I would add that his picture is largely a 50+ demographic.
The equivalent cohort underneath, say 30 - 50, grew up under New Labour, were comfortable with Cameron’s Tories but are totally alienated by Johnson wholesale importation of Berlusconi-ism.
It's not just down south. The Batley & Spen poll has Labour ahead in the 18-54 age demographic, but miles behind in the 54+ one.
Otherwise known as “the ones who vote”. I still think Labour are likeliest to win but a lot of those older voters are the people who would have voted Labour all through the thatcher years. That is one of the hardest echelons to move so it shows more voting mobility. Which is always good news for the yellow peril.
Yep - Labour is buggered for as long as the Tory lead is so big among the oldies. And the Red Wall is full of oldies. I think Labour would win B&S were it not for Galloway. He is clearly eating into a big chunk of the party's usual support, even as Labour is actually managing to take a few votes from the Tories.
And that's the heart of the matter. At the moment the mainstream right and faragist right are united. Meanwhile the mainstream left and the hard left are divided.
A bit is missing here. In GEs people vote for a government. If the Tories don't win you get a Labour led government. There are no alternatives. In 2010 LDs were voting LD with two acceptable possible governments - that led by Brown and that led by Cameron. By 2015 LDs had decided that coalition was terrible.
It is too early to say what possible LD voters will do in the next GE, but it will depend upon a complex equation involving a Tory government versus something of a rainbow alliance, including the SNP and led by Labour. Don't bet the farm on C&A, Wokingham etc preferring government by Ian Blackmore and Richard Burgon to government by the Tories.
In 2023 people are going to elect a Tory government. The threat of lunacy from Jezbollah has gone so they don't need to pile onto blue to ensure He stays out of office. The flexibility is there to not worry.
As for "its always a Labour government or a Tory government" I have to ask what we have now? It isn't remotely Conservative, has adopted a load of Labour policies and doesn't really look like either of them. Soft conservative remainers are less likely to willingly back a Johnson government than a Hunt one.
Wimbledon Carshalton and Wallington Winchester Esher and Walton Guildford Eastbourne Wokingham Surrey South West Cheltenham Lewes
And if this meme really takes off, which I think it will, there are a raft of other seats that could be under threat.
Where does this leave Labour? I don't know to be honest.
It leaves Scottish Labour grinning like a Cheshire cat.
This is fantastic news for progressive opponents of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The more their English bosses chase votes in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire et al the easier it is to continue peeling away centre-left SLD voters.
Without tactical voting the SLDs would be extinct.
Given the LibDems are benefiting from unionist tactical voting, it's unclear that their specific policy platform has any impact on their Scottish electoral success (or otherwise).
Tactical voting is, by its very nature, short-term. Eventually all declining parties, irrespective of tactical votes, fall back to their very core. The problem for the SLDs is that they have no core. They have no throbbing heart. They have no raison d’être.
Unionist tactical votes are a false dawn for the SLDs, because one day those voters will all go “home”. And when that happens, the vacuum at the core will dissolve in a wee fart.
I don't think that we can discount the effect of a Scottish national leader. For all her faults, Swinson was Scottish and represented a Scottish seat, albeit clearly a Scottish tradition that is anathema to you.
All parties do better in Scotland when the national leader is Scottish. Brown held onto SLAB seats that would just be a dream now.
The converse is that those 4 SLD seats do look vulnerable with Davey in charge.
Hmm. The national party leader thing didn't work for Ms Swinson in her very own seat. (I often wondered if prospective fracking in the area was an issue.)
Yes, the SLDs only have 4 MSPs, down one from last time, in Holyrood - but this is an only roughly proportional voting system which gives extra seats to minor parties ()as fiddled originally by SLD + Labour, as I have said ad nauseam here). That in a parliament with 7 Scottish Greens MSPs.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
I would add that his picture is largely a 50+ demographic.
The equivalent cohort underneath, say 30 - 50, grew up under New Labour, were comfortable with Cameron’s Tories but are totally alienated by Johnson wholesale importation of Berlusconi-ism.
It's not just down south. The Batley & Spen poll has Labour ahead in the 18-54 age demographic, but miles behind in the 54+ one.
Otherwise known as “the ones who vote”. I still think Labour are likeliest to win but a lot of those older voters are the people who would have voted Labour all through the thatcher years. That is one of the hardest echelons to move so it shows more voting mobility. Which is always good news for the yellow peril.
Yep - Labour is buggered for as long as the Tory lead is so big among the oldies. And the Red Wall is full of oldies. I think Labour would win B&S were it not for Galloway. He is clearly eating into a big chunk of the party's usual support, even as Labour is actually managing to take a few votes from the Tories.
I have come to the view that the Tories will scrape it by a nose, but nowhere near certain enough to back at these prices. Unlike LDs at C&A.
The formula is simple: Galloway is standing, Heavy Woollens aren't, fracas of Batley Grammar. That's the difference.
Actually I think a 6-point deficit is not too bad with 10 days to go. Galloway's impact is there but not the mass community surge that some were reporting (I think the Pakistani-British demographic is 18%?). The poll was up to Thursday so doesn't include any effect from the by-election outcome which could hurt Con or Lab, possibly unequally. On this basis I'd make the Tories 2-1 on, but not more than that.
A bit is missing here. In GEs people vote for a government. If the Tories don't win you get a Labour led government. There are no alternatives. In 2010 LDs were voting LD with two acceptable possible governments - that led by Brown and that led by Cameron. By 2015 LDs had decided that coalition was terrible.
It is too early to say what possible LD voters will do in the next GE, but it will depend upon a complex equation involving a Tory government versus something of a rainbow alliance, including the SNP and led by Labour. Don't bet the farm on C&A, Wokingham etc preferring government by Ian Blackmore and Richard Burgon to government by the Tories.
In 2023 people are going to elect a Tory government. The threat of lunacy from Jezbollah has gone so they don't need to pile onto blue to ensure He stays out of office. The flexibility is there to not worry.
As for "its always a Labour government or a Tory government" I have to ask what we have now? It isn't remotely Conservative, has adopted a load of Labour policies and doesn't really look like either of them. Soft conservative remainers are less likely to willingly back a Johnson government than a Hunt one.
I am not sure all that quite follows. Surely on your case a 2023 Labour led government is possible?
And the fact that it's going to be either a Tory or Labour led government is a fairly hard fact. Whether any party is truly what is says it is is metaphysics.
I wonder if the Tories are making a mistake with their Anti-Woke Cancel Culture agenda. What's coming across in the vox pops in Chesham & Amersham is that erstwhile and potential Conservative Party voters don't think the party in its current version is nice. I don't imagine many of them would ever "take the knee", but do believe people do these things for good motives. In any case it's not up to them to control how people think.
Wimbledon Carshalton and Wallington Winchester Esher and Walton Guildford Eastbourne Wokingham Surrey South West Cheltenham Lewes
And if this meme really takes off, which I think it will, there are a raft of other seats that could be under threat.
Where does this leave Labour? I don't know to be honest.
It leaves Scottish Labour grinning like a Cheshire cat.
This is fantastic news for progressive opponents of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The more their English bosses chase votes in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire et al the easier it is to continue peeling away centre-left SLD voters.
Without tactical voting the SLDs would be extinct.
Given the LibDems are benefiting from unionist tactical voting, it's unclear that their specific policy platform has any impact on their Scottish electoral success (or otherwise).
Tactical voting is, by its very nature, short-term. Eventually all declining parties, irrespective of tactical votes, fall back to their very core. The problem for the SLDs is that they have no core. They have no throbbing heart. They have no raison d’être.
Unionist tactical votes are a false dawn for the SLDs, because one day those voters will all go “home”. And when that happens, the vacuum at the core will dissolve in a wee fart.
I don't think that we can discount the effect of a Scottish national leader. For all her faults, Swinson was Scottish and represented a Scottish seat, albeit clearly a Scottish tradition that is anathema to you.
All parties do better in Scotland when the national leader is Scottish. Brown held onto SLAB seats that would just be a dream now.
The converse is that those 4 SLD seats do look vulnerable with Davey in charge.
Au contraire! The Scottish Liberal tradition is far from anathema to me. It is what I am: a liberal Scot. Jo Swinson could be my sister. I was surrounded by folk like her and Rennie and co during my comfortable Edinburgh upbringing. These are (or rather could be) my ain folk.
Post-independence I’ll be out of the SNP in a flash and trying to rebuild a truly liberal Scottish tradition.
This is why I am so disappointed by SLDs: they could so easily be a force for good, but they have chosen the dark side. Hell mend them.
My mistake! Indeed post Indy Scottish politics will be interesting indeed.
Surely that's almost a given for Nationalist parties; once the prime aim has been achieved then, it's a question of how to run the country. The once monolithic Congress Party in India is a mess, and even the ANC in S Africa is having trouble.
FG and FF in Ireland? The English Nationalists post-Brexit?
A bit is missing here. In GEs people vote for a government. If the Tories don't win you get a Labour led government. There are no alternatives. In 2010 LDs were voting LD with two acceptable possible governments - that led by Brown and that led by Cameron. By 2015 LDs had decided that coalition was terrible.
It is too early to say what possible LD voters will do in the next GE, but it will depend upon a complex equation involving a Tory government versus something of a rainbow alliance, including the SNP and led by Labour. Don't bet the farm on C&A, Wokingham etc preferring government by Ian Blackmore and Richard Burgon to government by the Tories.
In 2023 people are going to elect a Tory government. The threat of lunacy from Jezbollah has gone so they don't need to pile onto blue to ensure He stays out of office. The flexibility is there to not worry.
As for "its always a Labour government or a Tory government" I have to ask what we have now? It isn't remotely Conservative, has adopted a load of Labour policies and doesn't really look like either of them. Soft conservative remainers are less likely to willingly back a Johnson government than a Hunt one.
Hunt. The man probably responsible more than anyone for the pandemic preparedness plan. Who sits there smugly on high from the health committee, “oh if only you’d picked me”, after turning down responsibility for defence of the realm. Hmmmm. I mean maybe you’re right?
Wimbledon Carshalton and Wallington Winchester Esher and Walton Guildford Eastbourne Wokingham Surrey South West Cheltenham Lewes
And if this meme really takes off, which I think it will, there are a raft of other seats that could be under threat.
Where does this leave Labour? I don't know to be honest.
It leaves Scottish Labour grinning like a Cheshire cat.
This is fantastic news for progressive opponents of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The more their English bosses chase votes in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire et al the easier it is to continue peeling away centre-left SLD voters.
Without tactical voting the SLDs would be extinct.
Given the LibDems are benefiting from unionist tactical voting, it's unclear that their specific policy platform has any impact on their Scottish electoral success (or otherwise).
Tactical voting is, by its very nature, short-term. Eventually all declining parties, irrespective of tactical votes, fall back to their very core. The problem for the SLDs is that they have no core. They have no throbbing heart. They have no raison d’être.
Unionist tactical votes are a false dawn for the SLDs, because one day those voters will all go “home”. And when that happens, the vacuum at the core will dissolve in a wee fart.
I don't think that we can discount the effect of a Scottish national leader. For all her faults, Swinson was Scottish and represented a Scottish seat, albeit clearly a Scottish tradition that is anathema to you.
All parties do better in Scotland when the national leader is Scottish. Brown held onto SLAB seats that would just be a dream now.
The converse is that those 4 SLD seats do look vulnerable with Davey in charge.
Hmm. The national party leader thing didn't work for Ms Swinson in her very own seat. (I often wondered if prospective fracking in the area was an issue.)
Yes, the SLDs only have 4 MSPs, down one from last time, in Holyrood - but this is an only roughly proportional voting system which gives extra seats to minor parties ()as fiddled originally by SLD + Labour, as I have said ad nauseam here). That in a parliament with 7 Scottish Greens MSPs.
I suspect Swinson was rather off-putting to potential tactical support from SCON voters.
2019 SCON vote: Fife NE -11.1% Caithness -6.1% Ed W -4.9% Dunb E -0.5%
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I would add that his picture is largely a 50+ demographic.
The equivalent cohort underneath, say 30 - 50, grew up under New Labour, were comfortable with Cameron’s Tories but are totally alienated by Johnson wholesale importation of Berlusconi-ism.
It's not just down south. The Batley & Spen poll has Labour ahead in the 18-54 age demographic, but miles behind in the 54+ one.
Otherwise known as “the ones who vote”. I still think Labour are likeliest to win but a lot of those older voters are the people who would have voted Labour all through the thatcher years. That is one of the hardest echelons to move so it shows more voting mobility. Which is always good news for the yellow peril.
Yep - Labour is buggered for as long as the Tory lead is so big among the oldies. And the Red Wall is full of oldies. I think Labour would win B&S were it not for Galloway. He is clearly eating into a big chunk of the party's usual support, even as Labour is actually managing to take a few votes from the Tories.
I have come to the view that the Tories will scrape it by a nose, but nowhere near certain enough to back at these prices. Unlike LDs at C&A.
The formula is simple: Galloway is standing, Heavy Woollens aren't, fracas of Batley Grammar. That's the difference.
Actually I think a 6-point deficit is not too bad with 10 days to go. Galloway's impact is there but not the mass community surge that some were reporting (I think the Pakistani-British demographic is 18%?). The poll was up to Thursday so doesn't include any effect from the by-election outcome which could hurt Con or Lab, possibly unequally. On this basis I'd make the Tories 2-1 on, but not more than that.
Interestingly, the poll shows Labour taking more votes from the Tories than vice versa. The Tories are benefiting from the absence of the other Brexit-backing parties this time and from Galloway taking a chunk of the Labour vote. The big thing is the undecideds - 30% in Batley. That will basically be a straight Labour v Galloway fight. The winner of that determines the outcome.
I wonder if the Tories are making a mistake with their Anti-Woke Cancel Culture agenda. What's coming across in the vox pops in Chesham & Amersham is that erstwhile and potential Conservative Party voters don't think the party in its current version is nice. I don't imagine many of them would ever "take the knee", but do believe people do these things for good motives. In any case it's not up to them to control how people think.
The other danger for the Tories is that wealthy southerners decide that the government's spending all their money in the North. Especially if it coincides with Northern voters figuring out that that's not really happening.
Any tory who turns around after this result and says, 'ah but it's far worse for Labour' is living a delusion.
This is a catastrophic result for Johnson's Conservatives. We passed peak Boris on May 25th and I would not now bet on him winning the next General Election.
You're being ridiculous.
Lets say theoretically you're right and the Tories lose 23 seats in the South to the Lib Dems.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 15 Hartlepool-style seats primarily from Labour due the collapse of the Brexit Party.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 10 seats from the new boundaries.
Put all that together and you'd end up with an increased Tory majority of 84 as the new baseline.
If the next election ends up as Tory 367 Lab 177 SNP 48 LD 35
Then who is PM? Who is happiest?
A strange calculation. If support for Johnson starts to peel away starting from its peak on May 25th and reaching a crescendo of loathing sometime next year the voters will find a way to eject the Tories by the next election. They always do
But there's no evidence of support for Johnson peeling away or reaching a crescendo of loathing.
An exchange of some Labour seats to the Tories, with some Tory seats going to the Lib Dems, may be bad news for the MPs in the lost seats but is not bad news for Johnson (unless Uxbridge is one of the lost seats!)
A Johnson party that predominantly holds seats in the Midlands and North is not the Conservative Party that so many people in the south recognise. Your argument is the same as Labour's vs the WWC - of course you will vote for us, where else will you go?
Look at the 'South outside London' polling. Tories streets ahead. This is all overdone.
Now? Sure - where else would they go? Point is that C&A is a pathfinder election - look what you could do instead. We finally get Labour voters accepting that in voting Labour in Guildford they're voting for a Tory MP so lets vote LD instead, combined with small c Tories utterly fed up with the clown car that is the Blue Labour Cult.
So yes, the Tories will still win swathes of the south. But they reached their peak and you can see the way out for so many of those seats. Remember that once the scales fall from voters eyes change can be rapid and brutal. As Labour have experienced in Scotland. As the Tories have experienced in Scotland...
I think that's taking a bit much from a single by-election. I remember when the LibDems repeatedly triumphed in re-elections in the 80s but then those wins were completely forgotten at the next election, when the Conservatives thrashed them. I think we could be going back to that pattern.
Certainly possible. My point is that there is always a breakout event. For the Tories attacking the Blue Wall seats like Mansfield and Copeland showed the way. Alternately for a fizzled breakout the other way look at Labour in Canterbury.
If change comes it can come quickly. Both the LibDems and Labour have had dozens of southern seats so we know it can happen. C&A may prompt another wave, it may not. Had the Tories held the seat then it wouldn't even be a consideration.
The southern seats that Labour had in the Blair era were, outside the cities, predominantly the wwc ones along the Thames estuary and in the new towns. Places which have more in common with Hartlepool than C&A.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
Might Labour be handicapped in B&S by the likelihood that there is a faction of the party that probably actually want them to lose? Because they see it as an opportunity to get rid of Starmer. It goes without saying that to win by-elections it really is advantageous to have everyone pulling in the same direction. It's arguably one reason why the LibDems historically do so well when they have a chance. Whatever internal party disputes they might have, they will never let them get in the way of pursuing the opportunity to get a win and the media exposure that comes with it.
I would add that his picture is largely a 50+ demographic.
The equivalent cohort underneath, say 30 - 50, grew up under New Labour, were comfortable with Cameron’s Tories but are totally alienated by Johnson wholesale importation of Berlusconi-ism.
It's not just down south. The Batley & Spen poll has Labour ahead in the 18-54 age demographic, but miles behind in the 54+ one.
Otherwise known as “the ones who vote”. I still think Labour are likeliest to win but a lot of those older voters are the people who would have voted Labour all through the thatcher years. That is one of the hardest echelons to move so it shows more voting mobility. Which is always good news for the yellow peril.
Yep - Labour is buggered for as long as the Tory lead is so big among the oldies. And the Red Wall is full of oldies. I think Labour would win B&S were it not for Galloway. He is clearly eating into a big chunk of the party's usual support, even as Labour is actually managing to take a few votes from the Tories.
I have come to the view that the Tories will scrape it by a nose, but nowhere near certain enough to back at these prices. Unlike LDs at C&A.
The formula is simple: Galloway is standing, Heavy Woollens aren't, fracas of Batley Grammar. That's the difference.
Actually I think a 6-point deficit is not too bad with 10 days to go. Galloway's impact is there but not the mass community surge that some were reporting (I think the Pakistani-British demographic is 18%?). The poll was up to Thursday so doesn't include any effect from the by-election outcome which could hurt Con or Lab, possibly unequally. On this basis I'd make the Tories 2-1 on, but not more than that.
Interestingly, the poll shows Labour taking more votes from the Tories than vice versa. The Tories are benefiting from the absence of the other Brexit-backing parties this time and from Galloway taking a chunk of the Labour vote. The big thing is the undecideds - 30% in Batley. That will basically be a straight Labour v Galloway fight. The winner of that determines the outcome.
Lab throwing everything at it, bus load from Chesterfield (well 2 car loads) going up today.
Note that the "Labour last time" figure has double the undecided level (26%) to "Conservative last time". Also interesting to see some Lab-Comn and Con-Lab switchers (5-7%) - not come across many of those for a while.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
Let’s see how Spain get on against Poland. They had a drab 0-0 draw too. World Cup finalists Croatia have just one point from two games. The over reaction to England failing to score against Scotland needs some perspective. They will need to get better to reach the semi finals again but they have plenty of good attacking options in the squad for once. What’s been little remarked upon is that the supposedly shaky defence has not yet been troubled in 180 minutes.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I'm not remotely suggesting poor performance was deliberate, but it is quite amusing how before the tournament all the talk was about how England might be advantaged by not winning their group, and should actively try to manipulate an outcome to avoid it. From the reaction to a poor result it appears that people somehow wanted them to win all three games by several goals but find some way to pick up a points deduction for some random irregularity.
I make allowances for lockdown. It's amazing how many people have convinced themselves that the freedom to experiment with their hairstyles has resulted in successful outcomes...
I wonder if the Tories are making a mistake with their Anti-Woke Cancel Culture agenda. What's coming across in the vox pops in Chesham & Amersham is that erstwhile and potential Conservative Party voters don't think the party in its current version is nice. I don't imagine many of them would ever "take the knee", but do believe people do these things for good motives. In any case it's not up to them to control how people think.
The other danger for the Tories is that wealthy southerners decide that the government's spending all their money in the North. Especially if it coincides with Northern voters figuring out that that's not really happening.
That’s the irony.
The idea that the government is spending a lot of money in the North is false.
Actually, the idea that the government is “pro-spending” is not very true. What is happening is the government has put everything into furlough, and pandemic resources.
The bill is to paid by another programme of austerity.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
They were dreary. No creativity. Those of us unlucky enough to have watched Everton for the second half of the season will know just how disheartening this style of football is. No pace from midfield, passing back and sideways. If John Major was a football manager he would be Southgate.
I've been reflecting on the C&A result, and I have a suspicion that it will worry the Tories more than "just a typical by-election protest vote". It really did come out of the blue (or yellow). The Tories are miles ahead in virtually all the opinion polls. The world-beating vaccine rollout is hugely popular, and the end of Covid is nearly in sight. They did fine in the May elections, particularly in Hartlepool. The public have not noticed any downsides to Brexit - if anything, the opposite. The PM seems to be very popular with most. And yet.... C&A really is the only significant setback the government has had in the last couple of years, and they must be a bit baffled by it. I don't think they expected this result at this stage of the glorious reign of BJ.
It would be another sign of decline and decadence in our politics for Blair to return; it’s a form of nostalgia - just for the Remainer 90s instead of the Brexity 50s.
But it is true that he would immediately outclass anyone on the scene today.
I won’t believe this rumour until he starts talking about a new post-Brexit settlement and/or Union issues.
Might Labour be handicapped in B&S by the likelihood that there is a faction of the party that probably actually want them to lose? Because they see it as an opportunity to get rid of Starmer. It goes without saying that to win by-elections it really is advantageous to have everyone pulling in the same direction. It's arguably one reason why the LibDems historically do so well when they have a chance. Whatever internal party disputes they might have, they will never let them get in the way of pursuing the opportunity to get a win and the media exposure that comes with it.
It's one of the reasons the Conservatives are historically so successful- generally living by the insight that the wrong shade of blue is preferable to any shade of red.
Whereas, from the outside anyway, Labour seem to be more reliant on people who would rather have their person as Leader of the Opposition than someone from another wing of the party as PM.
I believe their death count is supposed to be waaaay under reported too?
There's no 'supposed' about it. Its at least three times greater than the official numbers.
What is worrying is that if the Russians are admitting that infection is soaring and bringing in emergency restrictions on hospital usage then things are at a higher level of danger than seen before.
In some ways a Cons victory in B&S may not be the worst thing. A case of losing the battle to win the war. Why so? Because the meme is now set: the tories only care about the red wall. This is going down like a lead balloon in the south. Today's newspapers, across the spectrum, are full of it and the Co-Chair of the tory party + up to 100 tory MP's are saying the same thing.
That message, that the tories only care about the red wall, could lose them the next election.
This view has to be balanced by the fact that regional polling figures are roughly Con 50 Lab 25 in South outside London, and Con 40+ Lab 40ish in the North.
Come a GE and a choice between Con and Lab coalition government, the south, outside London and Toynbeeville will vote Conservative.
- which was a poll with an 11-point Tory lead nationally. But the anti-Labour vote is stronger than the anti-LibDem vote, so in seats like mine the LibDems can make a (just) credible case that they might conceivably win and we wouldn't. Voters get that, by and large, so there's a huge swathe of southern voters who are actually Labour supporters but vote LD. That makes national polls showing the LDs sub 10% in the south misleading as a guide to constituency performance.
Incidentally, the boundary changes down here are a real mess. One new seat includes 4 local authorities!
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
The question is just how increasingly flimsy can the evidence that's cooked up be.
If the rest of the world is open, and England cases are falling, but SAGE decides it's necessary to extend lockdown - what then?
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
This is the problem - "if necessary"
It gives SAGE (and relevant supporters in Govt) free rein to continue producing scary briefings in private and in public to the extent that the "if necessary" criteria can always be met.
Even more so because nobody has clearly laid out what the "criteria" are - they are movable goalposts to be shifted in whichever direction suits.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
Er, he was Manager of Middlesbrough from 2006-2009. Took them from being UEFA Cup finalists and top half of the premiership to the Championship.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Possibly. But it's also that there aren't many activities engaged in on a widespread basis by the 55+ age group that are restricted under current rules.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
I get a different impression and also that the 'rule of 6' or whatever has been regularly ignored.
As in other things people tend to be more in favour of restrictions on 'people like them' rather than on 'people like us' and an excuse can always be found for ignoring restrictions on 'people like us' - "we've all been vaccinated" for example.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
He just doesn't change things when it is not working. He brings on fresh players to play the same system that had not worked up to that point and seems baffled when it still doesn't work.
Kane looks completely lost in the system he plays and yet with the wide players that England have he should be getting even better service than he does at Spurs. 2 holding midfielders may make sense against the very best teams but against others he needs more creative players finding pockets of space further up the park. First round of the knockouts I fear.
Just seen on Twitter a couple of Kim Leadbeater leaflets leading with Palestine. Obviously fighting GG there. I imagine the tories will make hay with them.
I wonder if the Tories are making a mistake with their Anti-Woke Cancel Culture agenda. What's coming across in the vox pops in Chesham & Amersham is that erstwhile and potential Conservative Party voters don't think the party in its current version is nice. I don't imagine many of them would ever "take the knee", but do believe people do these things for good motives. In any case it's not up to them to control how people think.
The other danger for the Tories is that wealthy southerners decide that the government's spending all their money in the North. Especially if it coincides with Northern voters figuring out that that's not really happening.
That’s the irony.
The idea that the government is spending a lot of money in the North is false.
Actually, the idea that the government is “pro-spending” is not very true. What is happening is the government has put everything into furlough, and pandemic resources.
The bill is to paid by another programme of austerity.
Back on Teesside the penny is already starting to drop. Even the big announcements are losing their gloss - loads being press released, little actually spent. You can only announce the same money so many times, especially when the money isn't really there as its also been announced as being spent in all your neighbouring towns.
However, the penny dropping isn't the same as saying Labour will mop up next time. I honestly think that people have had this revelation that continuously voting Labour doesn't actually get you anywhere substantive. The opportunity for Blair - The Party is to win back those voters who still talk positively about him... *giggles*
Might Labour be handicapped in B&S by the likelihood that there is a faction of the party that probably actually want them to lose? Because they see it as an opportunity to get rid of Starmer. It goes without saying that to win by-elections it really is advantageous to have everyone pulling in the same direction. It's arguably one reason why the LibDems historically do so well when they have a chance. Whatever internal party disputes they might have, they will never let them get in the way of pursuing the opportunity to get a win and the media exposure that comes with it.
That was Galloway's pitch, and it didn't seem to be getting much traction, so he's largely switched to "vote Galloway for Palestine", which has limited appeal even to the most devout Muslim in Spen.
I know lots of Corbynites like me, some of them (unlike me) very anti-SKS, and the prevailing view is that if SKS resigned we'd get another centrist instead, so it's not an objective. I actually don't know anyone who would vote against Labour in order to engineer a leadership change. They generally hope against hope that SKS might turn out more leftish than he seems, or alternatively that he'd reduce the Tory majority and set things up for a future left-wing leader.
Who that might be has them scratching their heads - Andy Burnham is seen as authentically Northern but not leftish, and Angela Rayner is less posh than SKS but also not really leftish. So they're drifting away from party membership but will still grumpily vote for us.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
It was entertaining to watch the Tiny Tory Mayor Houchen (drunkenly?) slagging off Southgate on Twitter last night. The guy is a legend for Boro fans yet Ben decides he "no Bobby Robson".
Anyway, with 4 points and a goal difference of +1 England can finish the group in 3rd still...
Just seen on Twitter a couple of Kim Leadbeater leaflets leading with Palestine. Obviously fighting GG there. I imagine the tories will make hay with them.
It does sound like they’re scared of, and reacting to, GG, rather than running their own campaign.
They need to be very careful in their targetting though, many voters will switch Lab>Con if Labour go too hard on irrelevant issues like Palestine and trans rights.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Sure! And yet his Labour and today's Labour are not remotely the same. If he wants a front line role in politics it won't be through Labour as they won't support him.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
It would be another sign of decline and decadence in our politics for Blair to return; it’s a form of nostalgia - just for the Remainer 90s instead of the Brexity 50s.
But it is true that he would immediately outclass anyone on the scene today.
I won’t believe this rumour until he starts talking about a new post-Brexit settlement and/or Union issues.
The last time a Prime Minister who had served seven or more consecutive years as PM returned to office after a break of service was William Pitt the Younger in 1804.
Even if we extended that to non-consecutive terms, that only adds Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94).
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
It was entertaining to watch the Tiny Tory Mayor Houchen (drunkenly?) slagging off Southgate on Twitter last night. The guy is a legend for Boro fans yet Ben decides he "no Bobby Robson".
Anyway, with 4 points and a goal difference of +1 England can finish the group in 3rd still...
Boro fans would tend to distinguish Southgate the player and captain (legend as you say) from Southgate the manager (for which see my post above ...).
Boro have never recovered from his managerial tenure.
Just seen on Twitter a couple of Kim Leadbeater leaflets leading with Palestine. Obviously fighting GG there. I imagine the tories will make hay with them.
It does sound like they’re scared of, and reacting to, GG, rather than running their own campaign.
They need to be very careful in their targetting though, many voters will switch Lab>Con if Labour go too hard on irrelevant issues like Palestine and trans rights.
Maybe that is all part of the master plan? Lose badly leading on what most voters consider utterly irrelevant to their lives.
Might Labour be handicapped in B&S by the likelihood that there is a faction of the party that probably actually want them to lose? Because they see it as an opportunity to get rid of Starmer. It goes without saying that to win by-elections it really is advantageous to have everyone pulling in the same direction. It's arguably one reason why the LibDems historically do so well when they have a chance. Whatever internal party disputes they might have, they will never let them get in the way of pursuing the opportunity to get a win and the media exposure that comes with it.
That was Galloway's pitch, and it didn't seem to be getting much traction, so he's largely switched to "vote Galloway for Palestine", which has limited appeal even to the most devout Muslim in Spen.
I know lots of Corbynites like me, some of them (unlike me) very anti-SKS, and the prevailing view is that if SKS resigned we'd get another centrist instead, so it's not an objective. I actually don't know anyone who would vote against Labour in order to engineer a leadership change. They generally hope against hope that SKS might turn out more leftish than he seems, or alternatively that he'd reduce the Tory majority and set things up for a future left-wing leader.
Who that might be has them scratching their heads - Andy Burnham is seen as authentically Northern but not leftish, and Angela Rayner is less posh than SKS but also not really leftish. So they're drifting away from party membership but will still grumpily vote for us.
Nick an honest question - when do Labour members start wondering why their views are no longer seen as relevant to voters? If you want to win the next election there is no point going "leftish" and yet that remains the pressure on serkir.
I don't get it - unless the aim is perpetual self-righteous opposition. The political mood map has moved well away from you and yet the party seems determined to go even further away from electability. Even with no leadership change the guy is hobbled carrying the left round howling and gnashing at anything who isn't them.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I just hope that Andy Robertson remembered to empty out his back pocket before he went home last night. Otherwise Foden is going to be well out of shape.
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
I still find Southgate's reputation incomprehensible. Never had a real job with a club and hard to imagine any top half side going near him.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
It was entertaining to watch the Tiny Tory Mayor Houchen (drunkenly?) slagging off Southgate on Twitter last night. The guy is a legend for Boro fans yet Ben decides he "no Bobby Robson".
Anyway, with 4 points and a goal difference of +1 England can finish the group in 3rd still...
In 1990 it is widely believed that the players basically took over the team from Robson mid tournament and forced him to implement a sweeper system.
Theresa May campaigned in C&A and the Tories lost badly
Sir Keir was at Wembley and it was a boring 0-0
Just coincidences?
In fairness England showed considerable reliance and held on well to the end when others might have folded. They need some sort of attacking threat though.
The tabloid and social media reaction to last night’s match is extraordinary. England kept another clean sheet but failed to break down a very well organised and highly motivated Scotland team. But they still did enough to have almost certainly qualified from a tricky group after 2 matches.
I'm not remotely suggesting poor performance was deliberate, but it is quite amusing how before the tournament all the talk was about how England might be advantaged by not winning their group, and should actively try to manipulate an outcome to avoid it. From the reaction to a poor result it appears that people somehow wanted them to win all three games by several goals but find some way to pick up a points deduction for some random irregularity.
With that, I notice that should England come second, while they'd avoid the Group of Death runner up in the L16 round, they would encounter the Group of Death winner (presumably. If not, then the team who beat the Group of Death winner) one round later in the QFs.
This smacks to me of deciding that a QF exit is fine. (I could have misread the fixtures, though)
And yet the government says amateur choirs can only sing in groups of 6?
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Possibly. But it's also that there aren't many activities engaged in on a widespread basis by the 55+ age group that are restricted under current rules.
Going to the pub? I have certainly been to a couple that haven't been following the rules to the letter. As long as it's calm and fairly socially distanced I'm OK with it. I certainly wouldn't go to a pub showing a football match though, having heard reports from one of my locals
I wonder if the Tories are making a mistake with their Anti-Woke Cancel Culture agenda. What's coming across in the vox pops in Chesham & Amersham is that erstwhile and potential Conservative Party voters don't think the party in its current version is nice. I don't imagine many of them would ever "take the knee", but do believe people do these things for good motives. In any case it's not up to them to control how people think.
The other danger for the Tories is that wealthy southerners decide that the government's spending all their money in the North. Especially if it coincides with Northern voters figuring out that that's not really happening.
That’s the irony.
The idea that the government is spending a lot of money in the North is false.
Actually, the idea that the government is “pro-spending” is not very true. What is happening is the government has put everything into furlough, and pandemic resources.
The bill is to paid by another programme of austerity.
Back on Teesside the penny is already starting to drop. Even the big announcements are losing their gloss - loads being press released, little actually spent. You can only announce the same money so many times, especially when the money isn't really there as its also been announced as being spent in all your neighbouring towns.
However, the penny dropping isn't the same as saying Labour will mop up next time. I honestly think that people have had this revelation that continuously voting Labour doesn't actually get you anywhere substantive. The opportunity for Blair - The Party is to win back those voters who still talk positively about him... *giggles*
I do wonder though how much Johnson actually knows what's going on. He probably DOES believe money is being shovelled into the North. Because spaffing money away on the never never is what he believes in (to the extent that he believes in anything other than himself). Just in the background the Treasury are working like made to limit the perceived damage.
Any tory who turns around after this result and says, 'ah but it's far worse for Labour' is living a delusion.
This is a catastrophic result for Johnson's Conservatives. We passed peak Boris on May 25th and I would not now bet on him winning the next General Election.
You're being ridiculous.
Lets say theoretically you're right and the Tories lose 23 seats in the South to the Lib Dems.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 15 Hartlepool-style seats primarily from Labour due the collapse of the Brexit Party.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 10 seats from the new boundaries.
Put all that together and you'd end up with an increased Tory majority of 84 as the new baseline.
If the next election ends up as Tory 367 Lab 177 SNP 48 LD 35
Then who is PM? Who is happiest?
A strange calculation. If support for Johnson starts to peel away starting from its peak on May 25th and reaching a crescendo of loathing sometime next year the voters will find a way to eject the Tories by the next election. They always do
But there's no evidence of support for Johnson peeling away or reaching a crescendo of loathing.
An exchange of some Labour seats to the Tories, with some Tory seats going to the Lib Dems, may be bad news for the MPs in the lost seats but is not bad news for Johnson (unless Uxbridge is one of the lost seats!)
A Johnson party that predominantly holds seats in the Midlands and North is not the Conservative Party that so many people in the south recognise. Your argument is the same as Labour's vs the WWC - of course you will vote for us, where else will you go?
Look at the 'South outside London' polling. Tories streets ahead. This is all overdone.
Now? Sure - where else would they go? Point is that C&A is a pathfinder election - look what you could do instead. We finally get Labour voters accepting that in voting Labour in Guildford they're voting for a Tory MP so lets vote LD instead, combined with small c Tories utterly fed up with the clown car that is the Blue Labour Cult.
So yes, the Tories will still win swathes of the south. But they reached their peak and you can see the way out for so many of those seats. Remember that once the scales fall from voters eyes change can be rapid and brutal. As Labour have experienced in Scotland. As the Tories have experienced in Scotland...
I think that's taking a bit much from a single by-election. I remember when the LibDems repeatedly triumphed in re-elections in the 80s but then those wins were completely forgotten at the next election, when the Conservatives thrashed them. I think we could be going back to that pattern.
Certainly possible. My point is that there is always a breakout event. For the Tories attacking the Blue Wall seats like Mansfield and Copeland showed the way. Alternately for a fizzled breakout the other way look at Labour in Canterbury.
If change comes it can come quickly. Both the LibDems and Labour have had dozens of southern seats so we know it can happen. C&A may prompt another wave, it may not. Had the Tories held the seat then it wouldn't even be a consideration.
The southern seats that Labour had in the Blair era were, outside the cities, predominantly the wwc ones along the Thames estuary and in the new towns. Places which have more in common with Hartlepool than C&A.
Those Southern seats are absolutely rock-firm for the Conservatives, and impervious to the charms of the Lib Dems. It's striking how long-standing marginals like Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Dartford, Gravesham, Medway have now moved into the very solidly Conservative camp.
The Conservatives' potential problems lie in much leafier areas, Western Surrey, and the M3 and M4 corridors.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Possibly. But it's also that there aren't many activities engaged in on a widespread basis by the 55+ age group that are restricted under current rules.
Going to the pub? I have certainly been to a couple that haven't been following the rules to the letter. As long as it's calm and fairly socially distanced I'm OK with it. I certainly wouldn't go to a pub showing a football match though, having heard reports from one of my locals
But that's the point. The restrictions on pubs are not ones that the 55+ age group generally care about. In fact, many prefer them with the restrictions in place.
Just seen on Twitter a couple of Kim Leadbeater leaflets leading with Palestine. Obviously fighting GG there. I imagine the tories will make hay with them.
It does sound like they’re scared of, and reacting to, GG, rather than running their own campaign.
They need to be very careful in their targetting though, many voters will switch Lab>Con if Labour go too hard on irrelevant issues like Palestine and trans rights.
Maybe that is all part of the master plan? Lose badly leading on what most voters consider utterly irrelevant to their lives.
No, too many people in the party remain obsessed about Palestine because they are passive and occasionally active anti-semites. If people want to vote for Galloway because like the pied piper he whistles their tune then they will vote for Galloway. They aren't going to vote for the Labour candidate who clearly has no interest in Palestine or Kashmir despite what the leaflets hastily written for her are saying.
The seat has a right wing independents group who win a respectable number of votes and Labour are our campaigning on Palestine FFS.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Sure! And yet his Labour and today's Labour are not remotely the same. If he wants a front line role in politics it won't be through Labour as they won't support him.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
There are definitely CLPs who would put Blair up. It really would get left-wingers refusing to vote, though, and polling suggests that he's not really popular with any sector of the electorate..
My preferred SKS strategy is a Grand Compromise. Put Blair in the Lords. Welcome Alastair Campbell back. Restore the whip to Corbyn. Get Ed Balls a seat. Adopt one imaginative policy - a proper social care package funded by higher tax on people earning over £75K, say. Annoy everyone a bit, but give everyone something to console themselves with. Pussy-footing doesn't work, either for left-winger or the electorate as a whole.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Possibly. But it's also that there aren't many activities engaged in on a widespread basis by the 55+ age group that are restricted under current rules.
Going to the pub? I have certainly been to a couple that haven't been following the rules to the letter. As long as it's calm and fairly socially distanced I'm OK with it. I certainly wouldn't go to a pub showing a football match though, having heard reports from one of my locals
But that's the point. The restrictions on pubs are not ones that the 55+ age group generally care about. In fact, many prefer them with the restrictions in place.
Indeed. Just as they don’t know, or care, about the restrictions in schools and the enormous problems they are causing. In fact, the DfE are trying to tighten those restrictions up again.
Given that within a few days all staff should be fully vaccinated, as should all parents (and if they’re not that’s mostly from choice and therefore their fault) this seems to me to be utter madness.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Sure! And yet his Labour and today's Labour are not remotely the same. If he wants a front line role in politics it won't be through Labour as they won't support him.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
There are definitely CLPs who would put Blair up. It really would get left-wingers refusing to vote, though, and polling suggests that he's not really popular with any sector of the electorate..
My preferred SKS strategy is a Grand Compromise. Put Blair in the Lords. Welcome Alastair Campbell back. Restore the whip to Corbyn. Get Ed Balls a seat. Adopt one imaginative policy - a proper social care package funded by higher tax on people earning over £75K, say. Annoy everyone a bit, but give everyone something to console themselves with. Pussy-footing doesn't work, either for left-winger or the electorate as a whole.
With you on the one imaginative policy thing. He needs a big idea. One thing that can be sold over and over on the doorstep.
Wimbledon Carshalton and Wallington Winchester Esher and Walton Guildford Eastbourne Wokingham Surrey South West Cheltenham Lewes
And if this meme really takes off, which I think it will, there are a raft of other seats that could be under threat.
Where does this leave Labour? I don't know to be honest.
It leaves Scottish Labour grinning like a Cheshire cat.
This is fantastic news for progressive opponents of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The more their English bosses chase votes in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire et al the easier it is to continue peeling away centre-left SLD voters.
Without tactical voting the SLDs would be extinct.
Given the LibDems are benefiting from unionist tactical voting, it's unclear that their specific policy platform has any impact on their Scottish electoral success (or otherwise).
Tactical voting is, by its very nature, short-term. Eventually all declining parties, irrespective of tactical votes, fall back to their very core. The problem for the SLDs is that they have no core. They have no throbbing heart. They have no raison d’être.
Unionist tactical votes are a false dawn for the SLDs, because one day those voters will all go “home”. And when that happens, the vacuum at the core will dissolve in a wee fart.
I don't think that we can discount the effect of a Scottish national leader. For all her faults, Swinson was Scottish and represented a Scottish seat, albeit clearly a Scottish tradition that is anathema to you.
All parties do better in Scotland when the national leader is Scottish. Brown held onto SLAB seats that would just be a dream now.
The converse is that those 4 SLD seats do look vulnerable with Davey in charge.
Hmm. The national party leader thing didn't work for Ms Swinson in her very own seat. (I often wondered if prospective fracking in the area was an issue.)
Yes, the SLDs only have 4 MSPs, down one from last time, in Holyrood - but this is an only roughly proportional voting system which gives extra seats to minor parties ()as fiddled originally by SLD + Labour, as I have said ad nauseam here). That in a parliament with 7 Scottish Greens MSPs.
And yet the government says amateur choirs can only sing in groups of 6?
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
We were at our son's leaving ceremony yesterday and were utterly devastated to be told that we were not allowed to sing the school song, clara scholastica. Hardly anyone knows the words of course but its the sentiment.
And that was that. No more school age kids. It feels like a major chapter of our lives has finally come to an end after 26 years.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Sure! And yet his Labour and today's Labour are not remotely the same. If he wants a front line role in politics it won't be through Labour as they won't support him.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
There are definitely CLPs who would put Blair up. It really would get left-wingers refusing to vote, though, and polling suggests that he's not really popular with any sector of the electorate..
My preferred SKS strategy is a Grand Compromise. Put Blair in the Lords. Welcome Alastair Campbell back. Restore the whip to Corbyn. Get Ed Balls a seat. Adopt one imaginative policy - a proper social care package funded by higher tax on people earning over £75K, say. Annoy everyone a bit, but give everyone something to console themselves with. Pussy-footing doesn't work, either for left-winger or the electorate as a whole.
Does Ed Balls want to return? My impression is that he's happier out of politics.
I would add that his picture is largely a 50+ demographic.
The equivalent cohort underneath, say 30 - 50, grew up under New Labour, were comfortable with Cameron’s Tories but are totally alienated by Johnson wholesale importation of Berlusconi-ism.
It's not just down south. The Batley & Spen poll has Labour ahead in the 18-54 age demographic, but miles behind in the 54+ one.
Otherwise known as “the ones who vote”. I still think Labour are likeliest to win but a lot of those older voters are the people who would have voted Labour all through the thatcher years. That is one of the hardest echelons to move so it shows more voting mobility. Which is always good news for the yellow peril.
Yep - Labour is buggered for as long as the Tory lead is so big among the oldies. And the Red Wall is full of oldies. I think Labour would win B&S were it not for Galloway. He is clearly eating into a big chunk of the party's usual support, even as Labour is actually managing to take a few votes from the Tories.
And that's the heart of the matter. At the moment the mainstream right and faragist right are united. Meanwhile the mainstream left and the hard left are divided.
In FPTP, that is all that counts.
The irony is that only mere months ago Galloway was campaigning on what was by any objective analysis a hard right ticket in Scotland. Nowadays we seem to be perpetually at the far end of the horseshoe with little space between Farage and Galloway with their shared admiration of Steve Bannon, but if significant numbers of ‘leftists’ in England fall for Galloway’s bullshit once again I really will despair.
Not sure why Scots seem to have become immune to George’s charms much earlier than those outwith, maybe because he’s one of our own and a well modulated Dundee burr doesn’t butter our neeps if it’s coming from a mountebank.
Eleanor Langford @eleanormia Squared newExclusive polling for @politicshome found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
With the 75% of 55-64s ignoring any restrictions they don't like.
You say that a lot, but do you have any non-anecdotal evidence? My (anecdotal!) impression is that the 55+ group are zealously masking and social distancing.
Possibly. But it's also that there aren't many activities engaged in on a widespread basis by the 55+ age group that are restricted under current rules.
Going to the pub? I have certainly been to a couple that haven't been following the rules to the letter. As long as it's calm and fairly socially distanced I'm OK with it. I certainly wouldn't go to a pub showing a football match though, having heard reports from one of my locals
But that's the point. The restrictions on pubs are not ones that the 55+ age group generally care about. In fact, many prefer them with the restrictions in place.
Going out to eat or to the pub is a wonderful experience right now. Everything is open, with about half the numbers of people you'd normally expect. I'm doing research at the Bodleian in Oxford, and Oxford is great without the crowds of tourists.
The catch is that without the tourists, most of these establishments will go to the wall.
And yet the government says amateur choirs can only sing in groups of 6?
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
You can't dance a weddings. We're going to one in August and really hoping that these idiotic restrictions are over by then.
99% of first doses will be completed by the early July.
99% of second doses for the middle aged will be completed by early July.
Yep, I wonder if some in government are starting to have reservations about the extension of restrictions.
Awesome to see sellout crowds allowed though, it’s a big sign that the pandemic is coming to an end. The Grand Prix is usually the biggest ticketed sporting crowd of the year, there were a record 155k there in 2019. The only other similar sized crowd is the Glastonbury Festival, which is off this year.
And yet the government says amateur choirs can only sing in groups of 6?
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
You can't dance a weddings. We're going to one in August and really hoping that these idiotic restrictions are over by then.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
It's quite a good article (and yes, it's Labour he'd stand for) - I was interested to see a reference to Harold Wilson's book on previous PMs, which is available from Amazon for a few quid and had 100% 5* reviews, quoting its chatty and accessible style. I'd never heard of it and I've ordered it.
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
Blair is Labour through and through. If he didn't renege under Corbyn, which he didn't, he's hardly going to jump ship under Starmer. A not-happening event.
Sure! And yet his Labour and today's Labour are not remotely the same. If he wants a front line role in politics it won't be through Labour as they won't support him.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
There are definitely CLPs who would put Blair up. It really would get left-wingers refusing to vote, though, and polling suggests that he's not really popular with any sector of the electorate..
My preferred SKS strategy is a Grand Compromise. Put Blair in the Lords. Welcome Alastair Campbell back. Restore the whip to Corbyn. Get Ed Balls a seat. Adopt one imaginative policy - a proper social care package funded by higher tax on people earning over £75K, say. Annoy everyone a bit, but give everyone something to console themselves with. Pussy-footing doesn't work, either for left-winger or the electorate as a whole.
With you on the one imaginative policy thing. He needs a big idea. One thing that can be sold over and over on the doorstep.
Build loads of council houses. Make them to a decent design with rooms bigger than the shite that are being slung up now by the developers. This will give ordinary people a chance to live somewhere decent and force the developers to build decent private housing stock. Give councils the ability to raise the money for them with the rents ringfenced to pay it back. Oh, and stfu about Palestine. It really annoys people who wonder why you care more about them than the people you want to vote for you.
Any tory who turns around after this result and says, 'ah but it's far worse for Labour' is living a delusion.
This is a catastrophic result for Johnson's Conservatives. We passed peak Boris on May 25th and I would not now bet on him winning the next General Election.
You're being ridiculous.
Lets say theoretically you're right and the Tories lose 23 seats in the South to the Lib Dems.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 15 Hartlepool-style seats primarily from Labour due the collapse of the Brexit Party.
As it stands the Tories are set to gain 10 seats from the new boundaries.
Put all that together and you'd end up with an increased Tory majority of 84 as the new baseline.
If the next election ends up as Tory 367 Lab 177 SNP 48 LD 35
Then who is PM? Who is happiest?
A strange calculation. If support for Johnson starts to peel away starting from its peak on May 25th and reaching a crescendo of loathing sometime next year the voters will find a way to eject the Tories by the next election. They always do
But there's no evidence of support for Johnson peeling away or reaching a crescendo of loathing.
An exchange of some Labour seats to the Tories, with some Tory seats going to the Lib Dems, may be bad news for the MPs in the lost seats but is not bad news for Johnson (unless Uxbridge is one of the lost seats!)
A Johnson party that predominantly holds seats in the Midlands and North is not the Conservative Party that so many people in the south recognise. Your argument is the same as Labour's vs the WWC - of course you will vote for us, where else will you go?
Look at the 'South outside London' polling. Tories streets ahead. This is all overdone.
Now? Sure - where else would they go? Point is that C&A is a pathfinder election - look what you could do instead. We finally get Labour voters accepting that in voting Labour in Guildford they're voting for a Tory MP so lets vote LD instead, combined with small c Tories utterly fed up with the clown car that is the Blue Labour Cult.
So yes, the Tories will still win swathes of the south. But they reached their peak and you can see the way out for so many of those seats. Remember that once the scales fall from voters eyes change can be rapid and brutal. As Labour have experienced in Scotland. As the Tories have experienced in Scotland...
I think that's taking a bit much from a single by-election. I remember when the LibDems repeatedly triumphed in re-elections in the 80s but then those wins were completely forgotten at the next election, when the Conservatives thrashed them. I think we could be going back to that pattern.
Certainly possible. My point is that there is always a breakout event. For the Tories attacking the Blue Wall seats like Mansfield and Copeland showed the way. Alternately for a fizzled breakout the other way look at Labour in Canterbury.
If change comes it can come quickly. Both the LibDems and Labour have had dozens of southern seats so we know it can happen. C&A may prompt another wave, it may not. Had the Tories held the seat then it wouldn't even be a consideration.
The southern seats that Labour had in the Blair era were, outside the cities, predominantly the wwc ones along the Thames estuary and in the new towns. Places which have more in common with Hartlepool than C&A.
Those Southern seats are absolutely rock-firm for the Conservatives, and impervious to the charms of the Lib Dems. It's striking how long-standing marginals like Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Dartford, Gravesham, Medway have now moved into the very solidly Conservative camp.
The Conservatives' potential problems lie in much leafier areas, Western Surrey, and the M3 and M4 corridors.
Looks like a very good correlation between housing affordability and this year's local election results.
And yet the government says amateur choirs can only sing in groups of 6?
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
You can't dance a weddings. We're going to one in August and really hoping that these idiotic restrictions are over by then.
Our sons wedding in six weeks is a nightmare of regulations including the sides of the marquee to be open 51% and no dancing and table service only
The amount of 'covid' regulations required by Drakeford at weddings is absurd, not least he will fine our son and daughter in law to be £10,000 for any breach
Our next doors neighbour's daughter gets married on Anglesey in two weeks and they have the same strict rules and punitive fines
These politicians are power crazy, and I notice two local firms are taking Drakeford to court over the fact the same businesses in England are open
Don't subscribe to the Thunderer so can't read the article. Of which party is he considering a return with? He would struggle to get selected with Labour and certainly wouldn't be elected its leader. I assume he isn't going to join the LibDems. He isn't a Tory.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
He could take a leaf out of Emmanuel Macron's book with En Marche and create a party around his initials. How about "The Believers"?
Wimbledon Carshalton and Wallington Winchester Esher and Walton Guildford Eastbourne Wokingham Surrey South West Cheltenham Lewes
And if this meme really takes off, which I think it will, there are a raft of other seats that could be under threat.
Where does this leave Labour? I don't know to be honest.
It leaves Scottish Labour grinning like a Cheshire cat.
This is fantastic news for progressive opponents of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The more their English bosses chase votes in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire et al the easier it is to continue peeling away centre-left SLD voters.
Without tactical voting the SLDs would be extinct.
Given the LibDems are benefiting from unionist tactical voting, it's unclear that their specific policy platform has any impact on their Scottish electoral success (or otherwise).
Tactical voting is, by its very nature, short-term. Eventually all declining parties, irrespective of tactical votes, fall back to their very core. The problem for the SLDs is that they have no core. They have no throbbing heart. They have no raison d’être.
Unionist tactical votes are a false dawn for the SLDs, because one day those voters will all go “home”. And when that happens, the vacuum at the core will dissolve in a wee fart.
I don't think that we can discount the effect of a Scottish national leader. For all her faults, Swinson was Scottish and represented a Scottish seat, albeit clearly a Scottish tradition that is anathema to you.
All parties do better in Scotland when the national leader is Scottish. Brown held onto SLAB seats that would just be a dream now.
The converse is that those 4 SLD seats do look vulnerable with Davey in charge.
Hmm. The national party leader thing didn't work for Ms Swinson in her very own seat. (I often wondered if prospective fracking in the area was an issue.)
Yes, the SLDs only have 4 MSPs, down one from last time, in Holyrood - but this is an only roughly proportional voting system which gives extra seats to minor parties ()as fiddled originally by SLD + Labour, as I have said ad nauseam here). That in a parliament with 7 Scottish Greens MSPs.
I was thinking SLD MPs not MSPs
Quite so, but the SLDs are going downhill on the MSP front anyway where things are more favourable, so it sure looks as if you are right about their vulnerability on the MP front.
99% of first doses will be completed by the early July.
99% of second doses for the middle aged will be completed by early July.
Actually, by the first of July, at the present rate of progress first doses will stand at 85% of the adult population.
As you don't say what you mean by "middle aged", your second claim can't be checked, but at any rate vaccination rates (either first or second) will have increased by only around 5% by then. Given that the current percentage of first and second is alteady about 70%, I wish I could understand why anyone thinks an increase in vaccination will have made much difference in transmission rates by July. Tends to confirm my suspicious that there is a ton of wishful thinking at work.
99% of first doses will be completed by the early July.
99% of second doses for the middle aged will be completed by early July.
Actually, by the first of July, at the present rate of progress first doses will stand at 85% of the adult population.
As you don't say what you mean by "middle aged", your second claim can't be checked, but at any rate vaccination rates (either first or second) will have increased by only around 5% by then. Given that the current percentage of first and second is alteady about 70%, I wish I could understand why anyone thinks an increase in vaccination will have made much difference in transmission rates by July. Tends to confirm my suspicious that there is a ton of wishful thinking at work.
I never said that 99% of the adult population will be vaccinated - I said that 99% of first doses will be completed.
As with all vaccinations not everyone will accept one.
The increase in vaccinations will put downward pressure on infection rates and also reduce the severity of the infection for those infected.
Comments
In FPTP, that is all that counts.
As for "its always a Labour government or a Tory government" I have to ask what we have now? It isn't remotely Conservative, has adopted a load of Labour policies and doesn't really look like either of them. Soft conservative remainers are less likely to willingly back a Johnson government than a Hunt one.
Yes, the SLDs only have 4 MSPs, down one from last time, in Holyrood - but this is an only roughly proportional voting system which gives extra seats to minor parties ()as fiddled originally by SLD + Labour, as I have said ad nauseam here). That in a parliament with 7 Scottish Greens MSPs.
Which means Labour come third.
And the fact that it's going to be either a Tory or Labour led government is a fairly hard fact. Whether any party is truly what is says it is is metaphysics.
The English Nationalists post-Brexit?
2019 SCON vote:
Fife NE -11.1%
Caithness -6.1%
Ed W -4.9%
Dunb E -0.5%
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/mergers-and-acquisitions/ferrero-beats-rivals-to-acquire-burtons-biscuits-for-300m/656768.article
https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro-2020/news/0254-0d41684d1216-06773df7faed-1000--euro-2020-all-the-fixtures/
https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1406179274441334787
https://www.survation.com/survation-batley-and-spen-constituency-poll-tables-1/
Note that the "Labour last time" figure has double the undecided level (26%) to "Conservative last time". Also interesting to see some Lab-Comn and Con-Lab switchers (5-7%) - not come across many of those for a while.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia/
UK government continues to ignore this.
The idea that the government is spending a lot of money in the North is false.
Actually, the idea that the government is “pro-spending” is not very true. What is happening is the government has put everything into furlough, and pandemic resources.
The bill is to paid by another programme of austerity.
But it is true that he would immediately outclass anyone on the scene today.
I won’t believe this rumour until he starts talking about a new post-Brexit settlement and/or Union issues.
@JohnRentoul
·
17h
Think
@elliottengage
gets it right: Blair would love to be begged to return to power, but knows it won’t happen
Whereas, from the outside anyway, Labour seem to be more reliant on people who would rather have their person as Leader of the Opposition than someone from another wing of the party as PM.
What is worrying is that if the Russians are admitting that infection is soaring and bringing in emergency restrictions on hospital usage then things are at a higher level of danger than seen before.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/neuzq3xabq/TheTimes_VotingIntention_Track_210610_W_BPC.pdf
- which was a poll with an 11-point Tory lead nationally. But the anti-Labour vote is stronger than the anti-LibDem vote, so in seats like mine the LibDems can make a (just) credible case that they might conceivably win and we wouldn't. Voters get that, by and large, so there's a huge swathe of southern voters who are actually Labour supporters but vote LD. That makes national polls showing the LDs sub 10% in the south misleading as a guide to constituency performance.
Incidentally, the boundary changes down here are a real mess. One new seat includes 4 local authorities!
Eleanor Langford
@eleanormia
Squared newExclusive polling for
@politicshome
found that 62% of UK adults would back delaying lockdown past 19 July if necessary
Older womanOlder age groups were much more likely to back the delay, with 75% of 55-64s in favour compared to 54% of 18-24s
If the rest of the world is open, and England cases are falling, but SAGE decides it's necessary to extend lockdown - what then?
Personally, I think that the problem is Southgate who is completely lacking in football imagination and vision. One of my mates last night said about half way through the second half that if England had a Mancini or even a Martinez Scotland could be in trouble but they had Southgate so it would be fine.
It gives SAGE (and relevant supporters in Govt) free rein to continue producing scary briefings in private and in public to the extent that the "if necessary" criteria can always be met.
Even more so because nobody has clearly laid out what the "criteria" are - they are movable goalposts to be shifted in whichever direction suits.
Gifting a world cup semi place by an unbelievably generous draw which didn't require any impressive results - threw away a chance at the final by losing to a country with a population 14x smaller than England.
It's just consistently slightly below mediocre and yet people are surprised when he keeps going at his limited level.
So the only thing that makes sense is him forming a new centre party. He would need to win the support of the WWC who backed him previously AND the support of remainer shire Tories fed up with Johnsonism.
An utterly impossible task. Surely. For anyone who isn't Blair...
As in other things people tend to be more in favour of restrictions on 'people like them' rather than on 'people like us' and an excuse can always be found for ignoring restrictions on 'people like us' - "we've all been vaccinated" for example.
Kane looks completely lost in the system he plays and yet with the wide players that England have he should be getting even better service than he does at Spurs. 2 holding midfielders may make sense against the very best teams but against others he needs more creative players finding pockets of space further up the park. First round of the knockouts I fear.
However, the penny dropping isn't the same as saying Labour will mop up next time. I honestly think that people have had this revelation that continuously voting Labour doesn't actually get you anywhere substantive. The opportunity for Blair - The Party is to win back those voters who still talk positively about him... *giggles*
I know lots of Corbynites like me, some of them (unlike me) very anti-SKS, and the prevailing view is that if SKS resigned we'd get another centrist instead, so it's not an objective. I actually don't know anyone who would vote against Labour in order to engineer a leadership change. They generally hope against hope that SKS might turn out more leftish than he seems, or alternatively that he'd reduce the Tory majority and set things up for a future left-wing leader.
Who that might be has them scratching their heads - Andy Burnham is seen as authentically Northern but not leftish, and Angela Rayner is less posh than SKS but also not really leftish. So they're drifting away from party membership but will still grumpily vote for us.
Anyway, with 4 points and a goal difference of +1 England can finish the group in 3rd still...
They need to be very careful in their targetting though, many voters will switch Lab>Con if Labour go too hard on irrelevant issues like Palestine and trans rights.
Blair has an Ego denser than a black hole. Ego drives people to do all kinds of crazy things.
Even if we extended that to non-consecutive terms, that only adds Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94).
It just ain’t gonna happen.
Boro have never recovered from his managerial tenure.
I don't get it - unless the aim is perpetual self-righteous opposition. The political mood map has moved well away from you and yet the party seems determined to go even further away from electability. Even with no leadership change the guy is hobbled carrying the left round howling and gnashing at anything who isn't them.
Wimbledon and the Open Golf also allowed a full house on the same weekend.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2021/06/18/britishgrandprix-cleared-capacity-crowd-added-pilot-event-list/
This smacks to me of deciding that a QF exit is fine.
(I could have misread the fixtures, though)
Admittedly, having drawn up the regulations wrongly they have designated ‘amateur choirs’ as a type of organisation that doesn’t exist, but it’s still madness.
The Conservatives' potential problems lie in much leafier areas, Western Surrey, and the M3 and M4 corridors.
The seat has a right wing independents group who win a respectable number of votes and Labour are our campaigning on Palestine FFS.
99% of second doses for the middle aged will be completed by early July.
My preferred SKS strategy is a Grand Compromise. Put Blair in the Lords. Welcome Alastair Campbell back. Restore the whip to Corbyn. Get Ed Balls a seat. Adopt one imaginative policy - a proper social care package funded by higher tax on people earning over £75K, say. Annoy everyone a bit, but give everyone something to console themselves with. Pussy-footing doesn't work, either for left-winger or the electorate as a whole.
Given that within a few days all staff should be fully vaccinated, as should all parents (and if they’re not that’s mostly from choice and therefore their fault) this seems to me to be utter madness.
And that was that. No more school age kids. It feels like a major chapter of our lives has finally come to an end after 26 years.
Not sure why Scots seem to have become immune to George’s charms much earlier than those outwith, maybe because he’s one of our own and a well modulated Dundee burr doesn’t butter our neeps if it’s coming from a mountebank.
The catch is that without the tourists, most of these establishments will go to the wall.
Awesome to see sellout crowds allowed though, it’s a big sign that the pandemic is coming to an end. The Grand Prix is usually the biggest ticketed sporting crowd of the year, there were a record 155k there in 2019. The only other similar sized crowd is the Glastonbury Festival, which is off this year.
Oh, and stfu about Palestine. It really annoys people who wonder why you care more about them than the people you want to vote for you.
@novaramedia
· 49m
"If Labour loses Batley and Spen, Keir Starmer has to resign".
@OwenJones84 | #TyskySour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033
The amount of 'covid' regulations required by Drakeford at weddings is absurd, not least he will fine our son and daughter in law to be £10,000 for any breach
Our next doors neighbour's daughter gets married on Anglesey in two weeks and they have the same strict rules and punitive fines
These politicians are power crazy, and I notice two local firms are taking Drakeford to court over the fact the same businesses in England are open
ITV: P24 W4 D12 L8
BBC: P22 W15 D3 L4
The last time England won in 90mins on ITV Jude Bellingham was 8 years old. #ITVCurse
https://twitter.com/LewisMatthews1/status/1406167151476674563
As you don't say what you mean by "middle aged", your second claim can't be checked, but at any rate vaccination rates (either first or second) will have increased by only around 5% by then. Given that the current percentage of first and second is alteady about 70%, I wish I could understand why anyone thinks an increase in vaccination will have made much difference in transmission rates by July. Tends to confirm my suspicious that there is a ton of wishful thinking at work.
...
As with all vaccinations not everyone will accept one.
The increase in vaccinations will put downward pressure on infection rates and also reduce the severity of the infection for those infected.
These are facts.
Facts which you are in denial about.