politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Best of luck today Theresa – you are going to need it

TOPPING said:

Ooh I feel like @another_richard here, although of course not as twattish, irrelevant, misguided, or dim.

London military aircraft count:

Two more Ospreys overhead.

You seem to have a very strange obsession about me recently Toppo.

Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?

Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.

I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.

Mr. Elliot, isn't that only of relevance if a deal is actually struck? The EU hasn't really said much on May's Chequers proposition.

There's also the Davis white paper, leaked online yesterday, (Canada deal with extra bits, essentially) which was tossed in the bin by May et al.

Cyclefree said:

Freggles said:

Scott_P said:

Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right

Fuqwit

They have the gall to call themselves patriots.

JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.

I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.

I wouldn’t rule it out. Her Love actually moment? It’s not obvious what she has to lose at the moment.

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.

The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.

DavidL said:

HYUFD said:

DavidL said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.

UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015

At the last local elections they lost all bar 1 of their councillors, mainly because they couldn’t even find candidates. I think that the chances of them even having candidates to vote for in the vast majority of seats at the next election are very slight so they will poll only a small proportion of that 6%.

The more votes UKIP gets from Tory Leavers the harder it gets to beat Corbyn Labour for the Tories

OblitusSumMe said:

TOPPING said:

A lot of airborne activity over Central London atm - what looked like a few Pumas and a couple of Ospreys.

Trump-related, no doubt.

The agenda was to have a joint UK-US special forces demonstration for Trump, because as a wannabee authoritarian he likes to see military displays of power.

ahh I see.

In an unwitting tribute to Bladerunner, scientists detect a 4 billion year old muon neutrino.... off the shoulder of Orion:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/07/12/in-a-cosmic-first-scientists-detect-ghostly-neutrinos-from-a-distant-galaxy/

MikeSmithson said:

HYUFD said:

DavidL said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.

UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015

But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.

I still think there are far too many people hoping for a soft brexit and then thinking all the problems will go away.

Watched this again yesterday. Very instructive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyHSMWK148

GIN1138 said:

Has the disgraced Liam Fox resigned yet?

Now Donald has made it clear he has a complete non-job thanks to May and Robbins what on Earth is he still hanging around for?

A good read for you

https://reaction.life/hard-brexiteers-mugged-reality-trade/

Charles said:

archer101au said:

Nigelb said:

daodao said:

archer101au said:

Good old Donald!

The trouble is that people like Clegg don't realise that they are not better than Trump, they are just the reverse of Trump. Elitist snobs who love glad-handing at internationalp exists because people like Clegg exist. If all the Cleggs went away, we wouldn't have Trump!


The US is our ally and friend, regardless of which muppet they elect. The EU is not our ally and certainly not our friend. May forgot this. Trump is giving her a well-deserved kicking.

+10

Trump is no diplomat, but he was right to state a few home truths. If May's proposed deal goes through, probably modified further to suit the EU, it will be BINO. The UK will become a vassal state ruled from Berlin/Brussels, with no say in trade or many other rules/laws and no ability to do business independently with the rest of the world. It is not what I voted for on 23/6/16.

You’re concerned about being a ‘vassal state’, but perfectly happy for your leaders to be instructed on how to behave by a foreign guest ?
Trump wouldn’t know the truth if you beat him about the head with it, and ‘home’ ?

Trump most reminds me of a disregulated child in a primary school class.

I don't disagree that Trump's behaviour is disgraceful. But we need to skip the hypocrisy here. Obama's behaviour in trying to interfere with the referendum was disgraceful. May's behaviour in lying about Brexit is disgraceful. I am just not sure I see much difference between one set of politicians and another.

My point is that to some degree it served May right. The US is our closest ally and she has basically lectured them from afar and failed to back them when she should (don't remember her backing Trump re NATO but he is right) and she wouldn't arrange the visit because she was too weak to face down protesters. Everyone knows Trump wants to be liked. He is the US President. If you can't work out how to manage him appropriately, you shouldn't be in the job and May is getting the pretty foreseeable blowback from her approach.

I don’t think it is disgraceful at all

Obama was trying to influence the outcome of a referendum

Trump is lobbying a government

Two totally different things.

His comments on Boris being “a great PM” were unwarranted interference

More evidence apparently contradicting the amyloid hypothesis:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/herpes-viruses-alzheimers/564887/

AlastairMeeks said:

Cyclefree said:

Freggles said:

Scott_P said:

Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right

Fuqwit

They have the gall to call themselves patriots.

JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.

I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.

I don't see that Theresa May has very much to lose either personally or for Britain by doing this. And domestically it could work rather well for her.

The biggest danger would be Trump unilaterally putting tariffs on the UK.

SouthamObserver said:

another_richard said:

kyf_100 said:

Torby_Fennel said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Well that is some thought - am I really PB first counter - revolutionary

I think, at the very least, you are an interesting barometer of where the more moderate strands of Conservative opinion are at the moment. You're close to where I was around 2 or 3 or 4 years ago - though, of course, my opinions changed at a more sedate pace as there wasn't a national crisis happening at the time.

Indeed. I have nothing but respect for Big G and, asdie from being a true gent, he's also a good barometer of moderate opinion.

I had my first real Brexit wobble last month as I was driving through a quaint market town, the kind of place you think only exists in postcards these days. And I said to myself, Brexit is going to make everything shit, isn't it?

I despise the EU, I think it's an affront to democracy. I think freedom of movement has caused untold damage to the fabric of society, I think the Euro has been an unmitigated disaster and I think the tin-eared bureaucrats in Brussels have absolutely no interest in representing the interests of British citizens - and make no mistake, as the Brexit negotiations are showing, they are very much the ones in charge.

I still think Brexit is a good idea from a democratic point of view. There is more to life than money - the right to self-determination being one of them. But if we end up as a vassal state, what has been the point of it all? And if the deal is worse than what we had before, or worse, leads to economic disaster, I am inclined to agree that the leaders of the revolution will be swiftly devoured by those who believed in them.

The UK has been a vassal state for years.

Yes we have a vote in the EU but then so does a Conservative supporter in Liverpool.

Except that the Liverpool Conservative will sometimes have a Conservative government whereas the EU is not going to have a UK friendly government.

That depends on how you define UK friendly, of course. The Liverpool Conservative is an individual. We are 65 million people.

Fair point.

The EU government is going to be have varying levels of popularity depending on the individual person.

But for many people in this country they cannot hope to have an EU government they support in the way a Liverpool Conservative or a Surrey Labour supporter can do and sometimes get.

HYUFD said:

DavidL said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.

UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015

But it needs a credible leader - of which there has been one so far - if it's to rise above a lowish ceiling. The rump of what's there at the moment is perceived outside as a rag-tag bunch who think it was all better in the old days and would generally be happier if the blacks went home and the women stayed in the kitchen. It's really unattractive to most Tories. Farage knew that and reached out (albeit pretty cosmetically). If he gets back in the game and Chequers persists, he'll take another 10 per cent off May in a fortnight.

Of course, the result of that is Corbyn in Number 10 which I'm sure they'd both love, but hey..

JackW said:

Roger said:

The alliance that is forming between Trump and the the more extreme Brexiteers is very significant indeed. Though most people are decided on which side of the Brexit debate they sit most leavers are uncertain what particular deal they support.

There will be some very queasy Leavers sratching their heads this morning. I'd go s far as to say this could be one of the most significant events we have seen in a political debate for a very long time.

That is a strategic misreading of the present situation.

The most significant event in British political discourse since the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 was the BREXIT vote. All flows from it.

The Trump "state visit" (in all but name) is dramatic theatre but May and the other European leaders have from the earliest days of his presidency realized that there is one personal driving force behind Donald's term of office - Narcissism - All flows from it.

Their problem is determining how to deal with it. All flows from it

The difference between Brexit and other political decisions is that this one is specifically owned by the people. And because it was their decision they believe they can change their mind. That's what comes from several years of being able to buy things try them and change them with no questions asked.

....new ingredients are being thrown into the Brexit mix all the time which doesn't make much difference because most people have settled on what they bought. But this new ingredient is different. This is a negative celebrity endorsement on a massive scale. They've just bought Harvey Weinstein's favourite scented dressing gown and they've read the small print and it comes with three golden showers

Torby_Fennel said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.

The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.

Thanks for your reply.

By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.

Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?

The British don't like outside heads of state meddling in our affairs. But... but can any outside state sign a FTA with the UK if we go ahead with May's proposal. The answer is no as we're bound to the common rulebook with the EU (And the EU being larger obviously they'll have a deal negotiated first)

As Dave put the words into Obama's mouth - 'back of the queue'

Jonathan said:

Charles said:

archer101au said:

Nigelb said:

daodao said:

archer101au said:

Good old Donald!

who love glad-handing at internationalp exists because people like Clegg exist. If all the Cleggs went away, we wouldn't have Trump!

And no, May will get notand up for our at the truth of her dreadful Chequers plan is that we won't be able to agree trade deals with major players such as the US.

The US is our ally and friend, regardless of which muppet they elect. The EU is not our ally and certainly not our friend. May forgot this. Trump is giving her a well-deserved kicking.

+10

Trump is no diplomat, but he was right to state a few home truths. If May's proposed deal goes through, probably modified further to suit the EU, it will be BINO. The UK will become a vassal state ruled from Berlin/Brussels, with no say in trade or many other rules/laws and no ability to do business independently with the rest of the world. It is not what I voted for on 23/6/16.

You’re concerned about being a ‘vassal state’, but perfectly happy for your leaders to be instructed on how to behave by a foreign guest ?
Trump wouldn’t know the truth if you beat him about the head with it, and ‘home’ ?

Trump most reminds me of a disregulated child in a primary school class.

I don't disagree that Trump's behaviour is disgraceful. But we need to skip the hypocrisy here. Obama's behaviour in trying to interfere with the referendum was disgraceful. May's behaviour in lying about Brexit is disgraceful. I am just not sure I see much difference between one set of politicians and another.

My point is that to some degree it served May right. The US is our closest ally and she has basically lectured them from afar and failed to back them when she should (don't remember her backing Trump re NATO but he is right) and she wouldn't arrange the visit because she was too weak to face down protesters. Everyone knows Trump wants to be liked. He is the US President. If you can't work out how to manage him appropriately, you shouldn't be in the job and May is getting the pretty foreseeable blowback from her approach.

I don’t think it is disgraceful at all

Obama was trying to influence the outcome of a referendum

Trump is lobbying a government

Two totally different things.

His comments on Boris being “a great PM” were unwarranted interference

Charles twists and turns like the apocryphal twisty turny thing. The Neymar of PB.

Nope. I’m clear in what I believe and who I will never vote for (Farage and Trump are both in that category).

But I also understand constitutional proprietary and what should and shouldn’t be done (regardless of whether I agree with them or not)

RoyalBlue said:

Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?

Well I certainly remember observing others on here debating the pasty tax. I can't say I ever felt moved to debate that particular issue. However it's a fair comment to point out that it was once the hottest (pun intended... sorry) issue on here.

DavidL said:

Elliot said:

Sean_F said:

Scott_P said:

Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Rise of Radical Incompetence

Like America’s president, Brexiteers resent the very idea of governing as complex and based in facts.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opinion/brexit-conservatives-boris-trump.html

It's the competent radicals who are the scary ones.

Most populists are incompetent, but to a large extent, so are the people they're replacing.

I notice the NYT, the Times and the Guardian have this morning referred to a subset of Levers as "the Brexiters". Let's remember Gove, Raab, Mordaunt, Leadsom, Hannan and many others are all onboard. They are bright enough to actually understand which concessions matter and which do not. The future of the world economy is services, especially for long distance trade. Amazing how many people opposing Chequers can't engage with that argument.

I agree with that argument but that doesn’t make the Chequers proposal a good deal.

It is a very good deal. We get close and frictionless trade on goods, which mainly matter for short term trade. We get to cut tariffs on food from Africa while maintaining standards. We control freedom of movement. We leave the CFP and CAP. We exit the EU's banking rulebook. Services we have complete control over, which matters most for long term trade deals. And we get no Northern Ireland border, so Remainers lose one of their axes to grind.

The only weakness is lack of control over goods regulations, but we still get the option of escalation for any egregious new laws. Also, it reduces the ability of the USA or China to demand weakening of food safety or data protection when we negotiate with them.

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

Ooh I feel like @another_richard here, although of course not as twattish, irrelevant, misguided, or dim.

London military aircraft count:

Two more Ospreys overhead.

You seem to have a very strange obsession about me recently Toppo.

Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?

Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.

I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.

LOL the truth hurts.

Mr. JohnL, quite.

Pulpstar said:

AlastairMeeks said:

A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.

Even hardline Tory leavers are not Trump fans particularly - I don't see Trump's intervention as particularly helpful to Boris.
Personally I have him as a pretty much zero profit result in my book.

Didn't we have favourability ratings just yesterday? Trump is a political leper in the UK, anything he touches rots. He's viewed favourably by ~30% of Leave voters. Hardly the standard bearer for the Brexiteer cause.

JackW said:

Tabman said:

I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!

There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!

I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..

My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!

In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D

I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?

Roger said:

AlastairMeeks said:

A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.

It is an interesting question when Trump gave this interview and who arranged it. It's unlikely he found himself with time on his hands so he gave the Sun a call.

I suspect the instruction went out “biggest selling newspaper” -(it was yesterday in Brussels) two interesting comments from Tom Newton Dunn - they’d been given a 10 minute slot and when the White House Press Secretary tried to end it Trump said no and they over ran to 28. Also that Trump appeared uncomfortable and defensive - so I suspect he knows he’s not going to be met with uncritical adulation in the U.K. But I guess that goes with the territory of being a thin skinned narcissist. May is almost his polar opposite.

Cyclefree said:

Freggles said:

Scott_P said:

Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right

Fuqwit

They have the gall to call themselves patriots.

JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.

I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.

Everything after your first sentence is superfluous.

TOPPING said:

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

Ooh I feel like @another_richard here, although of course not as twattish, irrelevant, misguided, or dim.

London military aircraft count:

Two more Ospreys overhead.

You seem to have a very strange obsession about me recently Toppo.

Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?

Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.

I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.

LOL the truth hurts.

PB has a number of posters who might be described as 'posh Tories' - Charles, Richard Nabavi, DavidL, JackW ** and in earlier times Easterross.

Whatever people think about their opinions I expect they are universally regarded as behaving with intelligence and thought and dignity.

Perhaps you might model yourself on them.

Now I have some work to do.

** Apologies to anyone I should have included but missed.

https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1017686715308347392?s=20

Tabman said:

JackW said:

Tabman said:

I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!

There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!

I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..

My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!

In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D

I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?

Rik ended up in prison last year.

https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/former-reading-councillor-jailed-sharing-13213795

ExiledInScotland said:

RoyalBlue said:

Torby_Fennel said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.

The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.

Thanks for your reply.

By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.

Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?

The placid days were an illusion. The Blair years likewise. Our economy was run on consumer debt. With low end wages kept low by immigration, an increasing ageing population requiring higher proportions of state spending and an NHS with an internal rate of inflation of 4%, we are running out of money. Austerity is an illusion as state spending has increased, not decreased - it's just being spent differently. More taxation is not a long term solution. More borrowing will only work while people believe we can afford the repayments.

The fundamental fact is that we consume more wealth than we create and no civilisation in human history has survived when doing so.

We HAVE to grow our economy and/or reduce state spending hard. We can only do that through trade. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to grow our trade with the rest of the World. Anything else will just be managed decline - or worse.

House prices rose 320% from 1996 to 2007. So many problems stem from that.

Mr. Eagles, just like Nelson Mandela.

....

Jonathan said:

NickPalmer said:

Jonathan said:

Big G is great.

There Is a spectrum of people here ranging from the loyalist to the true believer. The extremes do not understand each other.

BigG is very loyal to May, when she changes tack his continued support confuses the hell out of the true Brexit beloveds.

Equally I don’t understand how certain ex MPs can enthusiastically back Blair, Brown and Corbyn.

Hello! I've always been pretty left-wing, but in 1997 I felt a lot needed doing on the lines that Blair and Brown were pursuing which everyone to the left of Genghis Khan could agree with, so we could get on with those in unity and worry about other stuff later. I became uneasy in the latter stages when Iraq went so badly wrong and Tony pursued privatisation as a personal mantra, but they still seemed better than the Tories. Nonetheless I feel the party is now more what I went into politics for. I don't necessarily think it's alwaya taking the best approach to winning an election, but that's a different issue.

There's some personal loyalty there too. I like Tony and respect Gordon, but I've known Jeremy off and on throughout my adult life and he's the sort of politician I most identify with - in my view sincere, polite, kind and consistent. Those are virtues which are on a different axis to the left-right spectrum, and visible in for instance Big G, who I hope will forgive the comparison. Equally I know George Galloway and hold him in little regard even on the occasions when I agree with him - I don't think he has any of those personal qualities.

Thanks for your interesting reflections.

I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.

I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.

On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.

For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.

I agree with all of that

Mrs C, backing Corbyn is to move from bad to worse, in my view.

Not only that, he's not even a fan of the EU.

Well the Parliamentary Conservative party is a happy ship. Just one government minister trashing the very recent Foreign Secretary this morning:

https://twitter.com/margot_james_mp/status/1017659937491771392

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

Ooh I feel like @another_richard here, although of course not as twattish, irrelevant, misguided, or dim.

London military aircraft count:

Two more Ospreys overhead.

You seem to have a very strange obsession about me recently Toppo.

Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?

Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.

I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.

LOL the truth hurts.

PB has a number of posters who might be described as 'posh Tories' - Charles, Richard Nabavi, DavidL, JackW ** and in earlier times Easterross.

Whatever people think about their opinions I expect they are universally regarded as behaving with intelligence and thought and dignity.

Perhaps you might model yourself on them.

Now I have some work to do.

** Apologies to anyone I should have included but missed.

The boy fae Dundee makes posh. Wow.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Tabman said:

JackW said:

Tabman said:

I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!

There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!

I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..

My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!

In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D

I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?

Rik ended up in prison last year.

https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/former-reading-councillor-jailed-sharing-13213795

"All human life is here, but the Holy Ghost seems to be somewhere else"

Thanks for the update Mr Eagles!

Trump’s audience is at home. His supporters appreciate him “kicking ass” abroad.

How Bush handled protests:

http://time.com/5329498/trump-uk-visit-controversy-history/?utm_source=twitter.com&xid=time_socialflow_twitter&utm_campaign=time&utm_medium=social

DavidL said:

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

another_richard said:

TOPPING said:

Ooh I feel like @another_richard here, although of course not as twattish, irrelevant, misguided, or dim.

London military aircraft count:

Two more Ospreys overhead.

You seem to have a very strange obsession about me recently Toppo.

Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?

Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.

I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.

LOL the truth hurts.

PB has a number of posters who might be described as 'posh Tories' - Charles, Richard Nabavi, DavidL, JackW ** and in earlier times Easterross.

Whatever people think about their opinions I expect they are universally regarded as behaving with intelligence and thought and dignity.

Perhaps you might model yourself on them.

Now I have some work to do.

** Apologies to anyone I should have included but missed.

The boy fae Dundee makes posh. Wow.

To a working class kid from Sheffield you're all posh to me.

Brexit cuts across both main parties, and both May and Corbyn appear duplicitous to many of their parties’ own supporters. There is no majority in Parliament for any position on Brexit. At the same time there is a majority in the country for leaving somehow.
It looks impossible, like squaring the circle. But perhaps that’s only because we think we are rational and the other side irrational. We should accept that Brexit is transcendental. What we all want is pi in the sky and the circle squared.

Having seen full video of junker, he is either a very very ill man or was absolutely steaming drunk, neither of which are suitable for his role.

Barnesian said:

DavidL said:

RoyalBlue said:

Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.

The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.

As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.

UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.

UKIP is metastasizing.

Yesterday's by-elections:

Cockerton Darlington, FOR BRITAIN (UKIP spin off) 5.8%

Old Town Barnsley, DEMOCRATS AND VETERANS (UKIP spin off) 27.3%

I think I prefer the term disintegrating. But we shall see. There is certainly a lot of anger looking for a home.

Cyclefree said:

Beverley_C said:

Cyclefree said:

Beverley_C said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Well that is some thought - am I really PB first counter - revolutionary

Welcome to the dark side Mr G.

Some posters of this parish take it personally when you change your political position (as I found out myself a couple of months ago)

Ignore the purists and zealots or do what I did and take several weeks off and relax

Lovely to see you back.

Thanks.

Did I miss much? It seems to be business Brexit as usual around here....

Not much. Brexit is even more of a shit show than it was before.

There have, however, been some very interesting thread headers from the likes of @DavidHerdson, @AlistairMeeks, @NickPalmer and @Foxy. And Big G continues to show the rest of us what polite gentlemanly Conservatism used to be like.

Oh and I have been doing a lot of gardening in this glorious weather. Every so often I bestir myself to go into central London for meetings and wonder how anyone can travel on the tube twice a day for years (and then remember that is what I used to do - ).

Your opening salvos have become a little intemperate.

And today's iCrap news....

After multiple lawsuits have been filed over the butterfly-switch keyboards found on the MacBook Pro and MacBook lineups, you would think Apple would fix this issue by including a keyboard in the new MacBook Pros that can't be damaged by a little dust. Unfortunately, while the new 2018 MacBook Pro does have an updated third-generation keyboard, Apple tells CNET it doesn't include any new engineering or tweaks to address the sticky key issue

Jonathan said:

Thanks for your interesting reflections.

I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.

I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.

On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.

For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.

Party leaders have to be infrequent in ticking off their own side, since with hundreds of thousands of people there's always one more nutter you're asked to condemn. You have to mostly stick to general condemnation of abuse, which he's done repeatedly (and he sets a good example).

I don't think he's lied on Brexit, based on personal discussion - he'd no particular reason to lie to me personally during a half-hour chat in his constituency office. He's mildly pro-membership, but doesn't see it as a key issue (in which he's at one with a lot of voters, I think). Lots of us including you and me think he's wrong about that and ought to be much more vigorous on it, but that's simply a policy disagreement. Some think he can't possibly really think that and must secretly think something else, but they're IMO mistaken: it's not his habit to conceal awkward opinions.

bigjohnowls said:

I see Tories gained a seat from Labour in Pakefield yesterday. The 2017 results were as below. Anyone seen yesterdays tally??

Pakefield - Craig Rivett (C) 1,473, Melanie Di Gallidoro (C) 1,569, Sonia Barker (Lab) 1,333, Peter Byatt (Lab) 1,369, Rachel Fawkes (G) 182, Robin Hinton (UKIP) 384, Christian Newsome (Lib Dems) 190, Ben Quail (G) 162, Adam Robertson (Lib Dems) 215 and Phillip Trindall (UKIP) 367.

Pakefield (Waveney) result:

CON: 43.8% (+11.9)
LAB: 40.9% (-5.2)
UKIP: 7.9% (+7.9)
GRN: 4.4% (-8.3)
LDEM: 3.0% (-6.3)

Conservative GAIN from Labour.

Found it now

http://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Elections/Election-notices-WDC/2018/Pakefield-by-election-12-July-2018/00-Declaration-of-Result-of-Poll.pdf

What a joke

https://order-order.com/2018/07/13/drunk-juncker-unsteady-nato-summit/

Theuniondivvie said:

HYUFD said:

Theuniondivvie said:

A brief Scotch divertissement from B****t & T***p.

https://twitter.com/WhatScotsThink/status/1017669023084040192

The SNP are still running scared of a general election, obviously.

SNP down 3 points on the constituency vote and 6 points on the top up vote on 2016 in the Holyrood figures in the same poll

Projected Holyrood figs:

SNP + Green 69 seats

SCon+ SLab = SLD 60 seats

After you saying on a daily basis that there no longer being a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election would kill the issue stone dead, I look forward to your reasoning that a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election will also kill the issue stone dead.

The SNP vote holds up because so many of differing political views support one vague dream ideal, the Independence of Scotland. While the other parties have hard core support who think the ideal is rotten to the core. If, not when, the majority of people in Scotland vote for Independence, the next question, is like Brexit, what form will it take. The SNP hierarchy have been very careful, not to allow public discussion to take place as to what an Independent Scotland will look like politically, how it will be governed, how it will be taxed, defended, Health Service paid for, trade with other governments, EU (join, with the Euro and fishing rules, or not join).
I suspect, that many of the electorate in Scotland, looking at Brexit, think about Sturgeon/Swinney and co, The Tory front bench in Westminster, and will say no way.
Which leaves the question of when the SNP supporters will start to realise that there is no point in continuing to vote for them. And that support is starting to drift... For all Sturgeon's spinners of tales to keep her relevant.
As to elections, there is more likelihood of a Westminster GE in the near future, than a Holyrood one, and my sense is that the SNP will lose 10 seats to Labour and gain 10 from the Tories.

PS: You forgot about the LibDems, but then, don't we all...

archer101au said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

AlastairMeeks said:

A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.

IDS was behind it.

He used his friendship with John Bolton to persuade Trump to make this intervention.

Whether this is true or not, Boris will be the Leaver candidate. JRM has always supported him and he won't stand if Boris does. DD does not want to be leader. And the rest have disgraced themselves.

If May does fall, I think Boris is most likely to replace her as a result of recent events. Much will depend how convincing he is when he starts his public campaign for a CETA style Brexit.

Boris will be lucky to get enough nominations to stand let alone make it to the final two.

This week confirmed his deep unsuitability for the role.

A British citizen died at the hands of Russian operations in the UK so he skipped the COBRA meeting and missed a summit of Balkan countries making the UK looking like even more of a joke.

Tory MPs won't forget that and neither will the country.