Utterly offtopic but as it's Covid we will be back to it at some point today
Latest data are that last winter 1 in 60 infections were fatal, now that’s fewer than 1 in 1000 thanks to the vaccine. Surely that’s the metric that matters, and the overall number of infections is no more important than number of flu cases, which we hardly notice?
Which feels right to me but does mean top up vaccinations for a few years will be essential.
We don't now for sure if top up vaccines will be needed for a few years. Its possible that one more booster, tailored to one of the more recent variants, will be enough for many. Even if we do need to top up for the vulnerable, thats not much more of an issue than the annual flu jab roll out.
Given how few proven re-infections we've seen, it looks like immunity is pretty long lasting.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
This is the sort of result I expected for Hartlepool.
Governments don't win by-elections.
They could if the Tories put Gorgeous up as alternative to Labour at every Lab/Con by election between now and the GE.
If the Tories put up Galloway, I'd support the Liberal Democrats.
No, no. Galloway as a third way. Tories, Labour and Galloway.
Galloway doesn't seem to have hurt Labour here.
Galloway seems to have taken the Heavy Woolens vote. The Tories have gained a small swing from Labour, but not enough to take the seat given it was already Labour's.
I have been guilty of writing utter bollocks this morning (re Johnson's majority) Welcome to my club!
Can anyone join? I often write utter bollocks too!
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes seems to be more than was expected by many?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There's an assumption that everything northern is 'red wall'.
It isn't.
The 'red wall' are traditional Labour constituencies that have politically and usually demographically (though that bit is usually ignored by the media) moved towards the Conservatives.
Batley has if anything, because of the growing Muslim population, been moving away from the Conservatives.
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
Some B&S thoughts: 1. Brilliant Labour expectation management. 2. Superb Labour GOTV operation. 3. Both suggest a significant uptick in party management after Starmer's recent backroom reshuffle. 4. Galloway got a lot more than Muslim votes. 5. By rooting so openly for Galloway, the far-left has done itself a great deal of harm inside Labour. 6. Hubris is always the Tory Achilles heal. It hurt them big time here. 7. The LibDem vote share was down only 1.3%. Compare and contrast with the fall in the Labour vote share in Chesham & Amersham. 8. We need to stop talking about politics as normal. We don't know what normal is anymore. 9. Above all else, the significance of this is that Labour did not lose and the headlines and summer the result has therefore prevented.
9 is the big win
But the lefties have shown they can get within 300 odd votes of losing Labour safe seats, that’s no good
This is the sort of result I expected for Hartlepool.
Governments don't win by-elections.
They could if the Tories put Gorgeous up as alternative to Labour at every Lab/Con by election between now and the GE.
If the Tories put up Galloway, I'd support the Liberal Democrats.
No, no. Galloway as a third way. Tories, Labour and Galloway.
Galloway doesn't seem to have hurt Labour here.
Galloway seems to have taken the Heavy Woolens vote. The Tories have gained a small swing from Labour, but not enough to take the seat given it was already Labour's.
I have been guilty of writing utter bollocks this morning (re Johnson's majority) Welcome to my club!
Which bit of it was wrong? 🤔
Galloway not hurting Labour. And all day long!
How do you know Galloway hurt Labour.
If the assumption was Heavy Woolens would go Tory, but they went Galloway instead, then his presence may have saved Labour.
Its impossible to tell really.
On Newsnight yesterday they were showing footage of predominantly Muslim former Labour voters who were voting Galloway to achieve a "socialist" MP (Galloway).
It isn't a great win for Starmer, but under the circumstances, a win is a win.
That said he needs to pull his finger out. Put on the hi viz and get filmed with Fishermen, Farmers, Manufacturers, Doctors, Nurses. All those that Johnson has screwed over.
Three by elections under Sir Keir, & Labour have done worse than Jezza GE19 in all of them
Fair enough they are happy to him B&S, but that’s not really good is it?
It’s a win. Does it solve all the problems? No. Does it solve the major problem? Yes. Labour are winning again.
A narrow win with a hugely reduced majority when you held the seat anyway isn’t that much of a win really when in opposition. But in terms of turning points for Sir Keir, maybe it will be like Mark Robins winner for Man Utd in the 1990 FA Cup 3rd round. A scrappy 1-0 but the downside was unthinkable
Keir was battling on all fronts. The Tories were only a small part of it. The victory was essential. We will see if it’s a turning point. Personally I believe that it is critical for Labour to understand what is needed to win and get into the habit, That was achieved.
I think the underlying metrics of the three recent [...]
underlying metrics i.
I'm sorry you lost money overnight but that's no excuse for such an awful piece of gobbledygook.
I won £100!
You weren’t around for the Lib Dem 50 ups of GE 2019 were you?
I was referring to your self-confessed loss just now of £300 overnight.
I am very long in the tooth and have seen many rise and fall. I didn't bet on the LibDems in 2019. Jo Swinson was awful and the country was in a remarkably different worldview.
Off topic, the grauniad and torygraph agree on the utter yukness of the new Diana statue. I hear the Spencer family were up to their necks in the slave trade...
They’ll need statue protectors solely on the grounds of taste. It’s not just ‘well, opinions differ’ bad, it’s insultingly so. Assuming that everyone involved wanted it to be a meaningful work, couldn’t they have got some sort Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures type person to advise?
I had a genuinely lol moment watching the end of Professor Sexy Time Brian Cox's "Adventures in Space and Time". He touched on the controversy over statues briefly.
'People ask me why do you smile [when talking about the end of the universe as it decays into nothing], its funny that's why I smile. It certainly takes us down a peg or two. Smeone says "I want to build a statue of myself, a permanent celebration, a permanent monument of my achievements".' There won't be any permanent monuments, don't worry about the statues! They're all going to dissolve into bath of Photons'
I echo the praise for Nick Palmer. Excellent comments and not tribal at all. Just factual.
He always underplays labour’s chances
When he said 5-10% chance of winning I knew it was much closer than that
No, you overestimate my insight (and I'm more usually accused of overplaying them)! I did think that, and didn't bet on Labour winning until I put a few pounds on last night at 5-1 after experiencing the GOTV effort (though I bet heavily earlier on Labour beating Galloway).
If the election had been a week earlier I think we might well have lost - there was a shift in the final days. Hancock? Weight of canvassing? Fading of the earlier issues? Who knows?
I think also, name recognition and being local can help. Really Labour needs to prioritise these local people for all seats going forward, people embedded in the seats.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
Do you think a change at the top would change that ?
A narrow Labour hold in urban West Yorkshire is not a result typically received with breathless gasps of relief by the party leadership. But for Keir Starmer and those desperate for party unity, it is without doubt a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
On our respective visits to Batley and Spen, my colleague Anoosh Chakelian and I remarked that Kim Leadbeater, the Labour candidate, was an unquestionable asset to the campaign. She appealed to would-be voters and her literature was markedly less Labour in branding than previous efforts by the party, and one wonders if it was this which proved key to the final result.
When approached on his preference, for instance, one resident remarked last week to a canvasser: “Yes, I’ll vote for Kim, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be supporting Labour!”
I’m old enough to remember folk saying Kim Leadbeater was a terrible candidate chosen only because of who she was related to and who couldn’t handle some lippy twats shouting at her.
In fairness I said that and I don't necessarily accept that I was wrong. But the Tories felt it necessary to hide their candidate pretty much completely so he was presumably even worse!
Mahmood seems to have done a very good job. The new team seems to have hit the ground running.
I hope Starmer's new communications team - did we see any of that coming through in PMQs? - will continue the trend of finally having some decent talent running things.
This really might be a turning point. I am hopeful for the first time in a while, I have to say.
For those like Phillip Thompson who (apparently sincerely) believe that Brexit is all done and dusted and marvellous, here is yet another example of the problems we are facing:
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
For those like Phillip Thompson who (apparently sincerely) believe that Brexit is all done and dusted and marvellous, here is yet another example of the problems we are facing:
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
Once again - this has little to nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with the working conditions of HGV drivers.
Remember these issues kicked off not in January but from mid April after IR35 changes reduced a lot of agency drivers wages - who have suddenly found that local jobs now pay the same as driving and don't require them being away in a crap cabin overnight.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes seems to be more than was expected by many?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There's an assumption that everything northern is 'red wall'.
It isn't.
The 'red wall' are traditional Labour constituencies that have politically and usually demographically (though that bit is usually ignored by the media) moved towards the Conservatives.
Batley has if anything, because of the growing Muslim population, been moving away from the Conservatives.
Precisely!
The red wall is seats that demographics should be Tory if they were anywhere else in the country, but was staying Labour for historical reasons. Where people have in the past decade been able to afford to buy their own home etc.
Which means it may be harder than people think for Labour to regain the red wall seats.
The red wall is not as some people imagine some angry impoverished wasteland of sadness and depression.
Exactly right. Hartlepool, for instance, does have some parts like that but is quite rural too and has some very nice areas too. In many cases you wonder why some parts of the north east stayed labour for so long. Bishop Auckland and Durham NW are two prime examples for me.
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
If he wants a populist punt, go on the football. "England fans can't travel to Rome for the fitba because of Covid, yet the PM thinks its fair to let UEFA officials and corporate sponsors come to London without even a test. Its one rule for them, another for everyone else."
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
This is the sort of result I expected for Hartlepool.
Governments don't win by-elections.
They could if the Tories put Gorgeous up as alternative to Labour at every Lab/Con by election between now and the GE.
If the Tories put up Galloway, I'd support the Liberal Democrats.
No, no. Galloway as a third way. Tories, Labour and Galloway.
Galloway doesn't seem to have hurt Labour here.
Galloway seems to have taken the Heavy Woolens vote. The Tories have gained a small swing from Labour, but not enough to take the seat given it was already Labour's.
I have been guilty of writing utter bollocks this morning (re Johnson's majority) Welcome to my club!
Can anyone join? I often write utter bollocks too!
It is rather exclusive, but there is always room for Philip.
Prime Minister, think of PB and nominate Theresa May for the job of Secretary-General of NATO.
Yeah, what's the odd thermo nuclear war when we would get another betting opportunity?
What Thermo-Nuclear warhead would stand a chance against the death stare of Theresa May? All she has to do is stand on the roof of NATO in Brussels and glare at the sky like she's glaring at the government front bench and all the nukes will dissolve.
Good tip Mike. I lated the Tories for £20 at about 1.2, tempted to cash out but let it ride.
'We're in the money, come on, my honey Let's spend it, lend it, send it rolling along............'
Well, off to the Isle of Wight next week, so shall spend my winnings on crab pasties and rock.
Weather forecast not too bad.
Spend it at "Call it what you want" in Cowes. Best restaurant on Trip Advisor and they are not wrong. Not much social distancing going on though.
If you haven't booked already, you won't be eating out over here any time soon. It's my dog trainer's birthday tonight, and they phoned ten island restaurants for a table, all fully booked with no alternative slots to offer over the weekend, and that's with the football on TV as well. And a lot of the pubs have long evening queues waiting to be let in.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes seems to be more than was expected by many?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There's an assumption that everything northern is 'red wall'.
It isn't.
The 'red wall' are traditional Labour constituencies that have politically and usually demographically (though that bit is usually ignored by the media) moved towards the Conservatives.
Batley has if anything, because of the growing Muslim population, been moving away from the Conservatives.
Precisely!
The red wall is seats that demographics should be Tory if they were anywhere else in the country, but was staying Labour for historical reasons. Where people have in the past decade been able to afford to buy their own home etc.
Which means it may be harder than people think for Labour to regain the red wall seats.
The red wall is not as some people imagine some angry impoverished wasteland of sadness and depression.
Exactly right. Hartlepool, for instance, does have some parts like that but is quite rural too and has some very nice areas too. In many cases you wonder why some parts of the north east stayed labour for so long. Bishop Auckland and Durham NW are two prime examples for me.
I suspect you’re playing to an outdated/never was stereotype of Labour voters
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
He may well be a racist, but it doesn't follow from anything you quote that he is.
FPT - if you received the AZ vaccine check your batch number (on your vaccination card) - if it's from one of the 3 batches produced in India it isn't recognised by the EU - though some EU countries under pressure from a furious India have said they'll recognise them:
However, up to five million doses of the version of the AZ jab in question have been administered in the UK and are identifiable by the vaccine batch numbers (4120Z001, 4120Z002, 4120Z003) included on recipients’ vaccine cards and in the Covid travel pass available via the NHS app, the Telegraph said.
Only vaccines approved by the EMA are included in the EU app, though individual member states are free to accept other vaccines if they choose.
Just checked. Ours are Vaxzevria, but that is just a brand name so no guarantee that they were not made by SII. No explicit batch numbers are shown on the certificate though it carries a mark "EU/1/21/1529". Perhaps that means it was approved by the EMA. Clear as mud. This could become a source of contention for travellers.
Yes it is. Brand names are tied to the MA which is linked to the production side. The issue with CoviShield from SI isn’t that the *vacvine* isn’t approved, it’s that the *site* isn’t approved
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
I thought peak Johnson had passed this time last year. I hope you are correct, but we are still in strange times.
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
If he wants a populist punt, go on the football. "England fans can't travel to Rome for the fitba because of Covid, yet the PM thinks its fair to let UEFA officials and corporate sponsors come to London without even a test. Its one rule for them, another for everyone else."
Final post for the day but watching Boris cheering Kane's goal was pretty painful viewing, even if you are a tory supporter. When he shouted, 'did we just score?' it emphasised to me not a man in touch but the sham man. Mind you, he has good company. His Etonian predecessor was a supporter of Ham Villa.
At least both John Major and Theresa May genuinely like cricket.
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
Presumably a racist who appoints minority ethnic people to be Home Secretary, Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can you divorce colourful writing about colonialism from how a person behaves? I don't believe Johnson is racist - if its female he'd try to shag it, if its male he'll try to screw it over... Equal opportunities...
For those like Phillip Thompson who (apparently sincerely) believe that Brexit is all done and dusted and marvellous, here is yet another example of the problems we are facing:
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
Haribo putting it out that they've pulled a promotion due to the lack of drivers is the best piece of arse covering I have ever heard. In my sales career I have heard (and probably given) some brilliant excuses as to why we are off the number, but that is brilliant.
Yes there is a shortage of drivers. Yes that means stuff not getting delivered. Bags of ambient sweets is not going to be badly enough affected to need to pull the promotion. But now Haribo sweets are a story on the BBC! Brilliant free brand publicity.
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
I thought peak Johnson had passed this time last year. I hope you are correct, but we are still in strange times.
Glad you're still posting Pete and hope you are well.
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
The rise in positive coronavirus tests in Scotland is “very clearly” linked to Scotland fans travelling to London for the Euro 2020 match against England, a public health expert has said.
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the spike in positive cases “coincides very much” with the incubation period of the virus after the match at Wembley on Friday, June 18, which finished 0-0.
He was asked if the Euros tournament was “acting as some kind of super-spreader with the number of fans that have been travelling around the continent”. McKee told Good Morning Scotland on Friday: “I think you in Scotland know very clearly that that is the case.
Some B&S thoughts: 1. Brilliant Labour expectation management. 2. Superb Labour GOTV operation. 3. Both suggest a significant uptick in party management after Starmer's recent backroom reshuffle. 4. Galloway got a lot more than Muslim votes. 5. By rooting so openly for Galloway, the far-left has done itself a great deal of harm inside Labour. 6. Hubris is always the Tory Achilles heal. It hurt them big time here. 7. The LibDem vote share was down only 1.3%. Compare and contrast with the fall in the Labour vote share in Chesham & Amersham. 8. We need to stop talking about politics as normal. We don't know what normal is anymore. 9. Above all else, the significance of this is that Labour did not lose and the headlines and summer the result has therefore prevented.
Mucking about on Betfair after the polls closed cost me about £300 🙈 Should have just gone to bed
Looks like the poll, and @NickPalmer, vastly undercooked the GG vote.
Palestine is a huge issue on the left. Starmer is going to have to stop his knee jerk reactions and understand that the left have an idealistic core that wont accept silence in the face of oppression.
Absolutely. He should tell it to them straight:
"There are plenty of troublespots in the world with people oppressed by a strong power. That you exclusively talk about Palestine and condemn Israel with no interest in the rest is anti-semitism. We are an anti-racist party with a proud history of internationalism. That means there is no place in the party for racism. Anti-semitism is racism. If any of you express racist opinions again I will expel you."
Its 25 years since I was at University. I didn't get the Palestine thing then and I don't now. Yes the Israeli government under Netanyahu has been appalling. But its hardly unique in the world, yet to hear the PSC loons it is the only injustice and its all on Israel and Israel alone. I honestly don't think some of them think they are anti-semites (though many do and are quite happy about it). Labour tries to educate them - and I appreciate (from experience) that its easy for comments criticising their government to slip over the line. But the reponse isn't "thanks" its "lets persecute anyone who doesn't agree with our extreme view that Israel has no right to exist and should be removed from the map"
It is a major reason I, as a working class person, could not bring myself to vote Labour. I have never voted Tory but that, and the likes of Thornberry who so openly despise us, is why my vote is gone.
For those like Phillip Thompson who (apparently sincerely) believe that Brexit is all done and dusted and marvellous, here is yet another example of the problems we are facing:
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
Haribo putting it out that they've pulled a promotion due to the lack of drivers is the best piece of arse covering I have ever heard. In my sales career I have heard (and probably given) some brilliant excuses as to why we are off the number, but that is brilliant.
Yes there is a shortage of drivers. Yes that means stuff not getting delivered. Bags of ambient sweets is not going to be badly enough affected to need to pull the promotion. But now Haribo sweets are a story on the BBC! Brilliant free brand publicity.
The government's reputation hit by a bit of dishonest publicity-seeking?
The rise in positive coronavirus tests in Scotland is “very clearly” linked to Scotland fans travelling to London for the Euro 2020 match against England, a public health expert has said.
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the spike in positive cases “coincides very much” with the incubation period of the virus after the match at Wembley on Friday, June 18, which finished 0-0.
He was asked if the Euros tournament was “acting as some kind of super-spreader with the number of fans that have been travelling around the continent”. McKee told Good Morning Scotland on Friday: “I think you in Scotland know very clearly that that is the case.
Clearly the Batley and Spen result is excellent news for Starmer who will now be secure as Labour leader for the foreseeable future. Hancock's resignation and a personal vote for Kim Leadbeater were likely key.
However the Tories will not be too disheartened with a 2.9% swing to them in this Red Wall seat even if they did not win it.
It should also be noted while some Labour voters clearly went to Galloway the combined English Democrat, UKIP and For Britain vote was also bigger than the Labour majority and the Yorkshire Party also got 2% so clearly not all the Woollen vote went Tory either
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
I thought Johnson’s answer on it at PMQs to the SNP MP who raised it was pathetic.
A rarity for an SNP MP, it was a good question. It merited a better answer.
FPT - if you received the AZ vaccine check your batch number (on your vaccination card) - if it's from one of the 3 batches produced in India it isn't recognised by the EU - though some EU countries under pressure from a furious India have said they'll recognise them:
However, up to five million doses of the version of the AZ jab in question have been administered in the UK and are identifiable by the vaccine batch numbers (4120Z001, 4120Z002, 4120Z003) included on recipients’ vaccine cards and in the Covid travel pass available via the NHS app, the Telegraph said.
Only vaccines approved by the EMA are included in the EU app, though individual member states are free to accept other vaccines if they choose.
Just checked. Ours are Vaxzevria, but that is just a brand name so no guarantee that they were not made by SII. No explicit batch numbers are shown on the certificate though it carries a mark "EU/1/21/1529". Perhaps that means it was approved by the EMA. Clear as mud. This could become a source of contention for travellers.
Yes it is. Brand names are tied to the MA which is linked to the production side. The issue with CoviShield from SI isn’t that the *vacvine* isn’t approved, it’s that the *site* isn’t approved
Thanks Charles, that's a relief. Still a SNAFU by EU.
Excellent result for Starmer, no gettting around it. He would have been in very serious trouble if he had lost but a win is a win and getting the win with Galloway over 8k is impressive.
The Tories have fallen back quite a bit. Still by no means the worst position for a mid term 4th term government but they are well off their peak. I would not be at all surprised to see polling with Labour level very soon.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
I thought peak Johnson had passed this time last year. I hope you are correct, but we are still in strange times.
It did, but then the vaccine triumph gave the government another life.
But strokes of fortune like that don't come up very often.
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
But it's got little to nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with an industry that was (and still is) dysfunctional where until April tax avoidance was used to reduce industry costs.
I'd be slightly wary of using historical precedent, as we live in very turbulent times.
We went from a Hung Parliament to a substantial Conservative majority, and that after a Coalition followed by a small Conservative majority.
Politics now is quite volatile.
Nearing the end of A Concise History of Republican Rome by Georgina Masson. Quite liking it. Although the Batley Grammar mob of blasphemy enthusiasts does remind me a little of Milo and Clodius.
I echo the praise for Nick Palmer. Excellent comments and not tribal at all. Just factual.
He always underplays labour’s chances
When he said 5-10% chance of winning I knew it was much closer than that
No, you overestimate my insight (and I'm more usually accused of overplaying them)! I did think that, and didn't bet on Labour winning until I put a few pounds on last night at 5-1 after experiencing the GOTV effort (though I bet heavily earlier on Labour beating Galloway).
If the election had been a week earlier I think we might well have lost - there was a shift in the final days. Hancock? Weight of canvassing? Fading of the earlier issues? Who knows?
Does that suggest that the postal votes were better for the conservatives, counted earlier in the evening, thereby giving a misleading perspective initially of the expected winner?
Good tip Mike. I lated the Tories for £20 at about 1.2, tempted to cash out but let it ride.
'We're in the money, come on, my honey Let's spend it, lend it, send it rolling along............'
Well, off to the Isle of Wight next week, so shall spend my winnings on crab pasties and rock.
Weather forecast not too bad.
Spend it at "Call it what you want" in Cowes. Best restaurant on Trip Advisor and they are not wrong. Not much social distancing going on though.
If you haven't booked already, you won't be eating out over here any time soon. It's my dog trainer's birthday tonight, and they phoned ten island restaurants for a table, all fully booked with no alternative slots to offer over the weekend, and that's with the football on TV as well. And a lot of the pubs have long evening queues waiting to be let in.
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
He may well be a racist, but it doesn't follow from anything you quote that he is.
The (just-about) ambiguity of his use of the word "because" in the clause containing the p-word was deliberate. On the most charitable reading possible, it recalls Powell's putting of his "whip hand" reference into the mouth of a "middle-aged, quite ordinary working man".
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
The Wizard of Wazza assures me that it isn't even an issue at all...
You really do need to remember the victims of all this- Owen Jones, Bastani, Jezzas readmission to the labour party, Matt Hancock, BJs invincibility cloak.
I do recall some sage saying when Trump lost that people had just got a bit tired of all the drama. I wonder if that is where we are heading.
Boris is Boris, if that is what he wants to be called.
It's not though.
He wants his family and friends to call him Alex.
He only wants voters to call him something else.
No reason to have an aneurysm about a name, We’ll call him Boris, We’ll call Anthony Blair ‘Tony’. That’s just what normal people do when someone tells you the name they wish to be referred to by.
It's very childish to get so worked up about it, and rather hilarious that people act like its taking some noble stand rather than freaking out because he uses a different name, oh heaven forfend. At least kinabalu makes a point about power of a brand, he argues why it matters, rather than some others acting like its just wrong he goes by something other than birth name.
Are people unaware that the nomination forms for elections allow you to choose what name you go by and many people use that? It doesnt even need to be one of your names.
If nothing else it's the name he is elected under, on the statement of persons nominated, so it is his election name. It is right to call him that as a result.
Just relax - when his aura slips and his persona stops being effective use of his name wont help him then, stop having tantrums over it.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
Do you think a change at the top would change that ?
Possibly? To some extent it's due to normal wear and tear of being in government, and membership age profile. But the Tories are remarkably good at changing leaders before an election and then arguing: "it's a fresh government, let's give them a chance, eh?". If I were Boris I wouldn't worry now, but in a year's time the party might be thinking about trying that wheeze again.
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
But it's got little to nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with an industry that was (and still is) dysfunctional where until April tax avoidance was used to reduce industry costs.
They have "fixed" the IR35 issue by giving all the remaining drivers a chunky pay rise. The remaining shortage is a combination of Covid (c. 30k tests not available due to the pox) and Brexit driving forrin drivers away. We're 65k drivers short, catch-up with testing will bring some more through but with an ageing driver pool this gets worse every day.
The only realistic way to avoid big problems though into next year is to allow forrin drivers and trucks back in to fill the gaps. The government won't because Brexit so we'll all just have to get used to shopping being a bit of a lottery for a while.
Mucking about on Betfair after the polls closed cost me about £300 🙈 Should have just gone to bed
Looks like the poll, and @NickPalmer, vastly undercooked the GG vote.
Palestine is a huge issue on the left. Starmer is going to have to stop his knee jerk reactions and understand that the left have an idealistic core that wont accept silence in the face of oppression.
Absolutely. He should tell it to them straight:
"There are plenty of troublespots in the world with people oppressed by a strong power. That you exclusively talk about Palestine and condemn Israel with no interest in the rest is anti-semitism. We are an anti-racist party with a proud history of internationalism. That means there is no place in the party for racism. Anti-semitism is racism. If any of you express racist opinions again I will expel you."
Its 25 years since I was at University. I didn't get the Palestine thing then and I don't now. Yes the Israeli government under Netanyahu has been appalling. But its hardly unique in the world, yet to hear the PSC loons it is the only injustice and its all on Israel and Israel alone. I honestly don't think some of them think they are anti-semites (though many do and are quite happy about it). Labour tries to educate them - and I appreciate (from experience) that its easy for comments criticising their government to slip over the line. But the reponse isn't "thanks" its "lets persecute anyone who doesn't agree with our extreme view that Israel has no right to exist and should be removed from the map"
It is a major reason I, as a working class person, could not bring myself to vote Labour. I have never voted Tory but that, and the likes of Thornberry who so openly despise us, is why my vote is gone.
I still vote labour as I rate my local MP, but you’re right about the likes of Thornberry. Why should people vote for a party that so clearly despises them.
For those like Phillip Thompson who (apparently sincerely) believe that Brexit is all done and dusted and marvellous, here is yet another example of the problems we are facing:
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
Once again - this has little to nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with the working conditions of HGV drivers.
Remember these issues kicked off not in January but from mid April after IR35 changes reduced a lot of agency drivers wages - who have suddenly found that local jobs now pay the same as driving and don't require them being away in a crap cabin overnight.
Precisely!
Companies have been engaging in tax avoidance to evade their responsibility to pay market rates of wages. Now they're horrified they can no longer get away with it so wish to pretend there's a problem.
I believe in low taxes, equally paid by all. Tax avoidance by a few means that the rest of us need to pay more so the Treasury is right to end avoidance scams by IR35.
Now firms need to pay whatever the market rate is to attract enough drivers. If that means there's less demand because costs have risen then that's just supply and demand in action: price rises mean more supply (drivers) and less demand so a new equilibrium is achieved.
The rise in positive coronavirus tests in Scotland is “very clearly” linked to Scotland fans travelling to London for the Euro 2020 match against England, a public health expert has said.
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the spike in positive cases “coincides very much” with the incubation period of the virus after the match at Wembley on Friday, June 18, which finished 0-0.
He was asked if the Euros tournament was “acting as some kind of super-spreader with the number of fans that have been travelling around the continent”. McKee told Good Morning Scotland on Friday: “I think you in Scotland know very clearly that that is the case.
I've been meaning to ask about these graphs: do you lag the hospital data, or is it data from the same day?
7 day lag - which is a bit crude.
I tried to find some data on building a probability curve, the way I did for the Case/Fatality Ratio. But I couldn't find any published papers on that.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
There is a fine line between effective political theatre and absolute fucking nonsense that Johnson is usually quite acute at judging. However, he seems to have strayed more into fucking nonsense lately. This was neatly encapsulated by the farrago of the Watching England Play Football photo op.
Your average chip scoffing chav does not watch football uncomfortably perched on the end of a table in an office next to a woman who fucking despises him. This was noticed and the photo was mercilessly memed.
Narrative matters. Objectively a narrow hold is not stunning in a historical sense, but in the context of recent months and the Galloway impact it is a very positive result for Labour, especially when many thought it lost and many nominally on his side hoped it was lost.
Gives a chance for a refresh, to talk of winning for a change - even if that should have been expected it very much wasnt for much of it, so it matters.
What I find interesting is the combination of the last two byelection results. Tory strategists will be scratching their heads this morning trying to work out what it means for the next general election. The problem for the Tories is that they have to win outright. There is no feasible coalition which contains the Tories so they have to get a majority on their own. The feeling after Chesham and Amersham was that a few losses in the south would be fine because there were still gains to be made in the north. There is no doubt that the south is angry with the Tories. That is not just the south east but stretch's across the rest of the south as well. They will not have been helped by bringing the G7 to Cornwall and a massive influx of COVID with it. So if they are looking at losses across the south of the UK and only marginal gains in the north I can see the next general election being tighter than it appeared a few months ago. I also wonder if the 'governments are always unpopular mid term' argument holds in the parliament. Governments are unpopular because the get the bad news done in the first two or three years and then splash the cash towards a general election. Given the current massive structural deficit in the UK that does not seem likely this time. I suspect that there will be mounting pressure in the party to quietly drop the emphasis on levelling up the north and to revert to trying to hang on to what they have. Time will tell.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
Do you think a change at the top would change that ?
Possibly? To some extent it's due to normal wear and tear of being in government, and membership age profile. But the Tories are remarkably good at changing leaders before an election and then arguing: "it's a fresh government, let's give them a chance, eh?". If I were Boris I wouldn't worry now, but in a year's time the party might be thinking about trying that wheeze again.
Prime Minister, think of PB and nominate Theresa May for the job of Secretary-General of NATO.
Yeah, what's the odd thermo nuclear war when we would get another betting opportunity?
What Thermo-Nuclear warhead would stand a chance against the death stare of Theresa May? All she has to do is stand on the roof of NATO in Brussels and glare at the sky like she's glaring at the government front bench and all the nukes will dissolve.
Or nuclear warheads would be flying through the air and she would just stand there saying "nothing has changed".
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
Presumably a racist who appoints minority ethnic people to be Home Secretary, Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can you divorce colourful writing about colonialism from how a person behaves? I don't believe Johnson is racist - if its female he'd try to shag it, if its male he'll try to screw it over... Equal opportunities...
Is it not possible to treat individuals you know personally in a non racist way, but still be willing to use racist dog whistles and jokes to win votes?
This government, and therefore the PM, do deserve significant and real credit for the racial diversity in their cabinet, but equally that does not put them beyond reproach and scrutiny on the subject.
Clearly the Batley and Spen result is excellent news for Starmer who will now be secure as Labour leader for the foreseeable future. Hancock's resignation and a personal vote for Kim Leadbeater were likely key.
However the Tories will not be too disheartened with a 2.9% swing to them in this Red Wall seat even if they did not win it.
It should also be noted while some Labour voters clearly went to Galloway the combined English Democrat, UKIP and For Britain vote was also bigger than the Labour majority and the Yorkshire Party also got 2% so clearly not all the Woollen vote went Tory either
Batley isn't Red Wall and little of the Heavy Wollen vote was ever likely to go Conservative.
If those are the things CCHQ believed then it explains why you lost.
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
But it's got little to nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with an industry that was (and still is) dysfunctional where until April tax avoidance was used to reduce industry costs.
They have "fixed" the IR35 issue by giving all the remaining drivers a chunky pay rise. The remaining shortage is a combination of Covid (c. 30k tests not available due to the pox) and Brexit driving forrin drivers away. We're 65k drivers short, catch-up with testing will bring some more through but with an ageing driver pool this gets worse every day.
The only realistic way to avoid big problems though into next year is to allow forrin drivers and trucks back in to fill the gaps. The government won't because Brexit so we'll all just have to get used to shopping being a bit of a lottery for a while.
Yep - I pointed out earlier this week that it's going to take 3 years to fix the problem and until then foreign (EU) drivers would be the only solution
Of course we cannot actually bring EU drivers in now without allowing drivers from other countries where the test may not be so stringent - so I can see why the Government isn't rushing to fix the problem as I suspect there isn't a fix that is allowable in this post-Brexit world.
Having watched late last night, and a bit earlyish this morning, it was fascinating.
Did many people make much of a bonus on betting on Lab at 5-1 or so overnight?
I had £3 on the Gallywhacker at 70 as a pure expect to lose punt. And lost ! Did we expect him to do better than this - 8k votes (10% of the entire electorate) seems to be more than was expected by many? Who were they?
I'm quite interested in whether the Tories could have swung this Red Wall (ish) seat had they run the kind of operation Nick has been talking about, or did they do that and just kept quiet about it? I it just that we don't have a blue version of OGH in the Tory-mole role?
Are we seeing a potential limit to the Red Wall move?
Quite surprised at the remarkable attempts at arse-cover by Jon from Sky News
There is a practical Tory problem in traditional Northern Labour seats - they don't have many ground troops there, and the willingness of the often elderly membership elsewhere to travel long distances to get there is limited, especially durintg a pandemic (I'm 71 and I didn't go either, for just that reason). Labour has thousands of keen activists all over the north, and where GOTV is critical that's relevant.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
Do you think a change at the top would change that ?
Possibly? To some extent it's due to normal wear and tear of being in government, and membership age profile. But the Tories are remarkably good at changing leaders before an election and then arguing: "it's a fresh government, let's give them a chance, eh?". If I were Boris I wouldn't worry now, but in a year's time the party might be thinking about trying that wheeze again.
Thanks Nick,
I appreciate your measured, insightful, comments
So do I, though of course I don't always agree with them.
On this one, for instance, I'm not sure I do agree. May for Johnson I'll give you, but they didn't really change Cameron for May voluntarily - he ran out on them. Before that you have to go back almost thirty years to find anything similar. And Labour tried to do it too with Blair/Brown, though, as Nick said a few days back, the lack of new ideas from Brown was embarassing.
So of course it's a trick, I'm just not sure it's one the Conservatives play that often or well.
What I find interesting is the combination of the last two byelection results. Tory strategists will be scratching their heads this morning trying to work out what it means for the next general election. The problem for the Tories is that they have to win outright. There is no feasible coalition which contains the Tories so they have to get a majority on their own. The feeling after Chesham and Amersham was that a few losses in the south would be fine because there were still gains to be made in the north. There is no doubt that the south is angry with the Tories. That is not just the south east but stretch's across the rest of the south as well. They will not have been helped by bringing the G7 to Cornwall and a massive influx of COVID with it. So if they are looking at losses across the south of the UK and only marginal gains in the north I can see the next general election being tighter than it appeared a few months ago. I also wonder if the 'governments are always unpopular mid term' argument holds in the parliament. Governments are unpopular because the get the bad news done in the first two or three years and then splash the cash towards a general election. Given the current massive structural deficit in the UK that does not seem likely this time. I suspect that there will be mounting pressure in the party to quietly drop the emphasis on levelling up the north and to revert to trying to hang on to what they have. Time will tell.
But they are by-elections.
Will the disgusted of Amersham vote Lib Dem at the general election. Maybe, but the fate of the Lib Dems in such seats is intrinsically linked to the offering from Labour.
I echo the praise for Nick Palmer. Excellent comments and not tribal at all. Just factual.
He always underplays labour’s chances
When he said 5-10% chance of winning I knew it was much closer than that
No, you overestimate my insight (and I'm more usually accused of overplaying them)! I did think that, and didn't bet on Labour winning until I put a few pounds on last night at 5-1 after experiencing the GOTV effort (though I bet heavily earlier on Labour beating Galloway).
If the election had been a week earlier I think we might well have lost - there was a shift in the final days. Hancock? Weight of canvassing? Fading of the earlier issues? Who knows?
Does that suggest that the postal votes were better for the conservatives, counted earlier in the evening, thereby giving a misleading perspective initially of the expected winner?
Mucking about on Betfair after the polls closed cost me about £300 🙈 Should have just gone to bed
Looks like the poll, and @NickPalmer, vastly undercooked the GG vote.
Palestine is a huge issue on the left. Starmer is going to have to stop his knee jerk reactions and understand that the left have an idealistic core that wont accept silence in the face of oppression.
Absolutely. He should tell it to them straight:
"There are plenty of troublespots in the world with people oppressed by a strong power. That you exclusively talk about Palestine and condemn Israel with no interest in the rest is anti-semitism. We are an anti-racist party with a proud history of internationalism. That means there is no place in the party for racism. Anti-semitism is racism. If any of you express racist opinions again I will expel you."
Its 25 years since I was at University. I didn't get the Palestine thing then and I don't now. Yes the Israeli government under Netanyahu has been appalling. But its hardly unique in the world, yet to hear the PSC loons it is the only injustice and its all on Israel and Israel alone. I honestly don't think some of them think they are anti-semites (though many do and are quite happy about it). Labour tries to educate them - and I appreciate (from experience) that its easy for comments criticising their government to slip over the line. But the reponse isn't "thanks" its "lets persecute anyone who doesn't agree with our extreme view that Israel has no right to exist and should be removed from the map"
It is a major reason I, as a working class person, could not bring myself to vote Labour. I have never voted Tory but that, and the likes of Thornberry who so openly despise us, is why my vote is gone.
I still vote labour as I rate my local MP, but you’re right about the likes of Thornberry. Why should people vote for a party that so clearly despises them.
But, you are despicable. Even more despicable for not acknowledging and, indeed, trumpeting your despicability.
This is essentially what I think. Peak Tory is passed and thanks to Hancock, the Tories have re-created something resembling the Cummings narrative, which damaged them at least in the short term previously.
There is a fine line between effective political theatre and absolute fucking nonsense that Johnson is usually quite acute at judging. However, he seems to have strayed more into fucking nonsense lately. This was neatly encapsulated by the farrago of the Watching England Play Football photo op.
Your average chip scoffing chav does not watch football uncomfortably perched on the end of a table in an office next to a woman who fucking despises him. This was noticed and the photo was mercilessly memed.
How long ago did Boris marry that woman who you claim despises him - I suspect it's more likely she despises football.
RP, I didn't mention the haribo once. I did mention the lorry driver shortage, as did the article and various insiders in the industry including The Road Haulage Association. They estimate that there is currently a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers.
That's not a trivial issue.
The Wizard of Wazza assures me that it isn't even an issue at all...
It's an issue for companies that won't pay the market rate.
What I find interesting is the combination of the last two byelection results. Tory strategists will be scratching their heads this morning trying to work out what it means for the next general election.
I think even more interesting is the combination of the locals and the three by-elections. If that was repeated at a general election, everybody would remember Paddy Ashdown's comment about 2010 - "the people have spoken, and we've no idea what they've said".
Comments
Given how few proven re-infections we've seen, it looks like immunity is pretty long lasting.
But I also suspect (though others here will know more) that Tory membership morale is not that wonderful at present. Sure, they're pleased about Brexit and that the party is still ahead in the polls, but my Tory friends (yes, I have several) wouldn't say they felt the Government was wonderful or a desperate urge to get phone canvassing.
Thanks for the reply.
I think we'll see polling parity again by the end of this year, Starmer though needs to do something about those approval ratings (although to be fair Johnson's are also dropping, so possible he is leading on that again at some point).
I think Starmer has got to go big now on a proper reshuffle and to kick people out if they don't want to win. He's now got control of the party again, he really needs to show the public he's changing it. Only then, will people start to see Labour as an alternative party of Government.
But the lefties have shown they can get within 300 odd votes of losing Labour safe seats, that’s no good
It isn't a great win for Starmer, but under the circumstances, a win is a win.
That said he needs to pull his finger out. Put on the hi viz and get filmed with Fishermen, Farmers, Manufacturers, Doctors, Nurses. All those that Johnson has screwed over.
'People ask me why do you smile [when talking about the end of the universe as it decays into nothing], its funny that's why I smile. It certainly takes us down a peg or two. Smeone says
"I want to build a statue of myself, a permanent celebration, a permanent monument of my achievements".' There won't be any permanent monuments, don't worry about the statues! They're all going to dissolve into bath of Photons'
If the election had been a week earlier I think we might well have lost - there was a shift in the final days. Hancock? Weight of canvassing? Fading of the earlier issues? Who knows?
Mahmood seems to have done a very good job. The new team seems to have hit the ground running.
I hope Starmer's new communications team - did we see any of that coming through in PMQs? - will continue the trend of finally having some decent talent running things.
This really might be a turning point. I am hopeful for the first time in a while, I have to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoqK4MaFXB4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57690505
Now you may think this is trivial chaff in the wind but it isn't. We're talking about a shortage of lorry drivers. This isn't some highfalutin or esoteric debate, this is Brexit at the coalface. Trouble among the very people whom Boris wooed in 2019.
It's another reason why the gloss has come off Brand Boris.
If England win Euro 2020 it might stop his slide. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to me and many others that we passed peak Boris a month or so back: May 25th to be precise: the day before Dom Cummings launched the first of his Exocets.
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
Remember these issues kicked off not in January but from mid April after IR35 changes reduced a lot of agency drivers wages - who have suddenly found that local jobs now pay the same as driving and don't require them being away in a crap cabin overnight.
I'm sure the famously publicity shy Paddy Power would put up markets on said thermonuclear war.
200k for March 21, which is +20k on previous reports.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-party-membership-boris-johnson-b1823310.html
But no numbers as to regional distribution. And it is always not that reliable.
https://twitter.com/BeebJournalist/status/1410865773883572224?s=20
At least both John Major and Theresa May genuinely like cricket.
But then, they're both genuine people.
Yes there is a shortage of drivers. Yes that means stuff not getting delivered. Bags of ambient sweets is not going to be badly enough affected to need to pull the promotion. But now Haribo sweets are a story on the BBC! Brilliant free brand publicity.
And
That's not a trivial issue.
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the spike in positive cases “coincides very much” with the incubation period of the virus after the match at Wembley on Friday, June 18, which finished 0-0.
He was asked if the Euros tournament was “acting as some kind of super-spreader with the number of fans that have been travelling around the continent”. McKee told Good Morning Scotland on Friday: “I think you in Scotland know very clearly that that is the case.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/fans-very-clearly-linked-to-spike-in-positive-covid-tests?top
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9748401/Murdered-MP-Jo-Coxs-sister-HOLDS-Batley-Spen-Labour.html#comments
That strategy appears to have been vindicated
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Other nations are not so fortunate. I believe that their players are indulging in some more self-aggrandisement on Saturday again. Have they no shame?
However the Tories will not be too disheartened with a 2.9% swing to them in this Red Wall seat even if they did not win it.
It should also be noted while some Labour voters clearly went to Galloway the combined English Democrat, UKIP and For Britain vote was also bigger than the Labour majority and the Yorkshire Party also got 2% so clearly not all the Woollen vote went Tory either
A rarity for an SNP MP, it was a good question. It merited a better answer.
But strokes of fortune like that don't come up very often.
Now the game really begins.
We went from a Hung Parliament to a substantial Conservative majority, and that after a Coalition followed by a small Conservative majority.
Politics now is quite volatile.
Nearing the end of A Concise History of Republican Rome by Georgina Masson. Quite liking it. Although the Batley Grammar mob of blasphemy enthusiasts does remind me a little of Milo and Clodius.
I do recall some sage saying when Trump lost that people had just got a bit tired of all the drama. I wonder if that is where we are heading.
Props to @NickPalmer for his updates working the Labour phone bank. He was right about it being close, but sadly not about GG being nowhere.
Laughing now at the far-left mob, who had today in the diary as the day they came for Starmer.
Are people unaware that the nomination forms for elections allow you to choose what name you go by and many people use that? It doesnt even need to be one of your names.
If nothing else it's the name he is elected under, on the statement of persons nominated, so it is his election name. It is right to call him that as a result.
Just relax - when his aura slips and his persona stops being effective use of his name wont help him then, stop having tantrums over it.
The only realistic way to avoid big problems though into next year is to allow forrin drivers and trucks back in to fill the gaps. The government won't because Brexit so we'll all just have to get used to shopping being a bit of a lottery for a while.
Companies have been engaging in tax avoidance to evade their responsibility to pay market rates of wages. Now they're horrified they can no longer get away with it so wish to pretend there's a problem.
I believe in low taxes, equally paid by all. Tax avoidance by a few means that the rest of us need to pay more so the Treasury is right to end avoidance scams by IR35.
Now firms need to pay whatever the market rate is to attract enough drivers. If that means there's less demand because costs have risen then that's just supply and demand in action: price rises mean more supply (drivers) and less demand so a new equilibrium is achieved.
Don't got to Lancashire but London's okay was perhaps not the best advice either.
I tried to find some data on building a probability curve, the way I did for the Case/Fatality Ratio. But I couldn't find any published papers on that.
Your average chip scoffing chav does not watch football uncomfortably perched on the end of a table in an office next to a woman who fucking despises him. This was noticed and the photo was mercilessly memed.
Gives a chance for a refresh, to talk of winning for a change - even if that should have been expected it very much wasnt for much of it, so it matters.
There is no doubt that the south is angry with the Tories. That is not just the south east but stretch's across the rest of the south as well. They will not have been helped by bringing the G7 to Cornwall and a massive influx of COVID with it. So if they are looking at losses across the south of the UK and only marginal gains in the north I can see the next general election being tighter than it appeared a few months ago.
I also wonder if the 'governments are always unpopular mid term' argument holds in the parliament. Governments are unpopular because the get the bad news done in the first two or three years and then splash the cash towards a general election. Given the current massive structural deficit in the UK that does not seem likely this time.
I suspect that there will be mounting pressure in the party to quietly drop the emphasis on levelling up the north and to revert to trying to hang on to what they have. Time will tell.
I appreciate your measured, insightful, comments
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1410718397588029440?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw==&refsrc=email
This government, and therefore the PM, do deserve significant and real credit for the racial diversity in their cabinet, but equally that does not put them beyond reproach and scrutiny on the subject.
If those are the things CCHQ believed then it explains why you lost.
Of course we cannot actually bring EU drivers in now without allowing drivers from other countries where the test may not be so stringent - so I can see why the Government isn't rushing to fix the problem as I suspect there isn't a fix that is allowable in this post-Brexit world.
On this one, for instance, I'm not sure I do agree. May for Johnson I'll give you, but they didn't really change Cameron for May voluntarily - he ran out on them. Before that you have to go back almost thirty years to find anything similar. And Labour tried to do it too with Blair/Brown, though, as Nick said a few days back, the lack of new ideas from Brown was embarassing.
So of course it's a trick, I'm just not sure it's one the Conservatives play that often or well.
Will the disgusted of Amersham vote Lib Dem at the general election. Maybe, but the fate of the Lib Dems in such seats is intrinsically linked to the offering from Labour.
Tough shit for them is my attitude.