If 961 people had voted differently at the 2017 general election, Corbyn would have had a good chance of being prime minister now as head of a "progressive alliance", (assuming Sinn Fein weren't taking their seats).
1. Southampton Itchen: would have been Lab if 16 Con voters had voted Lab. 2. Richmond Park: would have been LD if 23 Con voters had voted LD. 3. Stirling: would have been SNP if 75 Con voters had voted SNP. 4. St Ives: would have been LD if 157 Con voters had voted LD. 5. Pudsey: would have been Lab if 166 Con voters had voted Lab. 6. Hastings & Rye: would have been Lab if 174 Con voters had voted Lab. 7. Chipping Barnet: would have been Lab if 177 Con voters had voted Lab. 8. Thurrock: would have been Lab if 173 Con voters had voted Lab.
Lab+SNP+LD+PC+Greens = 322, a majority in the HoC if Sinn Fein don't take their seats.
And if 1022 people in eight different seats, Kensington, Dudley North, Newcastle UL, Crewe, Canterbury, Barrow, Keighley and Rutherglen, had voted the other way, Theresa May would have a majority.
Similarly if my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.
It requires a far smaller and more plausible swing for the Tories to have a biggish majority than the one Labour need for largest party status. A UNS of 3% gives a majority of 60 in addition to aviating porcines. To achieve a majority of one Corbyn needs over 4% and for some of his shadow cabinet other than Ashworth to look vaguely sane and competent for five minutes.
Given the number of seats with wafer thin majorities and changing demography, the big story of 2022 may well be December 1910 - many seats changing hands to finish more or less where we started.
Notice how Corbyn supporters put the Liberal Democrats in the Corbyn camp when totting up House of Commons numbers. How many of Corbyn's policies do you think the LDs would vote for?
It could not possibly go worse for them than jumping into bed with the Toxic Tories and that particularly rubbish austerity nonsense that they inflicted on us
Explain to me this Austerity which means we still borrowing shitloads of money?
Then you can tell me how much interest the UK government pays each year currently and compare it to say the education budget.
Apparently the USN won't play war games with the other services any more because that always happens.
This is rubbish. The USN has just finished a three Carrier Strike Group (Nimitz, Reagan and Roosevelt) exercise in the Sea of Japan with five other navies and multiple air forces.
Elegantly argued piece, based on a flawed premise:
Its voters considered the economic risks and decided that they would nevertheless turn their backs on deeper levels of international co-operation.
What polling supports that? As ever, Mr Meeks is projecting his own atavistic loathing onto others. Just because British voters choose not to participate in a European political project (and thats what they rejected, not 'co-operation') doesn't mean they embraced the little England fantasy Mr Meeks wishes believes they did.....
Ah, one of the key phrases that demonstrates that someone doesn't have a bloody clue. Alastair, if you are so incompetent in informing yourself about defence matters, then it's not surprising that the MoD appears incompetent to you.
The truth is the exact opposite, we have aircraft without a carrier - at present we have over a squadron of F-35's, but one carrier that's not yet ready to receive them as it is still working up. It's almoost like someone has thought this through.
I'd have thought that on this site above any other, people would understand that the carriers are all about option value. The ships themselves are slow to build (7+years), but are a relatively cheap part of the equation and have a long life, and can be used for other purposes such as amphibious assault in the meantime. Aircraft like the F-35 are relatively quick to build but are expensive and become obsolete relatively quickly. So it makes sense to build the slow-to-build-but-slow-to-obsolesce things and if anything skimp on the airwing, with the option to (relatively quickly) expand the airwing if need be. Or slow the rate of procurement even further if the threat is perceived as lower or budgets get really tight. Which is what's happened - ideally we'd have two full carriers' worth of F-35 by 2023 when the second carrier is officially operational, and we're not going to get there.
And it's a team game - the Dutch may be rich enough on a per-capita basis to sustain an aircraft carrier, but their economy is simply too small and you can't buy 1/10 of an aircraft carrier. So it makes sense for bigger economies like the UK to go heavy on capital ships like carriers whilst skimping on escorts, and for smaller economies like NL to supply (high tech) escorts. Again, that's what has happened.
I commend blogs such as ThinPinstripedLine and ThinkDefence to those wanting a slightly more informed view of this area than the tabloids that Alastair appears to rely on.
Comments
Then you can tell me how much interest the UK government pays each year currently and compare it to say the education budget.
Good luck
https://britainelects.com/2018/01/16/previews-18-jan-2018/
This brief Guardian article is also on the money, and resists the temptation to be partisan:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/17/lessons-carillion-crisis-pfi-public-finance-initiative
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/953732835474624518
Its voters considered the economic risks and decided that they would nevertheless turn their backs on deeper levels of international co-operation.
What polling supports that? As ever, Mr Meeks is projecting his own atavistic loathing onto others. Just because British voters choose not to participate in a European political project (and thats what they rejected, not 'co-operation') doesn't mean they embraced the little England fantasy Mr Meeks wishes believes they did.....
Ah, one of the key phrases that demonstrates that someone doesn't have a bloody clue. Alastair, if you are so incompetent in informing yourself about defence matters, then it's not surprising that the MoD appears incompetent to you.
The truth is the exact opposite, we have aircraft without a carrier - at present we have over a squadron of F-35's, but one carrier that's not yet ready to receive them as it is still working up. It's almoost like someone has thought this through.
I'd have thought that on this site above any other, people would understand that the carriers are all about option value. The ships themselves are slow to build (7+years), but are a relatively cheap part of the equation and have a long life, and can be used for other purposes such as amphibious assault in the meantime. Aircraft like the F-35 are relatively quick to build but are expensive and become obsolete relatively quickly. So it makes sense to build the slow-to-build-but-slow-to-obsolesce things and if anything skimp on the airwing, with the option to (relatively quickly) expand the airwing if need be. Or slow the rate of procurement even further if the threat is perceived as lower or budgets get really tight. Which is what's happened - ideally we'd have two full carriers' worth of F-35 by 2023 when the second carrier is officially operational, and we're not going to get there.
And it's a team game - the Dutch may be rich enough on a per-capita basis to sustain an aircraft carrier, but their economy is simply too small and you can't buy 1/10 of an aircraft carrier. So it makes sense for bigger economies like the UK to go heavy on capital ships like carriers whilst skimping on escorts, and for smaller economies like NL to supply (high tech) escorts. Again, that's what has happened.
I commend blogs such as ThinPinstripedLine and ThinkDefence to those wanting a slightly more informed view of this area than the tabloids that Alastair appears to rely on.