On topic (before I read any of the comments), not only won't we win a majority, we shouldn't be trying to win a majority.
What I mean by that is target the 60-70 most flippable seats that the Tories currently hold. Forget about Scotland - let the SNP take the fight to the Tories there. Likewise, let the LibDems make some inroads in the Waitrose constituencies.
The next election is definitely a contest for who occupies No 10. We need to play smart to win it. That means ignoring target seat number 120 - because it isn't a target.
The 60% who won't be voting for the Bozo Party deserve better.
I think that might be too ambitious. Seats 61-70 (okay, this includes non-Tory targets, but if we only looked at Tory seats, it would be even worse):
61. SEDGEFIELD - 10.9 pp 62. WEST BROMWICH WEST - 11 pp 63. IPSWICH - 11.1 pp 64. ALTRINCHAM AND SALE WEST - 11.2 pp 65. BLACKPOOL SOUTH - 11.3 pp 66. NORTHAMPTON SOUTH - 11.5 pp 67. BOLSOVER - 11.5 pp 68. SHIPLEY - 11.6 pp 69. COATBRIDGE, CHRYSTON AND BELLSHILL - 11.7 pp 70. MIDLOTHIAN - 11.8 pp
A c.5.5-6.0 pp swing is needed to gain these.
The great unknown is when Red Wall seats that have voted Tory despite decades of living with dire warnings that the Tories would come for your first born, etc, etc discover it was all so much bollocks - and make the break from Labour for good. Call it the Mansfield Syndrome, where the Tory majority went from 697 in 2017 to 16,306 in 2019.
The Hartlepool result suggests that may still be a potent factor.
The Premier League has revealed that 13 of the 20 clubs in the top division have squads where fewer than 50 per cent of the players are fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
League officials have now written directly to clubs offering a special "reward" to those who have the highest number of vaccinated players.
Sky Sports News reported last week that most Premier League players have had at least the first Covid vaccination, though take up levels for the second jab have been disappointing.
Surely at some point, it’s going to become mandatory for travel to European games?
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
It seems likely the only way Labour can get into government after the next election is by doing a deal with the SNP, which will mean supporting another independence referendum in return for their support.
Yes and no. After all, the alternative for the SNP is keeping the Tories in power, whether by omission or commission. So whilst the SNP have cards to play, they're not trump cards.
My guess is that the landing spot is Devomax with a thistle on top in 2025, with SindyRef postponed "until we've seen how that works"... so towards the end of the term.
And the non-bonkers wing of the SNP will probably be OK with that, because the last thing they want is a referendum that they will lose.
Yes, all this is incredibly dishonest.
SNP will have no choice but to put Labour in. Starmer doesn't have to give an inch and my sense is that he won't, certainly if he listens to Anas Sarwar. Will look pretty poor for SNP if they can't extract anything meaningful and may cause party management problems for Nicola as it means even more years of no progress on IndyRef2.
All told, Tories losing their majority at Westminster would be a v bad outcome for Sturgeon.
Officials and diplomats across the European Union are getting really frustrated with the French.
The scope of what some are calling President Emmanuel Macron’s “Europe First” strategy — which aims to make the EU more independent from Washington for defense and sensitive technologies — is causing concern in many EU member states and hampering western efforts to forge a united response to the rise of China.
Macron’s stance has become more visible since the humiliating loss of a giant Australian submarine contract this month and has held up preparations for a crucial meeting with U.S. trade officials. The French have also blocked efforts to modernize NATO’s capabilities and fueled divisions at the top of the European Commission, according to diplomats with knowledge of those discussions.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
"The zeal of the convert" is a phenomenon for a reason. People stick to their old beliefs long past the point they should have been abandoned, so that by the time they accept for themselves they need to change sides it can be suddenly what can seem an extreme leap to the new position.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
Policy fail depends upon what the objectives of the policy were.
Considering the objective seemed to be purely media spin to get the conversation moved on from the media, who had created a media-driven panic, then possibly that might be considered a[n extremely cynical] policy success?
With over a million qualified HGV drivers in the UK alone the onus is back on employer's to offer a fair market wage to fill the vacancies, as they should. And if wages go up, HMRC gets extra taxes since IR35 means its no longer a tax dodging industry.
So, are you suggesting that the 5000 visa policy was purely to calm things down and not really viable?
I said so when it was announced. So yes.
You did. I also remember you said the same about the NI situation re Brexit and Boris (negotiate something he had no intention of honouring, knowing he had the EU over a barrel if he didn't). If you are right, and you may well be, it shows Boris to be cunning and not incompetent, but I really wonder what I prefer.
When you said it about the NI negotiations it was not something that I had considered as a possibility prior to that. I have negotiated too many contracts to remember, but not once did I negotiate in bad faith. Equally I never made statements of intent that I knew beforehand were impossible.
Politics might well be different to commercial stuff, but you soon learn to keep a barge pole between yourself and certain businesses for this reason and my experience is that those who pull a fast one in a negotiation soon come a cropper.
Even though Boris being cunning might be better for the country in the short term I still prefer to think it is really incompetence.
I can see the French Presidency bring Britain back into, for example, Galileo.
This is probably inevitable now that the British GNSS has been abandoned and the hairbrained plan for turning British Leyland in Space/OneWeb into a GNSS isn't really feasible.
Pride will demand that it's after the current cast of characters have left the stage though.
Also, Eutelsat (French) invested 400 million for 20% of Oneweb, and there were noises around the European Commission about whether Eutelsatt should continue having access to EU programmes.
Mons. Macaron will not leave that as a possibility.
BoJo’s party is going to struggle to hold onto the the six seats it has in Scotland
Is there any evidence to back up that statement ?
Three of them look pretty safe and its also possible that there is a swing to the Conservatives in Scotland.
In Scotland no non SNP seats look 'safe' no matter the majority. Some have gone Lab/LD to SNP to CON to SNP in just a few elections. Volatile!
I just hope unionists surprise on the upside like 2017.
I think the three seats which survived the 2015 tsunami would certainly survive again leaving one from each unionist party. You can probably add to that, two LibDem seats (Fife NE and Edinburgh W) plus John Lamont's seat in the borders. So six in total as a minimum.
It seems likely the only way Labour can get into government after the next election is by doing a deal with the SNP, which will mean supporting another independence referendum in return for their support.
Yes and no. After all, the alternative for the SNP is keeping the Tories in power, whether by omission or commission. So whilst the SNP have cards to play, they're not trump cards.
My guess is that the landing spot is Devomax with a thistle on top in 2025, with SindyRef postponed "until we've seen how that works"... so towards the end of the term.
And the non-bonkers wing of the SNP will probably be OK with that, because the last thing they want is a referendum that they will lose.
Yes, all this is incredibly dishonest.
SNP will have no choice but to put Labour in. Starmer doesn't have to give an inch and my sense is that he won't, certainly if he listens to Anas Sarwar. Will look pretty poor for SNP if they can't extract anything meaningful and may cause party management problems for Nicola as it means even more years of no progress on IndyRef2.
All told, Tories losing their majority at Westminster would be a v bad outcome for Sturgeon.
If that is the case that will be better relations between Lab Scotland and Lab England, at least on that front - which will be a +ve for them.
The Premier League has revealed that 13 of the 20 clubs in the top division have squads where fewer than 50 per cent of the players are fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
League officials have now written directly to clubs offering a special "reward" to those who have the highest number of vaccinated players.
Sky Sports News reported last week that most Premier League players have had at least the first Covid vaccination, though take up levels for the second jab have been disappointing.
Surely at some point, it’s going to become mandatory for travel to European games?
Given the number of runners I know who have had a reaction the the jab, one thing putting footballers off might be ruling themselves out for the next match or two. One lady I know absolutely blew up in a Sunday half marathon having had her second jab on Thursday
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
"The zeal of the convert" is a phenomenon for a reason. People stick to their old beliefs long past the point they should have been abandoned, so that by the time they accept for themselves they need to change sides it can be suddenly what can seem an extreme leap to the new position.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
Me. I voted leave, but in the end regretted it and advocated a second referendum as least worst option, even though it meant Corbyn!
BoJo’s party is going to struggle to hold onto the the six seats it has in Scotland
Is there any evidence to back up that statement ?
Three of them look pretty safe and its also possible that there is a swing to the Conservatives in Scotland.
In Scotland no non SNP seats look 'safe' no matter the majority. Some have gone Lab/LD to SNP to CON to SNP in just a few elections. Volatile!
I just hope unionists surprise on the upside like 2017.
I think the three seats which survived the 2015 tsunami would certainly survive again leaving one from each unionist party. You can probably add to that, two LibDem seats (Fife NE and Edinburgh W) plus John Lamont's seat in the borders. So six in total as a minimum.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Certainly not for Tory seats. Most ethnic minority candidates come through CCHQ assignment to shortlists in safe seats which has had success in significantly increasing the number of BME Tory MPs in the last decade.
However most of the RedWall marginal seats the Tories gained from Labour in 2019 were won by white male local Tory candidates
Policy fail depends upon what the objectives of the policy were.
Considering the objective seemed to be purely media spin to get the conversation moved on from the media, who had created a media-driven panic, then possibly that might be considered a[n extremely cynical] policy success?
With over a million qualified HGV drivers in the UK alone the onus is back on employer's to offer a fair market wage to fill the vacancies, as they should. And if wages go up, HMRC gets extra taxes since IR35 means its no longer a tax dodging industry.
So, are you suggesting that the 5000 visa policy was purely to calm things down and not really viable?
I said so when it was announced. So yes.
You did. I also remember you said the same about the NI situation re Brexit and Boris (negotiate something he had no intention of honouring, knowing he had the EU over a barrel if he didn't). If you are right, and you may well be, it shows Boris to be cunning and not incompetent, but I really wonder what I prefer.
When you said it about the NI negotiations it was not something that I had considered as a possibility prior to that. I have negotiated too many contracts to remember, but not once did I negotiate in bad faith. Equally I never made statements of intent that I knew beforehand were impossible.
Politics might well be different to commercial stuff, but you soon learn to keep a barge pole between yourself and certain businesses for this reason and my experience is that those who pull a fast one in a negotiation soon come a cropper.
Even though Boris being cunning might be better for the country in the short term I still prefer to think it is really incompetence.
Countries aren't businesses and realpolitik has for centuries rewarded nations that are cunning.
France for decades have treated the EU with what you would call cunning. Sign up to rules for a European level - then if you dislike them, just disregard them. Germany have done the same too, the moment that the Growth & Stability Pact that Germany had insisted upon didn't suit Germany they simply stopped following its rules.
One reason Britain was so unsuited to Europe was we as a nation did follow the rules, whether we agreed with them or not, rather than following the other nations that didn't. So the rules that we didn't like, really rubbed us the wrong way in a way they don't elsewhere.
Countries and leaders all over the world are cunning. What else would you use to describe Biden who at the G7 was buddy-buddy with Macron while in the room next door he was hatching a conspiracy for America and Britain to usurp the very valuable French military contract with Australia? That was pure cunning and Biden pulled it off brilliantly!
For anyone who thinks Biden is suffering from mental decline, that episode actually shows the opposite. He was cunning as a fox and good for him! That's not something Trump could have gotten away with as he was always 'bull in a china shop' rather than cunning. Boris is on the same page as Biden, its what countries need due to realpolitik. Wishing that away does us no favours.
It seems likely the only way Labour can get into government after the next election is by doing a deal with the SNP, which will mean supporting another independence referendum in return for their support.
Yes and no. After all, the alternative for the SNP is keeping the Tories in power, whether by omission or commission. So whilst the SNP have cards to play, they're not trump cards.
My guess is that the landing spot is Devomax with a thistle on top in 2025, with SindyRef postponed "until we've seen how that works"... so towards the end of the term.
And the non-bonkers wing of the SNP will probably be OK with that, because the last thing they want is a referendum that they will lose.
Yes, all this is incredibly dishonest.
SNP will have no choice but to put Labour in. Starmer doesn't have to give an inch and my sense is that he won't, certainly if he listens to Anas Sarwar. Will look pretty poor for SNP if they can't extract anything meaningful and may cause party management problems for Nicola as it means even more years of no progress on IndyRef2.
All told, Tories losing their majority at Westminster would be a v bad outcome for Sturgeon.
On the one hand it would mean Sturgeon would be more likely to get indyref2.
On the other hand a Labour minority government would make it more likely Sturgeon would lose any indyref2
Yet another front that Labour is now facing is the threat to their dominance amongst ethnic minorities. This government is by far the most racially diverse we have ever had and it is not even close. The modern Conservative party has excellent role models for many ethnic minorities and has shown that there is no glass ceiling for them either.
There are some interesting numbers in this site re the number of seats held by the respective parties and the percentage of the population that is non white: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/ge2019-how-did-demographics-affect-the-result/ Other than 1 extreme outlier the Tories have traditionally done very badly in such seats. If that starts to change Labour are in deep trouble. And I think it will, especially with those of an Indian background. If Rishi replaces Boris those risks will be all the greater.
Especially since the Tories don't talk down to minorities like Labour can tend to do so.
The modern Tories are extremely comfortable with people of all races without needing to divide people against each other.
There are of course still some not so modern Tories but they are increasingly far away from the power centre of the party. Its a very good thing.
I think you are deluded. Mild racism and overt homophobia was rife in the Conservative Party among the more right wing of the activists when I was involved over 10 years ago. Those are the people that are still members and activists today. Most of the more liberally minded individuals have left. There is diversity in the upper echelons of the party and that is a good thing, but there is still plenty of prejudice, and while some wish to deny it the anti-EU rhetoric is essentially xenophobic in not all, but most.
Is there research less than a decade old on this?
Genuine question.
It would need to be very recent research as Conservative Party membership has trebled in the last couple of years.
Quite interested - do you have a source for Tory membership going down to 70k? I have seen speculative numbers but nothing more.
Currently it is around 200-220k, and I'd agree with "nearly doubled".
As to who they all are, I don't know.
The numbers that would really interest me are 1 - Age profile, and 2 - Has there been a tilt to the Midlands / North.
Since the Conservatives do not publish annual figures like the other parties, there can only be what you call speculation but are probably leaks from CCHQ. 60 or 70,000 was widely reported. Note that even now after the recent trebling of membership, they are really only back to where they were during the Labour years.
Anyway, the point is that the recent influx of new members (not entryists because that only happens to Labour!) means any research on party members' attitudes or beliefs is probably unreliable if more than 2 or 3 years old.
On topic (before I read any of the comments), not only won't we win a majority, we shouldn't be trying to win a majority.
What I mean by that is target the 60-70 most flippable seats that the Tories currently hold. Forget about Scotland - let the SNP take the fight to the Tories there. Likewise, let the LibDems make some inroads in the Waitrose constituencies.
The next election is definitely a contest for who occupies No 10. We need to play smart to win it. That means ignoring target seat number 120 - because it isn't a target.
The 60% who won't be voting for the Bozo Party deserve better.
I think that might be too ambitious. Seats 61-70 (okay, this includes non-Tory targets, but if we only looked at Tory seats, it would be even worse):
61. SEDGEFIELD - 10.9 pp 62. WEST BROMWICH WEST - 11 pp 63. IPSWICH - 11.1 pp 64. ALTRINCHAM AND SALE WEST - 11.2 pp 65. BLACKPOOL SOUTH - 11.3 pp 66. NORTHAMPTON SOUTH - 11.5 pp 67. BOLSOVER - 11.5 pp 68. SHIPLEY - 11.6 pp 69. COATBRIDGE, CHRYSTON AND BELLSHILL - 11.7 pp 70. MIDLOTHIAN - 11.8 pp
A c.5.5-6.0 pp swing is needed to gain these.
The great unknown is when Red Wall seats that have voted Tory despite decades of living with dire warnings that the Tories would come for your first born, etc, etc discover it was all so much bollocks - and make the break from Labour for good. Call it the Mansfield Syndrome, where the Tory majority went from 697 in 2017 to 16,306 in 2019.
The Hartlepool result suggests that may still be a potent factor.
I think that's highly likely to be a factor and I really can't see a lot of those red wall seats flipping back any time soon. Many of them have just the sort of demographics, and views towards Brexit, that you would expect to lean Tory so they were anomalies before, rather than now.
Another unknown is the mirror image of this. People who have voted Tory for many years because they were either scared of Labour tax rises or scared of economic mismanagement. I think that factor was still there at the last election among home owning, professional remainers. Once they do flip - as they did in C&A - either to the Lib Dems or Labour, do they then stay flipped? Especially if tax rises and economic mismanagement come anyway (the last couple of weeks will have helped embed the latter).
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
"The zeal of the convert" is a phenomenon for a reason. People stick to their old beliefs long past the point they should have been abandoned, so that by the time they accept for themselves they need to change sides it can be suddenly what can seem an extreme leap to the new position.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
Me. I voted leave, but in the end regretted it and advocated a second referendum as least worst option, even though it meant Corbyn!
I'll give you a like for being another example for the point being made, not for being OK with Corbyn! 😉
“Sarah Everard was falsely arrested and handcuffed by her killer before she was murdered, a court has heard. Then-Met Police officer Wayne Couzens abducted the 33-year-old as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham in south London on 3 March, driving her away in a car he had hired. Couzens was wearing his police belt with handcuffs when he kidnapped Ms Everard, the Old Bailey was told. He is in court to be sentenced for her murder, kidnap and rape. Couzens, 48, had worked on Covid patrols in January this year, the Old Bailey heard. Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the police constable showed Ms Everard his warrant card when making the false arrest.”
Can we still trust the police?
Sadly, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more from women who have experienced violence/sexual violence at the hands of male police officers.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
R4 this a.m. "Brexit paves the way for gene-edited crops" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58711230 The UK government is to relax the regulation of gene-edited crops to enable commercial growing in England. European Union regulations require that gene-edited crops are treated the same as genetically-modified crops.
These rules call for a number of field trials over a period of several years, as well as extensive food safety tests. The final hurdle is for member states to vote to approve a new variety. This approach is regarded by biotech companies as too onerous and expensive, so no genetically altered crops are developed in the European Union.
As this is in a devolved area of policy it will be interesting to see whether the devolved administrations will follow England. Or will they stick to EU rules because they were dragged out of the EU against their will?
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
Some of the Red Wallers have gone. And I'm sure that they and Boris will be very happy together, until BoJo dumps them for a younger prettier model . However, the "can't stand Jez" vote ought to be wooable. Taken together Batley and Chesham show that voters are capable of getting the hint, even without an explicit pact.
[SCENE: A hostelry somewhere on the unfashionable fringes of Westminster]
Labour operative: How's it going? LibDem operative: You know... working out where we can afford to campaign when Johnson goes to the country. Can't put it in an email, of course- too secret. Labour operative: Same here. And you know how it is with a pile of papers; so hard to make sure you don't just leave them lying around. Especially if you have multiple copies. Anyway- enough shop talk. You want another one?
[Labour operative wanders off to the bar, leaving a pile of papers unattended.]
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
How are the Swedish Greens doing in the opinion polls? Last time I checked they were in danger of getting less than 4% and therefore being ejected from parliament. (Assumes she supports the party).
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
BoJo’s party is going to struggle to hold onto the the six seats it has in Scotland
Is there any evidence to back up that statement ?
Three of them look pretty safe and its also possible that there is a swing to the Conservatives in Scotland.
Agreed. Sturgeon's administration is looking ever more inept and hapless and she herself looks worn down by an extensive period in office. The internal bickering in the SNP is becoming all the more vicious and repellent. Calling a loss or a gain for the Tories this far out is unwise. It really could go either way.
Did someone on here mention the other day, that Alex Salmond is publishing a book of all his stories, including those he was barred from using in his defence at the enquiry?
I don't know if it is Salmond himself or one of his henchmen. Given that Craig Murray, our former ambassador, is still in prison for expressing a view on these matters I suspect that publication of this book may prove a tad problematic. Freedom of expression really isn't a given in Scotland.
Worrying
The multiple court cases will hopefully uncover most of what Sturgeon had buried to date. Their dirty tricks will see the light of day and all her buddies will be crapping it just now.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
He was very touchy on the subject on R4 Today as well. He'd been doing quite well up till then, but he completely lost it on that issue.
It's really hard to understand how they got themselves into this mess, and even harder to understand why they haven't now got some anodyne 'line-to-take' carefully rehearsed and trotted out mechanically whenever the subject comes up.
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Until about 10 years ago almost all EM MPs represented seats with a high EM population. For many years the only exception was Dr Ashok Kumar in Langbaurgh (now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland). Still true for Labour I think, but now many Tory MPs representing seats like Saffron Walden, Hitchen & Harpenden, Windsor, Havant, East Surrey, Wealden, etc.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
How are the Swedish Greens doing in the opinion polls? Last time I checked they were in danger of getting less than 4% and therefore being ejected from parliament. (Assumes she supports the party).
She could even be one of their future leaders I imagine on a platform of returning to the trees and basket weaving and banning cars, electricity and eating meat
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
"The zeal of the convert" is a phenomenon for a reason. People stick to their old beliefs long past the point they should have been abandoned, so that by the time they accept for themselves they need to change sides it can be suddenly what can seem an extreme leap to the new position.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
Me. I voted leave, but in the end regretted it and advocated a second referendum as least worst option, even though it meant Corbyn!
I'll give you a like for being another example for the point being made, not for being OK with Corbyn! 😉
Do you still feel that way or have you softened?
The incompetence and chaos being so much worse than I anticipated, even expecting a fair amount, remaining seemed the better option.
But it is done now. Whether a major party ends up proposing rejoin at some point we shall see, but we have to make the best of being out for the foreseeable future, and while it has led to plenty of issues it cannot be blamed for everything either.
It seems likely the only way Labour can get into government after the next election is by doing a deal with the SNP, which will mean supporting another independence referendum in return for their support.
Yes and no. After all, the alternative for the SNP is keeping the Tories in power, whether by omission or commission. So whilst the SNP have cards to play, they're not trump cards.
My guess is that the landing spot is Devomax with a thistle on top in 2025, with SindyRef postponed "until we've seen how that works"... so towards the end of the term.
And the non-bonkers wing of the SNP will probably be OK with that, because the last thing they want is a referendum that they will lose.
Yes, all this is incredibly dishonest.
SNP will have no choice but to put Labour in. Starmer doesn't have to give an inch and my sense is that he won't, certainly if he listens to Anas Sarwar. Will look pretty poor for SNP if they can't extract anything meaningful and may cause party management problems for Nicola as it means even more years of no progress on IndyRef2.
All told, Tories losing their majority at Westminster would be a v bad outcome for Sturgeon.
She will have enough of her own troubles without worrying about Labour.
Yet another front that Labour is now facing is the threat to their dominance amongst ethnic minorities. This government is by far the most racially diverse we have ever had and it is not even close. The modern Conservative party has excellent role models for many ethnic minorities and has shown that there is no glass ceiling for them either.
There are some interesting numbers in this site re the number of seats held by the respective parties and the percentage of the population that is non white: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/ge2019-how-did-demographics-affect-the-result/ Other than 1 extreme outlier the Tories have traditionally done very badly in such seats. If that starts to change Labour are in deep trouble. And I think it will, especially with those of an Indian background. If Rishi replaces Boris those risks will be all the greater.
Especially since the Tories don't talk down to minorities like Labour can tend to do so.
The modern Tories are extremely comfortable with people of all races without needing to divide people against each other.
There are of course still some not so modern Tories but they are increasingly far away from the power centre of the party. Its a very good thing.
I think you are deluded. Mild racism and overt homophobia was rife in the Conservative Party among the more right wing of the activists when I was involved over 10 years ago. Those are the people that are still members and activists today. Most of the more liberally minded individuals have left. There is diversity in the upper echelons of the party and that is a good thing, but there is still plenty of prejudice, and while some wish to deny it the anti-EU rhetoric is essentially xenophobic in not all, but most.
Is there research less than a decade old on this?
Genuine question.
It would need to be very recent research as Conservative Party membership has trebled in the last couple of years.
Quite interested - do you have a source for Tory membership going down to 70k? I have seen speculative numbers but nothing more.
Currently it is around 200-220k, and I'd agree with "nearly doubled".
As to who they all are, I don't know.
The numbers that would really interest me are 1 - Age profile, and 2 - Has there been a tilt to the Midlands / North.
Since the Conservatives do not publish annual figures like the other parties, there can only be what you call speculation but are probably leaks from CCHQ. 60 or 70,000 was widely reported. Note that even now after the recent trebling of membership, they are really only back to where they were during the Labour years.
Anyway, the point is that the recent influx of new members (not entryists because that only happens to Labour!) means any research on party members' attitudes or beliefs is probably unreliable if more than 2 or 3 years old.
FWIW, our membership in Totnes got a spike following the departure of Dr. Sarah Wollaston to the LibDems and has held onto those folk.
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Until about 10 years ago almost all EM MPs represented seats with a high EM population. For many years the only exception was Dr Ashok Kumar in Langbaurgh (now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland). Still true for Labour I think, but now many Tory MPs representing seats like Saffron Walden, Hitchen & Harpenden, Windsor, Havant, East Surrey, Wealden, etc.
Yes almost all the high concentration EM seats are in the inner cities and safe Labour seats anyway.
So the only way the Tories could get more EM MPs was for CCHQ to ensure EM candidates were put on the shortlist in safe Tory seats in the shires and home counties
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
It must have been awful to live through for many and there have been ill effects, but the revolution has led to incalculable benefits for humankind I'd say.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 38m Almost no debate at Labour conference of the merits of £15/h policy, well above LWF “living wage” £9.50/£10.85 https://livingwage.org.uk
===
Still a long way from looking ready for office frankly.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
How are the Swedish Greens doing in the opinion polls? Last time I checked they were in danger of getting less than 4% and therefore being ejected from parliament. (Assumes she supports the party).
She could even be one of their future leaders I imagine on a platform of returning to the trees and basket weaving and banning cars, electricity and eating meat
Humans never lived in trees. We are a species of the open savanna.
Even the Book of Genesis doesn't claim that Adam and Eve lived up the tree with the dodgy fruit.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
He was very touchy on the subject on R4 Today as well. He'd been doing quite well up till then, but he completely lost it on that issue.
It's really hard to understand how they got themselves into this mess, and even harder to understand why they haven't now got some anodyne 'line-to-take' carefully rehearsed and trotted out mechanically whenever the subject comes up.
It's not like they are digging up dirt from years ago. Lammy was asked about something controversial that he said in public at the Labour conference on Monday. Apparently interviewers are meant to ignore that and instead ask him about all the wonderful things SKS is going to do.
“Sarah Everard was falsely arrested and handcuffed by her killer before she was murdered, a court has heard. Then-Met Police officer Wayne Couzens abducted the 33-year-old as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham in south London on 3 March, driving her away in a car he had hired. Couzens was wearing his police belt with handcuffs when he kidnapped Ms Everard, the Old Bailey was told. He is in court to be sentenced for her murder, kidnap and rape. Couzens, 48, had worked on Covid patrols in January this year, the Old Bailey heard. Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the police constable showed Ms Everard his warrant card when making the false arrest.”
Can we still trust the police?
Sadly, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more from women who have experienced violence/sexual violence at the hands of male police officers.
Bloody hell, poor girl.
Hope he’s looking forward to the next couple of decades of rape and violence in prison. What a thoroughly horrible case.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
It must have been awful to live through for many and there have been ill effects, but the revolution has led to incalculable benefits for humankind I'd say.
And incalculable disbenefits for just about every other species.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
How are the Swedish Greens doing in the opinion polls? Last time I checked they were in danger of getting less than 4% and therefore being ejected from parliament. (Assumes she supports the party).
She could even be one of their future leaders I imagine on a platform of returning to the trees and basket weaving and banning cars, electricity and eating meat
Humans never lived in trees. We are a species of the open savanna.
Even the Book of Genesis doesn't claim that Adam and Eve lived up the tree with the dodgy fruit.
Quite presumptuous to assume everyone identifies as human.
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
Calling them scum helps with that!
I think you'll find she called scum on the Tory MPs/Cabinet ministers.
According to Greta Thunberg the UK's record as a world leader on renewable energy is irrelevant as we are still guilty of starting the industrial revolution.
How are the Swedish Greens doing in the opinion polls? Last time I checked they were in danger of getting less than 4% and therefore being ejected from parliament. (Assumes she supports the party).
She could even be one of their future leaders I imagine on a platform of returning to the trees and basket weaving and banning cars, electricity and eating meat
Humans never lived in trees. We are a species of the open savanna.
Even the Book of Genesis doesn't claim that Adam and Eve lived up the tree with the dodgy fruit.
Quite presumptuous to assume everyone identifies as human.
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
£30 limits are working okay in other places, surprised they didn't think it would work there.
R4 this a.m. "Brexit paves the way for gene-edited crops" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58711230 The UK government is to relax the regulation of gene-edited crops to enable commercial growing in England. European Union regulations require that gene-edited crops are treated the same as genetically-modified crops.
These rules call for a number of field trials over a period of several years, as well as extensive food safety tests. The final hurdle is for member states to vote to approve a new variety. This approach is regarded by biotech companies as too onerous and expensive, so no genetically altered crops are developed in the European Union.
As this is in a devolved area of policy it will be interesting to see whether the devolved administrations will follow England. Or will they stick to EU rules because they were dragged out of the EU against their will?
At last - a real benefit of Brexit!
Hopefully Scotland will NOT follow.
------------------------------------------------
Back in the day, William Hague thought it a good line of attack to accuse Tony Blair of being in favour of GM crops. So it'll be interesting to see the Tory reaction. (Of course, they might now love the idea simply because the EU is against it.)
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
“Sarah Everard was falsely arrested and handcuffed by her killer before she was murdered, a court has heard. Then-Met Police officer Wayne Couzens abducted the 33-year-old as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham in south London on 3 March, driving her away in a car he had hired. Couzens was wearing his police belt with handcuffs when he kidnapped Ms Everard, the Old Bailey was told. He is in court to be sentenced for her murder, kidnap and rape. Couzens, 48, had worked on Covid patrols in January this year, the Old Bailey heard. Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the police constable showed Ms Everard his warrant card when making the false arrest.”
Can we still trust the police?
Sadly, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more from women who have experienced violence/sexual violence at the hands of male police officers.
Bloody hell, poor girl.
Hope he’s looking forward to the next couple of decades of rape and violence in prison. What a thoroughly horrible case.
It's going to be life without parole - otherwise this information wouldn't be being discussed.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
Calling them scum helps with that!
I think you'll find she called scum on the Tory MPs/Cabinet ministers.
So the voters who voted them in shouldn’t take offence at all?
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Certainly not for Tory seats. Most ethnic minority candidates come through CCHQ assignment to shortlists in safe seats which has had success in significantly increasing the number of BME Tory MPs in the last decade.
However most of the RedWall marginal seats the Tories gained from Labour in 2019 were won by white male local Tory candidates
Dehanna Davison? Possibly an exception which proves the rule.
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
I can see the French Presidency bring Britain back into, for example, Galileo.
This is probably inevitable now that the British GNSS has been abandoned and the hairbrained plan for turning British Leyland in Space/OneWeb into a GNSS isn't really feasible.
Pride will demand that it's after the current cast of characters have left the stage though.
Summary: 8m accuracy using current Starlink satellites (will get better as more are launched), without any cooperation or adaptation of the signals by SpaceX
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
Calling them scum helps with that!
I think you'll find she called scum on the Tory MPs/Cabinet ministers.
So the voters who voted them in shouldn’t take offence at all?
Thats up to them. They can't be easily offended or they would have complained about the lying cheating sniping government we are already enduring.
There was a moral panic about GM crops in around the year 2000 IIRC. A member of the House of Lords was part of a group who helped to destroy a field of crops in Norfolk. "Frankenfoods".
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
Calling them scum helps with that!
I think you'll find she called scum on the Tory MPs/Cabinet ministers.
Good luck explaining that to the red wall seats, come the next election.
Those who think our traditional voters had nowhere else to go need to think again. And many in the party did think there was no other choice for our working-class supporters than to dutifully keep on voting Labour, election after election. Memories of the Tories were often enough to pull them back into line, but that simply does not work anymore.
There'll be some buyer's remorse, but itd be foolish to rely on it. Some will have been moving toward the Tories for ages before finally taking the plunge and may feel liberated by it, no going back.
"The zeal of the convert" is a phenomenon for a reason. People stick to their old beliefs long past the point they should have been abandoned, so that by the time they accept for themselves they need to change sides it can be suddenly what can seem an extreme leap to the new position.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
Me. I voted leave, but in the end regretted it and advocated a second referendum as least worst option, even though it meant Corbyn!
I'll give you a like for being another example for the point being made, not for being OK with Corbyn! 😉
Do you still feel that way or have you softened?
The incompetence and chaos being so much worse than I anticipated, even expecting a fair amount, remaining seemed the better option.
But it is done now. Whether a major party ends up proposing rejoin at some point we shall see, but we have to make the best of being out for the foreseeable future, and while it has led to plenty of issues it cannot be blamed for everything either.
As the famous advertising slogan goes: There are some things where we can't lie. For everything else, blame Brexit.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
It's a Dornier Aurigny sold them earlier this year....
15 projects given a total of £700,000. Can’t see that going too far, when trying to do anything involving aeroplanes.
It needs something like the X Prize. A $10mn prize for a jumbo jet design that is purely electric...
Simply not feasible. Electric will be short/medium haul, and single aisle aircraft.
The big jets will need synthetic fuel manufactured using renewable electric, which is a decade off at least, but is entirely feasible given the cash being thrown at developing more efficient processes (and the early results from that).
Excellent article, except that SKS is not in an impossible position. If the Tories cease to form the government there is no serious doubt Labour + does instead. That is easily in the bounds of possibility.
LDs take 10. SNP take 4. Labour take 33, all net. Done. It's a 40% chance.
The Tory campaign will centre around the flaws of this outcome, as well as the flaws of Labour in itself (decent leader, unelectable party).
The flaws of a rainbow alliance are harder to communicate, but there are lots of them, and I suspect it will be much nearer the time that the Tories decide their strategy.
If the LDs have the courage to campaign on 'Rejoin EU, (or join EFTA/EEA), no referendum" it will be fascinating.
The fact that SKS will have to face the issue of "You all support Rejoin but want to run a post-Brexit policy you don't believe in because you are stuck between electorates" can only help the LDs.
“Sarah Everard was falsely arrested and handcuffed by her killer before she was murdered, a court has heard. Then-Met Police officer Wayne Couzens abducted the 33-year-old as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham in south London on 3 March, driving her away in a car he had hired. Couzens was wearing his police belt with handcuffs when he kidnapped Ms Everard, the Old Bailey was told. He is in court to be sentenced for her murder, kidnap and rape. Couzens, 48, had worked on Covid patrols in January this year, the Old Bailey heard. Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the police constable showed Ms Everard his warrant card when making the false arrest.”
Can we still trust the police?
Sadly, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more from women who have experienced violence/sexual violence at the hands of male police officers.
Bloody hell, poor girl.
Hope he’s looking forward to the next couple of decades of rape and violence in prison. What a thoroughly horrible case.
It's going to be life without parole - otherwise this information wouldn't be being discussed.
All the details we have heard from the court so far represent aggravating factors.
I still don’t understand why Cressida Dick can still be her job. If you’re at the top of such a screwed-up organisation that can let this happen, it’s your duty to fall on your sword.
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
£30 limits are working okay in other places, surprised they didn't think it would work there.
The assumption was that people from out the region with no local attachment wouldn't give a toss about breaking rules in a place they may never use again.... And it just wasn't worth having the fights.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
He was very touchy on the subject on R4 Today as well. He'd been doing quite well up till then, but he completely lost it on that issue.
It's really hard to understand how they got themselves into this mess, and even harder to understand why they haven't now got some anodyne 'line-to-take' carefully rehearsed and trotted out mechanically whenever the subject comes up.
It's so toxic that whichever "side" you are on, you need to cleave to a fundamentalist position in public. Which few believe. Therefore it is very hard to sound convincing when you aren't convinced. A bland line will outrage everyone who wishes to be. We've seen on here in the eternal discussion, most folk can see at least the basic point of the opposite view, and are willing to concede a little ground and a few points.
It's a Dornier Aurigny sold them earlier this year....
15 projects given a total of £700,000. Can’t see that going too far, when trying to do anything involving aeroplanes.
It needs something like the X Prize. A $10mn prize for a jumbo jet design that is purely electric...
Simply not feasible. Electric will be short/medium haul, and single aisle aircraft.
The big jets will need synthetic fuel manufactured using renewable electric, which is a decade off at least, but is entirely feasible given the cash being thrown at developing more efficient processes (and the early results from that).
Yes, synthetic fuels are the best near-term solution, as they can run on existing planes. Getting the volume required, and the cost of production down to something reasonable, are the challenges.
There was a moral panic about GM crops in around the year 2000 IIRC. A member of the House of Lords was part of a group who helped to destroy a field of crops in Norfolk. "Frankenfoods".
The difference here is that the existing genes are manipulated - essentially by cutting some out. It can be done by selective breeding, but can take decades rather than months.
The difference with GM was that genes from a third party organism were being introduced, essentially making a hybrid. With perhaps uncertain outcomes.....
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
More like Rachel Burdon showing her true colours.
She supports Labour.
I listen to Rachel Burden nearly every early morning on 5 live and she is excellent and I cannot detect political bias in her
There was a moral panic about GM crops in around the year 2000 IIRC. A member of the House of Lords was part of a group who helped to destroy a field of crops in Norfolk. "Frankenfoods".
The difference here is that the existing genes are manipulated - essentially by cutting some out. It can be done by selective breeding, but can take decades rather than months.
The difference with GM was that genes from a third party organism were being introduced, essentially making a hybrid. With perhaps uncertain outcomes.....
iirc there was also the problem that new varieties would be patented.
Seats wise isn't Starmer roughly at the same starting point as Cameron was prior to the 2010 election?
Yes, and Cameron couldn't do it in one leap either. Only Blair has managed a seat gain that would allow Starmer to gain a majority Labour government in one go.
I've had the misfortune to have to go to an appointment in Loughborough. I can report that there isn't a single drop of fuel to be had in the whole town. My lawn is never going to get its final mowing. I'll have to syphon some out of the wife's motor.
Policy fail depends upon what the objectives of the policy were.
Considering the objective seemed to be purely media spin to get the conversation moved on from the media, who had created a media-driven panic, then possibly that might be considered a[n extremely cynical] policy success?
With over a million qualified HGV drivers in the UK alone the onus is back on employer's to offer a fair market wage to fill the vacancies, as they should. And if wages go up, HMRC gets extra taxes since IR35 means its no longer a tax dodging industry.
So, are you suggesting that the 5000 visa policy was purely to calm things down and not really viable?
I said so when it was announced. So yes.
You did. I also remember you said the same about the NI situation re Brexit and Boris (negotiate something he had no intention of honouring, knowing he had the EU over a barrel if he didn't). If you are right, and you may well be, it shows Boris to be cunning and not incompetent, but I really wonder what I prefer.
When you said it about the NI negotiations it was not something that I had considered as a possibility prior to that. I have negotiated too many contracts to remember, but not once did I negotiate in bad faith. Equally I never made statements of intent that I knew beforehand were impossible.
Politics might well be different to commercial stuff, but you soon learn to keep a barge pole between yourself and certain businesses for this reason and my experience is that those who pull a fast one in a negotiation soon come a cropper.
Even though Boris being cunning might be better for the country in the short term I still prefer to think it is really incompetence.
Countries aren't businesses and realpolitik has for centuries rewarded nations that are cunning.
France for decades have treated the EU with what you would call cunning. Sign up to rules for a European level - then if you dislike them, just disregard them. Germany have done the same too, the moment that the Growth & Stability Pact that Germany had insisted upon didn't suit Germany they simply stopped following its rules.
One reason Britain was so unsuited to Europe was we as a nation did follow the rules, whether we agreed with them or not, rather than following the other nations that didn't. So the rules that we didn't like, really rubbed us the wrong way in a way they don't elsewhere.
Countries and leaders all over the world are cunning. What else would you use to describe Biden who at the G7 was buddy-buddy with Macron while in the room next door he was hatching a conspiracy for America and Britain to usurp the very valuable French military contract with Australia? That was pure cunning and Biden pulled it off brilliantly!
For anyone who thinks Biden is suffering from mental decline, that episode actually shows the opposite. He was cunning as a fox and good for him! That's not something Trump could have gotten away with as he was always 'bull in a china shop' rather than cunning. Boris is on the same page as Biden, its what countries need due to realpolitik. Wishing that away does us no favours.
I think I agree with most or even all of that, although a minor downside tends to be that in the past it has lead to wars on occasions. I prefer honesty.
Your observation re the British and rules compared to the French is a good one and it is something that irritates me in fact. I like to look at the reason for the rule. if it doesn't apply then ignore it. The French do just that; we obey blindly. I have had several pointless arguments in the past with officials where in a particular circumstance the rules, although good in principle, make the situation worse in this instance. The argument is pointless; rules are rules!
One that bugs me is the imperial measures argument. Now I am all for standardising measures in supermarkets, but if someone wants to use Imperial because they are running a Victorian style shop, or possibly because they are blithering idiots I have no desire to prosecute them. In a French market they would be left alone, here we prosecute and are now even going to change the law back again. A pointless waste of everyone's time. Prosecute Sainsbury's if they do it, ignore the market trader if they do.
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
£30 limits are working okay in other places, surprised they didn't think it would work there.
The assumption was that people from out the region with no local attachment wouldn't give a toss about breaking rules in a place they may never use again.... And it just wasn't worth having the fights.
Its surprising that modern pumps aren't designed to be able to be cut out once a limit has been reached. I believe some pumps allow a limit to be set so that eg someone paying £20 cash doesn't accidentally go over; but I'd have thought that modern stations would be able to program a limit and have it cut out at that amount.
There was a moral panic about GM crops in around the year 2000 IIRC. A member of the House of Lords was part of a group who helped to destroy a field of crops in Norfolk. "Frankenfoods".
The difference here is that the existing genes are manipulated - essentially by cutting some out. It can be done by selective breeding, but can take decades rather than months.
The difference with GM was that genes from a third party organism were being introduced, essentially making a hybrid. With perhaps uncertain outcomes.....
Yes, this actually is a genuine potential advantage of Brexit (just about the only one I've identified, so far). The EU's position on this is bonkers, frankly.
On the other hand, I feel it will be a political minefield. It will be easy for the usual suspects to stir up ignorant opposition to it.
And it has to be weighed up against the massive downside, of not having an SPS agreement with the EU.
It's a Dornier Aurigny sold them earlier this year....
15 projects given a total of £700,000. Can’t see that going too far, when trying to do anything involving aeroplanes.
It needs something like the X Prize. A $10mn prize for a jumbo jet design that is purely electric...
Simply not feasible. Electric will be short/medium haul, and single aisle aircraft.
The big jets will need synthetic fuel manufactured using renewable electric, which is a decade off at least, but is entirely feasible given the cash being thrown at developing more efficient processes (and the early results from that).
Biomass gasification followed by Fischer Tropsch Synthesis gives you very good 'drop in' synthetic Jet-A1. Then you get to pretend that the CO2 coming out of the back end of the jet engines isn't really there.
There was a moral panic about GM crops in around the year 2000 IIRC. A member of the House of Lords was part of a group who helped to destroy a field of crops in Norfolk. "Frankenfoods".
The difference here is that the existing genes are manipulated - essentially by cutting some out. It can be done by selective breeding, but can take decades rather than months.
The difference with GM was that genes from a third party organism were being introduced, essentially making a hybrid. With perhaps uncertain outcomes.....
Worth making the point maybe, I don't know, that this has been the basis of farming for thousands of years, for both plants and animals. Breed out some characteristics, breed in others. Hybrids too, which are a perfectly natural occurrence. GM is a wholly different kettle of fish spliced with cabbage and orang utan traits.
Lammy now having a go at BBC. Losing it a bit now. Getting well shirty.
Rachel Burdon on Radio 5 had the temerity to ask Lammy about something he'd said (Trans stuff) and he really got quite angry with her. Labour members should probably avoid Radio 5 in the mornings, they are not coming out of such interviews looking good.
More like Rachel Burdon showing her true colours.
She supports Labour.
I listen to Rachel Burden nearly every early morning on 5 live and she is excellent and I cannot detect political bias in her
One problem is that interviewers tend to replay the last interview they saw, which at the moment is trans, even though it is unlikely many listeners both care and are unfamiliar.
It's a Dornier Aurigny sold them earlier this year....
15 projects given a total of £700,000. Can’t see that going too far, when trying to do anything involving aeroplanes.
It needs something like the X Prize. A $10mn prize for a jumbo jet design that is purely electric...
Simply not feasible. Electric will be short/medium haul, and single aisle aircraft.
The big jets will need synthetic fuel manufactured using renewable electric, which is a decade off at least, but is entirely feasible given the cash being thrown at developing more efficient processes (and the early results from that).
Yes, synthetic fuels are the best near-term solution, as they can run on existing planes. Getting the volume required, and the cost of production down to something reasonable, are the challenges.
I would guess it's about a two decade project, but it's entirely doable. And as large amounts of surplus solar electricity in places like the Middle East will have a marginal cost of zero well within that timeframe, the incentives to develop mass industrial processes are enormous.
Here we go: Let's see if he has the confidence or ability to follow @RochdalePioneers advice and do a Kinnock and tell the Trots were to go in his speech.
On the ethnic minority front there are clearly MPs who represent seats with very few ethnic minorities - and good thing too, it should be irrelevant and people do care about party label so much more - buy I wonder if there is info on of there is a correlation over all of seats with higher ethnic minorities are more likely to have MPs from an ethnic minority? If candidates are local its presumably more likely.
Certainly not for Tory seats. Most ethnic minority candidates come through CCHQ assignment to shortlists in safe seats which has had success in significantly increasing the number of BME Tory MPs in the last decade.
However most of the RedWall marginal seats the Tories gained from Labour in 2019 were won by white male local Tory candidates
Dehanna Davison? Possibly an exception which proves the rule.
Roger says SKS is making progress. Voters say otherwise
YouGov @YouGov Starmer's reputation has taken a pounding among Britons this year (net scores shown)
Competence: -6 (down from +21 in Jan) Likeable: -14 (down from +8) Trustworthy: -14 (down from 0) Decisive: -27 (down from +3) Strong: -31 (down from +4)
Our local petrol station - rural, but at a major road junction so a lot of passing tourist trade - ran out of diesel on Thursday, had another delivery on Friday and ran out again on Sunday. A lot of the increase was Fulham Fuckers filling Chelsea Tractors to the brim to get back home. However, despite signs now saying DIESEL - EMPTY, they have kept some back. If you show photo ID as a member of the police, fire, ambulance service or NHS, you will be looked after.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
£30 limits are working okay in other places, surprised they didn't think it would work there.
The assumption was that people from out the region with no local attachment wouldn't give a toss about breaking rules in a place they may never use again.... And it just wasn't worth having the fights.
Its surprising that modern pumps aren't designed to be able to be cut out once a limit has been reached. I believe some pumps allow a limit to be set so that eg someone paying £20 cash doesn't accidentally go over; but I'd have thought that modern stations would be able to program a limit and have it cut out at that amount.
The pay-at-the-pump ones do that, you can set a monetary or liquid amount and pump only that much. Whether that can be controlled centrally is another matter.
Older pumps are controlled only from inside the shop, so might need to be cut manually by someone monitoring them. At a busy station that might be too much work.
I am/was a fan of Jacinda, but I'm increasingly concerned that she seems borderline delusional on Covid.
She is on record as saying that 90% of the NZ population must be fully vaccinated before the country opens up – which sounds sensible until you calculate that (almost?) zero nations have achieved that yet, despite being months ahead of NZ on their vaccine programmes.
The global evidence is that the law of diminishing returns bites hard – getting the last 15% vaccinated is tricky, because you run into a wall of apathy and/or antivaxxery.
Meanwhile, NZ has plummeted from 1st to 38th on the Bloomberg Covid Resilience Index, which is a quite remarkable fall from grace.
Comments
The Hartlepool result suggests that may still be a potent factor.
I just hope unionists surprise on the upside like 2017.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10040177/Army-starts-training-drive-fuel-tankers-TODAY-crisis-MONTH.html
All told, Tories losing their majority at Westminster would be a v bad outcome for Sturgeon.
I can think of three people on this site who have changed their opinions on Brexit (apologies if there are more): myself just before the vote, Rochdale when he joined the Lib Dems, and williamglenn over the vaccine fiasco. All 3 of us can tend to exhibit the zeal of the convert phenomenon with EU discussions.
When you said it about the NI negotiations it was not something that I had considered as a possibility prior to that. I have negotiated too many contracts to remember, but not once did I negotiate in bad faith. Equally I never made statements of intent that I knew beforehand were impossible.
Politics might well be different to commercial stuff, but you soon learn to keep a barge pole between yourself and certain businesses for this reason and my experience is that those who pull a fast one in a negotiation soon come a cropper.
Even though Boris being cunning might be better for the country in the short term I still prefer to think it is really incompetence.
Mons. Macaron will not leave that as a possibility.
However most of the RedWall marginal seats the Tories gained from Labour in 2019 were won by white male local Tory candidates
France for decades have treated the EU with what you would call cunning. Sign up to rules for a European level - then if you dislike them, just disregard them. Germany have done the same too, the moment that the Growth & Stability Pact that Germany had insisted upon didn't suit Germany they simply stopped following its rules.
One reason Britain was so unsuited to Europe was we as a nation did follow the rules, whether we agreed with them or not, rather than following the other nations that didn't. So the rules that we didn't like, really rubbed us the wrong way in a way they don't elsewhere.
Countries and leaders all over the world are cunning. What else would you use to describe Biden who at the G7 was buddy-buddy with Macron while in the room next door he was hatching a conspiracy for America and Britain to usurp the very valuable French military contract with Australia? That was pure cunning and Biden pulled it off brilliantly!
For anyone who thinks Biden is suffering from mental decline, that episode actually shows the opposite. He was cunning as a fox and good for him! That's not something Trump could have gotten away with as he was always 'bull in a china shop' rather than cunning. Boris is on the same page as Biden, its what countries need due to realpolitik. Wishing that away does us no favours.
On the other hand a Labour minority government would make it more likely Sturgeon would lose any indyref2
A quick google finds this, for instance:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-party-membership-boris-johnson-b1823310.html
Anyway, the point is that the recent influx of new members (not entryists because that only happens to Labour!) means any research on party members' attitudes or beliefs is probably unreliable if more than 2 or 3 years old.
Another unknown is the mirror image of this. People who have voted Tory for many years because they were either scared of Labour tax rises or scared of economic mismanagement. I think that factor was still there at the last election among home owning, professional remainers. Once they do flip - as they did in C&A - either to the Lib Dems or Labour, do they then stay flipped? Especially if tax rises and economic mismanagement come anyway (the last couple of weeks will have helped embed the latter).
Do you still feel that way or have you softened?
“Sarah Everard was falsely arrested and handcuffed by her killer before she was murdered, a court has heard.
Then-Met Police officer Wayne Couzens abducted the 33-year-old as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham in south London on 3 March, driving her away in a car he had hired.
Couzens was wearing his police belt with handcuffs when he kidnapped Ms Everard, the Old Bailey was told.
He is in court to be sentenced for her murder, kidnap and rape.
Couzens, 48, had worked on Covid patrols in January this year, the Old Bailey heard.
Prosecutor Tom Little QC said the police constable showed Ms Everard his warrant card when making the false arrest.”
Can we still trust the police?
Sadly, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more from women who have experienced violence/sexual violence at the hands of male police officers.
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1442918404994658309?s=20
Only Africa gets top marks from Greta on climate emissions as she retweeted this
https://twitter.com/BBCAfrica/status/1442813387969282053?s=20
Hopefully Scotland will NOT follow.
[SCENE: A hostelry somewhere on the unfashionable fringes of Westminster]
Labour operative: How's it going?
LibDem operative: You know... working out where we can afford to campaign when Johnson goes to the country. Can't put it in an email, of course- too secret.
Labour operative: Same here. And you know how it is with a pile of papers; so hard to make sure you don't just leave them lying around. Especially if you have multiple copies. Anyway- enough shop talk. You want another one?
[Labour operative wanders off to the bar, leaving a pile of papers unattended.]
It's really hard to understand how they got themselves into this mess, and even harder to understand why they haven't now got some anodyne 'line-to-take' carefully rehearsed and trotted out mechanically whenever the subject comes up.
But it is done now. Whether a major party ends up proposing rejoin at some point we shall see, but we have to make the best of being out for the foreseeable future, and while it has led to plenty of issues it cannot be blamed for everything either.
So the only way the Tories could get more EM MPs was for CCHQ to ensure EM candidates were put on the shortlist in safe Tory seats in the shires and home counties
@JohnRentoul
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38m
Almost no debate at Labour conference of the merits of £15/h policy, well above LWF “living wage” £9.50/£10.85 https://livingwage.org.uk
===
Still a long way from looking ready for office frankly.
I'll take this as a positive sign, as yesterday they weren't expecting a delivery until at least tomorrow.
(I'll stop mentioning them now.)
What could possibly go wrong...
Even the Book of Genesis doesn't claim that Adam and Eve lived up the tree with the dodgy fruit.
Hope he’s looking forward to the next couple of decades of rape and violence in prison. What a thoroughly horrible case.
Wayne couzens was a firearms-trained parliamentary and diplomatic protection officer.
(They thought about having a £30 limit, but said people would just have kept on filling regardless....)
Another delivery of diesel for the rest of us maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Unleaded is fine.
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Back in the day, William Hague thought it a good line of attack to accuse Tony Blair of being in favour of GM crops. So it'll be interesting to see the Tory reaction. (Of course, they might now love the idea simply because the EU is against it.)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/transport/survey-results/daily/2021/09/28/5ae35/1?utm_source=twitter &utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_1
Possibly an exception which proves the rule.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9541006
Summary: 8m accuracy using current Starlink satellites (will get better as more are launched), without any cooperation or adaptation of the signals by SpaceX
There are some things where we can't lie. For everything else, blame Brexit.
Electric will be short/medium haul, and single aisle aircraft.
The big jets will need synthetic fuel manufactured using renewable electric, which is a decade off at least, but is entirely feasible given the cash being thrown at developing more efficient processes (and the early results from that).
LDs take 10. SNP take 4. Labour take 33, all net. Done. It's a 40% chance.
The Tory campaign will centre around the flaws of this outcome, as well as the flaws of Labour in itself (decent leader, unelectable party).
The flaws of a rainbow alliance are harder to communicate, but there are lots of them, and I suspect it will be much nearer the time that the Tories decide their strategy.
If the LDs have the courage to campaign on 'Rejoin EU, (or join EFTA/EEA), no referendum" it will be fascinating.
The fact that SKS will have to face the issue of "You all support Rejoin but want to run a post-Brexit policy you don't believe in because you are stuck between electorates" can only help the LDs.
I still don’t understand why Cressida Dick can still be her job. If you’re at the top of such a screwed-up organisation that can let this happen, it’s your duty to fall on your sword.
We've seen on here in the eternal discussion, most folk can see at least the basic point of the opposite view, and are willing to concede a little ground and a few points.
The difference with GM was that genes from a third party organism were being introduced, essentially making a hybrid. With perhaps uncertain outcomes.....
The US is developing a serious business to challenge the Asian manufacturers:
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/tesla-co-founder-jb-straubels-company-to-produce-battery-materials-in-us/
And the technology is about to improve significantly (recycling cathode material being the biggest headache):
Recovery of active cathode materials from lithium-ion batteries using froth flotation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214993718300241
Only Blair has managed a seat gain that would allow Starmer to gain a majority Labour government in one go.
Your observation re the British and rules compared to the French is a good one and it is something that irritates me in fact. I like to look at the reason for the rule. if it doesn't apply then ignore it. The French do just that; we obey blindly. I have had several pointless arguments in the past with officials where in a particular circumstance the rules, although good in principle, make the situation worse in this instance. The argument is pointless; rules are rules!
One that bugs me is the imperial measures argument. Now I am all for standardising measures in supermarkets, but if someone wants to use Imperial because they are running a Victorian style shop, or possibly because they are blithering idiots I have no desire to prosecute them. In a French market they would be left alone, here we prosecute and are now even going to change the law back again. A pointless waste of everyone's time. Prosecute Sainsbury's if they do it, ignore the market trader if they do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/facebook-authoritarian-hostile-foreign-power/620168/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/29/sarah-everard-trial-wayne-couzens-sentencing-live-news/
It’s way more horrible than you ever thought it might have been
On the other hand, I feel it will be a political minefield. It will be easy for the usual suspects to stir up ignorant opposition to it.
And it has to be weighed up against the massive downside, of not having an SPS agreement with the EU.
GM is a wholly different kettle of fish spliced with cabbage and orang utan traits.
And as large amounts of surplus solar electricity in places like the Middle East will have a marginal cost of zero well within that timeframe, the incentives to develop mass industrial processes are enormous.
My solid expectation is: no.
YouGov
@YouGov
Starmer's reputation has taken a pounding among Britons this year (net scores shown)
Competence: -6 (down from +21 in Jan)
Likeable: -14 (down from +8)
Trustworthy: -14 (down from 0)
Decisive: -27 (down from +3)
Strong: -31 (down from +4)
Belter.
Older pumps are controlled only from inside the shop, so might need to be cut manually by someone monitoring them. At a busy station that might be too much work.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/29/covid-new-zealand-reports-jump-in-cases-as-opposition-calls-for-opening-up
I am/was a fan of Jacinda, but I'm increasingly concerned that she seems borderline delusional on Covid.
She is on record as saying that 90% of the NZ population must be fully vaccinated before the country opens up – which sounds sensible until you calculate that (almost?) zero nations have achieved that yet, despite being months ahead of NZ on their vaccine programmes.
The global evidence is that the law of diminishing returns bites hard – getting the last 15% vaccinated is tricky, because you run into a wall of apathy and/or antivaxxery.
Meanwhile, NZ has plummeted from 1st to 38th on the Bloomberg Covid Resilience Index, which is a quite remarkable fall from grace.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/
Has Jacinda lost the plot?
Starmer needs to take them head on