to fall further...
"Cliff Richard lent his house in Barbados to Tony Blair and his family after he saw the prime minister looking "dwindled and haggard" during the war in Iraq, the singer reveals in the Guardian today."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/aug/24/artsnews.labour
Did he not know about his lying before that? Or was he expecting some sort of Damascene conversion in Boris that gave him probity on becoming PM? Both of those seem unlikely to me.
I wonder if maybe he was expecting some sort of job or honour promised to him, and has taken umbrage that Boris hasn't delivered.
It's just you cannot vote for the current Conservative Party under its current owner.
The LIbDems need to start attacking the LP as much as they do the CP and importantly need to make clear that the mad-left woke are not in any way liberal.
There's an obvious space for them in an age of state control, ever greater impingments on personal privacy, restricted choice, caveated freedoms and attitudes to identity so extreme they become illiberal - but I don't see them taking it.
It's not even that hard to get started. All it takes is for Ed Davey to say to the media he's going to give a powerful speech on what it means to be liberal and the future of liberalism, very well trailed, and then give a very good speech which is well briefed out afterwards.
That'd be a start.
@david_herdson Many thanks for all your headers over years - they have universally been good and informative reading on a Saturday morning.
lurk
Under FPTP post coalition, the voters that vote for them get very little if any representation. Even when they do well it seems they wont want another coalition, and they cannot win themselves. So, at best, they can be an ideas farm, for Labour and the Tories. I find it very hard to see why such ideas would not be better represented as factions within the Labour party who are currently looking for ideas, and the Tories who are happy to follow any ideas that might win whichever election is next.
A big caveat is the above is all true for Westminster politics but not so in local politics, where the raison d'etre is stronger.