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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The polls aren’t moving but Labour shouldn’t be too concerned

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  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    Essential businesses....

    California identifies nail salons as source of coronavirus community spread
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-california-identifies-nail-salons-as-source-of-spread-gov-newsom-says.html
    Other states haven’t been as cautions when it comes to reopening personal care locations like nail salons. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this week hair and nail salons, barber shops and tanning salons will be allowed to reopen with modifications on Friday. ...

    In Socal most people wear flip flops to work. Nail salons are important...

    (But actually it was probably the Chinese slave labourers who imported it)
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited May 2020
    kle4 said:



    Or you could say that to win an election in a democracy you need to build a coalition.

    In some countries, that it is a literal coalition of parties.

    Most often, in the UK, it is a coalition within a party. Neither Labour or Conservatives (or Liberal Democrats!) can win on their core vote. So they need to reach out to floating voters.

    Blair was successful in this, by constructing a coalition of "Social Democrats".

    Corbyn wanted a party of true believers. All others not welcome.

    As isam says, he's a principled politician who didn't see gaining power as the first priority. One can argue, as many here have done, that gaining power is always the first priority as you can't do anything without it. But it's not the only possible view.
    It's a range not a binary choice, pretending you have to be one or the other is in fact one of the major problems with our politics. You don't have to be a win at all costs political snake, bur nor do you need to prioritise purist activism over gaining power either.

    It reminds me, once more, given the 2010 talk of the leader's debates then. I thought Brown had done fine in one of them, but because he was not as slick as the others his designated spinner that night went on about how it was about substance not style, presenting a false choice that you could not have both, and in the process making Brown look so much worse than he actually was. The presenting of false dichotomys happens all the time in political discourse, I'm not immune to the temptation myself, but it is usually a good sign that what is being sais is bullshit.
    What's the point of being a politician if you can't actually change anything? You might as well stick to posting on political blogs.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Guernsey (which instituted 14 day self quarantine for all arrivals to the Bailiwick from March 19th, but otherwise has had a similar lockdown to the UK) has now had 8 days without any COVID positive cases and only has 13 patients still with COVID, the rest have recovered (225) or died (13).

    It has conducted the equivalent of 3.7 million tests in the UK.

    https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    tlg86 said:

    An excellent thread Joff. My advice to the Labour leadership would be to have a think about how they’ll react to the really big decisions. So far they’ve been in the comfortable position to criticise the execution of policy. More tests and PPE - who would support more of that?

    But at some point the government will face some stark choices. For example, would Labour support a bailout of one or more banks? When tax rises are announced, Labour will inevitably want to criticise them, but how would they pay for this? The public may be more supportive of tax rises than Labour expects.

    Starmer will push for wealth taxes and a return to the 50% top rate of income tax, the Tories will not raise tax on the rich
    The Tories have spent the last decade putting taxes up on the rich where appropriate. You are an embarrassment for the party, a far left stereotype of a heartless Tory bastard.
    Uh no they have not.

    Osborne cut the 50% top rate of income tax back to 45% and Osborne also cut inheritance tax for wealthy couples and their children.

    He imposed a non dom levy, that was it

    You're making the same basic mistake that many of your opponents on the left often make.

    Increasing tax rates frequently does not increase tax take - indeed, Osborne did the reverse.

    What do you want to do?

    Say you're "sticking it to the rich" and increase rates but lower take, or actually "take more money off them"?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,755

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    I really don't understand why you are being so negative about this. You make it sound like a bad thing.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    What a glorious day! I have been playing Vera Lynn - Whites Cliff of Dover, We'll meet Again, etc to the street from my balcony. Then at 4pm I went for walk on Chiswick Mall for a very high spring tide. Waded through the floods with several others, giggling like kids (and keeping our distance). Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona. Crossed Hammersmith Bridge and I'm about to go out on the balcony again in the sunshine with a bottle of cold white. Life is good. Homemade thai green curry later.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    DavidL said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    I really don't understand why you are being so negative about this. You make it sound like a bad thing.
    Plus for the left Brexit was a huge success.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited May 2020
    TOPPING said:

    kle4 said:



    Or you could say that to win an election in a democracy you need to build a coalition.

    In some countries, that it is a literal coalition of parties.

    Most often, in the UK, it is a coalition within a party. Neither Labour or Conservatives (or Liberal Democrats!) can win on their core vote. So they need to reach out to floating voters.

    Blair was successful in this, by constructing a coalition of "Social Democrats".

    Corbyn wanted a party of true believers. All others not welcome.

    As isam says, he's a principled politician who didn't see gaining power as the first priority. One can argue, as many here have done, that gaining power is always the first priority as you can't do anything without it. But it's not the only possible view.
    It's a range not a binary choice, pretending you have to be one or the other is in fact one of the major problems with our politics. You don't have to be a win at all costs political snake, bur nor do you need to prioritise purist activism over gaining power either.

    It reminds me, once more, given the 2010 talk of the leader's debates then. I thought Brown had done fine in one of them, but because he was not as slick as the others his designated spinner that night went on about how it was about substance not style, presenting a false choice that you could not have both, and in the process making Brown look so much worse than he actually was. The presenting of false dichotomys happens all the time in political discourse, I'm not immune to the temptation myself, but it is usually a good sign that what is being sais is bullshit.
    What's the point of being a politician if you can't actually change anything? You might as well stick to posting on political blogs.
    I agree. I simply reject the idea that one is either interested only in gaining power for its own sake, or not. Corbyn really does seem so much happier not trying to change things, but talking about changing things. He was at one extreme, and I think it's absurd to paint him as some saintly figure because power was not his first priority. He chose to stand as leader, he chose to stay on for years and fight several GEs asking the public to choose him as leader of this country, he didn't accidentally do any of that even though it is true he has not spent decades climbing the greasy pole in parliament. Edit: There is something to be said for someone who had different priorities for those years, who didn't even let his own party being in power stop him from saying whatever he wanted, there is somethign to admire in that. But the last five years he had different goals, he did spin, he did obfuscate, like any other political leader, and he sought the highest office. He failed. People can celebrate that or lament it, but he did try to gain power, said he was going to do so, so I don't like rewriting things to paint his lack of success there as some noble choice because he was too good to be ruthless or flexible.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kle4 said:

    TOPPING said:

    kle4 said:



    Or you could say that to win an election in a democracy you need to build a coalition.

    In some countries, that it is a literal coalition of parties.

    Most often, in the UK, it is a coalition within a party. Neither Labour or Conservatives (or Liberal Democrats!) can win on their core vote. So they need to reach out to floating voters.

    Blair was successful in this, by constructing a coalition of "Social Democrats".

    Corbyn wanted a party of true believers. All others not welcome.

    As isam says, he's a principled politician who didn't see gaining power as the first priority. One can argue, as many here have done, that gaining power is always the first priority as you can't do anything without it. But it's not the only possible view.
    It's a range not a binary choice, pretending you have to be one or the other is in fact one of the major problems with our politics. You don't have to be a win at all costs political snake, bur nor do you need to prioritise purist activism over gaining power either.

    It reminds me, once more, given the 2010 talk of the leader's debates then. I thought Brown had done fine in one of them, but because he was not as slick as the others his designated spinner that night went on about how it was about substance not style, presenting a false choice that you could not have both, and in the process making Brown look so much worse than he actually was. The presenting of false dichotomys happens all the time in political discourse, I'm not immune to the temptation myself, but it is usually a good sign that what is being sais is bullshit.
    What's the point of being a politician if you can't actually change anything? You might as well stick to posting on political blogs.
    I agree. I simply reject the idea that one is either interested only in gaining power for its own sake, or not. Corbyn really does seem so much happier not trying to change things, but talking about changing things. He was at one extreme, and I think it's absurd to paint him as some saintly figure because power was not his first priority. He chose to stand as leader, he chose to stay on for years and fight several GEs asking the public to choose him as leader of this country, he didn't accidentally do any of that even though it is true he has not spent decades climbing the greasy pole in parliament.
    Yes I think that is absolutely true.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876
    Barnesian said:

    What a glorious day! I have been playing Vera Lynn - Whites Cliff of Dover, We'll meet Again, etc to the street from my balcony. Then at 4pm I went for walk on Chiswick Mall for a very high spring tide. Waded through the floods with several others, giggling like kids (and keeping our distance). Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona. Crossed Hammersmith Bridge and I'm about to go out on the balcony again in the sunshine with a bottle of cold white. Life is good. Homemade thai green curry later.

    Point of order. Isn’t Dunkirk We’ll Meet Again? VE Day is surely the Hokey Cokey.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    Barnesian said:

    Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona.

    Are we talking beers, or germ warfare?
  • KentRisingKentRising Posts: 2,850
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Essential businesses....

    California identifies nail salons as source of coronavirus community spread
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-california-identifies-nail-salons-as-source-of-spread-gov-newsom-says.html
    Other states haven’t been as cautions when it comes to reopening personal care locations like nail salons. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this week hair and nail salons, barber shops and tanning salons will be allowed to reopen with modifications on Friday. ...

    In Socal most people wear flip flops to work. Nail salons are important...

    (But actually it was probably the Chinese slave labourers who imported it)
    I LIVE above a nail salon. Lovely.....
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    tlg86 said:

    An excellent thread Joff. My advice to the Labour leadership would be to have a think about how they’ll react to the really big decisions. So far they’ve been in the comfortable position to criticise the execution of policy. More tests and PPE - who would support more of that?

    But at some point the government will face some stark choices. For example, would Labour support a bailout of one or more banks? When tax rises are announced, Labour will inevitably want to criticise them, but how would they pay for this? The public may be more supportive of tax rises than Labour expects.

    Starmer will push for wealth taxes and a return to the 50% top rate of income tax, the Tories will not raise tax on the rich
    The Tories have spent the last decade putting taxes up on the rich where appropriate. You are an embarrassment for the party, a far left stereotype of a heartless Tory bastard.
    Uh no they have not.

    Osborne cut the 50% top rate of income tax back to 45% and Osborne also cut inheritance tax for wealthy couples and their children.

    He imposed a non dom levy, that was it

    Cutting the top rate increased the percentage of income tax paid by the wealthiest.

    He also imposed the envelope tax.
    Tbf, he stacked the deck a bit to achieve it by pre-announcing the cut to rates. Everyone who would have paid it pushed their annual bonus to the following year. It would still have raised more money without that though.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Guernsey (which instituted 14 day self quarantine for all arrivals to the Bailiwick from March 19th, but otherwise has had a similar lockdown to the UK) has now had 8 days without any COVID positive cases and only has 13 patients still with COVID, the rest have recovered (225) or died (13).

    It has conducted the equivalent of 3.7 million tests in the UK.

    https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results

    Of course, small, isolated polities are bound to find it much easier to stamp the illness out.

    Provided that they completely seal themselves off (i.e. actively discouraging visitors, but locking them up in a holding facility for 14 days if they're absolutely essential) then there is no reason why the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man couldn't return to something very close to normal life very soon.

    If Guernsey has no more cases for about another week then, presumably, it could quite happily ditch the entirety of social distancing and just quarantine arrivals going forward?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    97,029 tests yesterday
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    That's why the Tories are so successful... they have no principles. :D
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    Guernsey (which instituted 14 day self quarantine for all arrivals to the Bailiwick from March 19th, but otherwise has had a similar lockdown to the UK) has now had 8 days without any COVID positive cases and only has 13 patients still with COVID, the rest have recovered (225) or died (13).

    It has conducted the equivalent of 3.7 million tests in the UK.

    https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results

    If Guernsey has no more cases for about another week then, presumably, it could quite happily ditch the entirety of social distancing and just quarantine arrivals going forward?
    No, because they assume they aren't finding them all - the asymptomatic and only mildly symptomatic are probably still out there - from "Guernsey Covid-19 Graphs":

    "For the purposes of modelling the outbreak, Public Health has assumed that 40% of cases are asymptomatic, and that their testing is detecting the other 60% of cases (exactly those which are symptomatic). That's a super-conservative assumption for modelling the curve in the epidemic stage, because it means only 420 individuals in total have been infected, including those who were not tested because they had no symptoms. That's less than 1% of the population, so we have to assume negligible benefit in terms of having any 'herd immunity'.

    But it's a very optimistic assumption when trying to work out if there is undetected community infection. So here, a conservative approach means assuming there is a much lower rate of detection. For example, the Infection Fatality Rate of Covid-19, that is to say the proportion of infected individuals who die as a result, has been variously estimated between 0.25% and 1%. Extrapolating (wildly...) from the evidence that there have been 16 deaths in Guernsey, that could mean thousands of people have been infected but have somehow gone undetected. It's unlikely, but it's possible. In this scenario, it's pretty much certain that a significant number of people are unknowingly still carrying the infection, and that will be the case for some time."


    Hence the slow "step by step" unlocking - but lifting quarantine of all arrivals will be the last thing that goes - and that depends on what happens in the world outside.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Barnesian said:

    What a glorious day! I have been playing Vera Lynn - Whites Cliff of Dover, We'll meet Again, etc to the street from my balcony. Then at 4pm I went for walk on Chiswick Mall for a very high spring tide. Waded through the floods with several others, giggling like kids (and keeping our distance). Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona. Crossed Hammersmith Bridge and I'm about to go out on the balcony again in the sunshine with a bottle of cold white. Life is good. Homemade thai green curry later.

    Point of order. Isn’t Dunkirk We’ll Meet Again? VE Day is surely the Hokey Cokey.

    Nah, Knees up Mother Brown :smiley:

    But yeah, We'll Meet Again really isn't appropriate for the occasion, it's just that it's the most famous of the wartime songs, of course.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    Andy_JS said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    Are people keeping 2 metres apart from each other?
    I am but not the case for some. Nobody taking the piss "partying" though.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited May 2020
    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes. Andy Slaughter holds the seat for Labour.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Jonathan said:

    Anecdata

    Lockdown seems to be breaking down this weekend. Three unsolicited visitors today, just popping round. There is a little VE BBQ down the road. Son has been invited to go round to someone’s house. 🤷‍♂️

    Told you. Well, not you. But everyone.

    This Government followed public opinion into the lockdown (late) and will follow it out of it as well (late).

    I will be doing my own act of rebellion against it tomorrow. It’s horseshit.

    What will happen is the rozzers will make headline news in overreacting to very minor infractions this weekend that are on the way out in 60 hours anyway, and the press furore from that will embarrass the Government into action.

    Still 20,000 new infections a day...I can give a BBQ a miss given that.

    I await the outcry when we have to lock down again in 6 weeks, because it is out of control again.
    Weak. Think for yourself.
    Not sure what you mean. I have thought for myself, i didn't go near crowds for weeks before lockdown and personally locked myself down 2-3 weeks before and i won't be unlocking anytime soon.
    Same here. My personal unlockdown day will be when there's a materially lower risk of serious consequences than when I went in. It's not super rosy, but it's reality.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,720
    edited May 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes.

    But what were his results in the rest of London? ;)
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    I agree. I would rather be SKS than Boris Johnson at the moment.

    Boris can (and will) make Hancock the fall guy. He's still PM with an 80 seat majority after this.
    Care homes, late lockdown, Turkish PPE, Ferguson, NHS app, and, crucially, our final position on the leaderboard. More heads than just Hancock's will be needed.
    I think you are being unfair

    1. Care homes - that was either an oversight or a deliberate consequence of a desire to protect capacity in the NHS at all costs. It’s fair to blame the government. But it’s interesting that every other government made the same choice

    2. Late lockdown - he followed the guidance from SAGE. That’s the right thing to do.

    3. Turkish PPE - until you have it you can’t test it. I’d rather money was wasted buying stuff on spec than not having enough. Has any hospital *actually* run out of PPE?

    4. Ferguson. Why is one mans inability to keep his duck in his pants and his willingness to break the rules the governments fault? 😏

    5. NHS App. haven’t followed the story closely enough. But if it’s no good then that is blameworthy

    I don’t see 5 as being more than a Hancock level issue. 1 might be, depending on the fact pattern
    Re 1. I think your opinion that every other government had made the same choice, i.e. releasing CV-positive patients from hospitals back to care homes, is very interesting, indeed. That's not was has been happening here. What "fact pattern" have you recognised to arrive at this very interesting opinion?
    basically uncontrolled deaths in care homes in, certainly, Italy, France, Spain and Ireland. I was looking at outcomes.

    One presumes that this could have been stopped but it was a choice that governments to prioritise other matters.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Barnesian said:

    What a glorious day! I have been playing Vera Lynn - Whites Cliff of Dover, We'll meet Again, etc to the street from my balcony. Then at 4pm I went for walk on Chiswick Mall for a very high spring tide. Waded through the floods with several others, giggling like kids (and keeping our distance). Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona. Crossed Hammersmith Bridge and I'm about to go out on the balcony again in the sunshine with a bottle of cold white. Life is good. Homemade thai green curry later.

    Point of order. Isn’t Dunkirk We’ll Meet Again? VE Day is surely the Hokey Cokey.

    Nah, Knees up Mother Brown :smiley:

    But yeah, We'll Meet Again really isn't appropriate for the occasion, it's just that it's the most famous of the wartime songs, of course.
    It's also remarkably similar to a lament sung by Norwegian fishermen to their wives at dinner: 'Whale Meat Again...'
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 582
    edited May 2020

    Barnesian said:

    What a glorious day! I have been playing Vera Lynn - Whites Cliff of Dover, We'll meet Again, etc to the street from my balcony. Then at 4pm I went for walk on Chiswick Mall for a very high spring tide. Waded through the floods with several others, giggling like kids (and keeping our distance). Back by the Black Lion, serving takeaway Pimms and bottles of Corona. Crossed Hammersmith Bridge and I'm about to go out on the balcony again in the sunshine with a bottle of cold white. Life is good. Homemade thai green curry later.

    Point of order. Isn’t Dunkirk We’ll Meet Again? VE Day is surely the Hokey Cokey.

    Nah, Knees up Mother Brown :smiley:

    But yeah, We'll Meet Again really isn't appropriate for the occasion, it's just that it's the most famous of the wartime songs, of course.
    The problem I have with "We'll Meet Again" is that it is the song played at the end of Dr. Strangelove, as the nuclear bomb drops.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    edited May 2020
    Coming in very late once again because of work.
    But another excellent header from SO.

    Right now there is absolutely nothing that Labour can do that will shift the polls and absolutely loads they need to do to make sure they do shift at the right time.

    At the moment everything is about the Government.

    If they come out of the crisis at some point over the next 12 - 18 months looking like they have done their best and without any real failings that can be stuck on them (a very big ask I believe) then they will win the next election no matter what Starmer and Labour do.

    If they come out looking like they have made a mess of things for the wrong reasons (ignored scientific advise or made decisions outside of the scope of the advice that was clearly wrong) then they will suffer badly.

    At that point Starmer needs to show that he has a party that is a Government in waiting. In all honesty there is no way Johnson should have won the 2019 election. Labour let him. What Labour need to do now is look competent, united, reasonable and appeal to a wide base. That isn't the same as moving to the centre. Parties make the centre anew at each election. What they have to do is show people that they can run things better than the Tories.

    So Starmer has a huge amount to do. But none of it is likely to show up in the polling. He needs to ignore that for the next 2 years and then make sure that for the 2 years before the election he has gives himself the opportunity to challenge the Tories if they start to falter.

  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Guernsey (which instituted 14 day self quarantine for all arrivals to the Bailiwick from March 19th, but otherwise has had a similar lockdown to the UK) has now had 8 days without any COVID positive cases and only has 13 patients still with COVID, the rest have recovered (225) or died (13).

    It has conducted the equivalent of 3.7 million tests in the UK.

    https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results

    If Guernsey has no more cases for about another week then, presumably, it could quite happily ditch the entirety of social distancing and just quarantine arrivals going forward?
    No, because they assume they aren't finding them all - the asymptomatic and only mildly symptomatic are probably still out there - from "Guernsey Covid-19 Graphs":

    "For the purposes of modelling the outbreak, Public Health has assumed that 40% of cases are asymptomatic, and that their testing is detecting the other 60% of cases (exactly those which are symptomatic). That's a super-conservative assumption for modelling the curve in the epidemic stage, because it means only 420 individuals in total have been infected, including those who were not tested because they had no symptoms. That's less than 1% of the population, so we have to assume negligible benefit in terms of having any 'herd immunity'.

    But it's a very optimistic assumption when trying to work out if there is undetected community infection. So here, a conservative approach means assuming there is a much lower rate of detection. For example, the Infection Fatality Rate of Covid-19, that is to say the proportion of infected individuals who die as a result, has been variously estimated between 0.25% and 1%. Extrapolating (wildly...) from the evidence that there have been 16 deaths in Guernsey, that could mean thousands of people have been infected but have somehow gone undetected. It's unlikely, but it's possible. In this scenario, it's pretty much certain that a significant number of people are unknowingly still carrying the infection, and that will be the case for some time."


    Hence the slow "step by step" unlocking - but lifting quarantine of all arrivals will be the last thing that goes - and that depends on what happens in the world outside.
    It's a fair point. They might have to wait a month rather than a week then, if they're lucky; the likelihood of a period of that length elapsing without any hospital cases or positive tests emerging seems remote in the extreme.

    Still a considerable improvement on having to slog through this until 2021, or 2023, or whenever the Hell we might have to.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Check the graphic in this article:

    How Bad Is Unemployment? ‘Literally Off the Charts’

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/08/business/economy/april-jobs-report.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    Check the graphic in this article:

    How Bad Is Unemployment? ‘Literally Off the Charts’

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/08/business/economy/april-jobs-report.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    To be honest I do not understand why anyone thinks anything else
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Andy_JS said:

    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes. Andy Slaughter holds the seat for Labour.

    Hammersmith was a seat Conservatives had been very confident of winning.

    Their failure to do so was a turning point on long term Conservative strategy.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    I don't think we were expecting anything else. I'm expecting a similar response in England to that announced in Wales: a bit more freedom outdoors, provided that the 2m/household only rules continue to apply, and the reopening of the garden centres. Maybe some advice to certain businesses to prepare for the next phase of easing in three weeks' time. That's about it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    kle4 said:



    Or you could say that to win an election in a democracy you need to build a coalition.

    In some countries, that it is a literal coalition of parties.

    Most often, in the UK, it is a coalition within a party. Neither Labour or Conservatives (or Liberal Democrats!) can win on their core vote. So they need to reach out to floating voters.

    Blair was successful in this, by constructing a coalition of "Social Democrats".

    Corbyn wanted a party of true believers. All others not welcome.

    As isam says, he's a principled politician who didn't see gaining power as the first priority. One can argue, as many here have done, that gaining power is always the first priority as you can't do anything without it. But it's not the only possible view.
    It's a range not a binary choice, pretending you have to be one or the other is in fact one of the major problems with our politics. You don't have to be a win at all costs political snake, bur nor do you need to prioritise purist activism over gaining power either.

    It reminds me, once more, given the 2010 talk of the leader's debates then. I thought Brown had done fine in one of them, but because he was not as slick as the others his designated spinner that night went on about how it was about substance not style, presenting a false choice that you could not have both, and in the process making Brown look so much worse than he actually was. The presenting of false dichotomys happens all the time in political discourse, I'm not immune to the temptation myself, but it is usually a good sign that what is being sais is bullshit.
    Absolutely. False dichotomies abound. Real ones are rare. But they give structure to an argument. Too much nuance can obscure the essential truth.

    Gosh that was gnomic.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited May 2020

    Guernsey (which instituted 14 day self quarantine for all arrivals to the Bailiwick from March 19th, but otherwise has had a similar lockdown to the UK) has now had 8 days without any COVID positive cases and only has 13 patients still with COVID, the rest have recovered (225) or died (13).

    It has conducted the equivalent of 3.7 million tests in the UK.

    https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results

    If Guernsey has no more cases for about another week then, presumably, it could quite happily ditch the entirety of social distancing and just quarantine arrivals going forward?
    No, because they assume they aren't finding them all - the asymptomatic and only mildly symptomatic are probably still out there - from "Guernsey Covid-19 Graphs":

    "For the purposes of modelling the outbreak, Public Health has assumed that 40% of cases are asymptomatic, and that their testing is detecting the other 60% of cases (exactly those which are symptomatic). That's a super-conservative assumption for modelling the curve in the epidemic stage, because it means only 420 individuals in total have been infected, including those who were not tested because they had no symptoms. That's less than 1% of the population, so we have to assume negligible benefit in terms of having any 'herd immunity'.

    But it's a very optimistic assumption when trying to work out if there is undetected community infection. So here, a conservative approach means assuming there is a much lower rate of detection. For example, the Infection Fatality Rate of Covid-19, that is to say the proportion of infected individuals who die as a result, has been variously estimated between 0.25% and 1%. Extrapolating (wildly...) from the evidence that there have been 16 deaths in Guernsey, that could mean thousands of people have been infected but have somehow gone undetected. It's unlikely, but it's possible. In this scenario, it's pretty much certain that a significant number of people are unknowingly still carrying the infection, and that will be the case for some time."


    Hence the slow "step by step" unlocking - but lifting quarantine of all arrivals will be the last thing that goes - and that depends on what happens in the world outside.
    It's a fair point. They might have to wait a month rather than a week then, if they're lucky; the likelihood of a period of that length elapsing without any hospital cases or positive tests emerging seems remote in the extreme.

    Still a considerable improvement on having to slog through this until 2021, or 2023, or whenever the Hell we might have to.
    There is a phased plan of progressive relaxation - after each phase there will be a pause to see whether any new infections arise - and whether its safe to go on to the next phase, pause, or if necessary step back to the previous phase. But they've been clear from early on that "quarantine of arrivals" will be the last restriction to be removed.

    This is a lot more relaxed than Singapore (absolutely no foreigners, Singaporeans to government run quarantine hotels, which you pay for yourself if you travelled against advice) or Hong Kong (test at airport & wait for results ±10 hours) for example.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    It’s a shame that don’t know isn’t higher for the second option as that’s the correct answer.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,049

    97,029 tests yesterday

    It's this somehow supposed to mitigate how shockingly shit and incompetent this Govt is?

    Even my Italian mother in law is worried about the appalling news stories about the UK being relayed about the incompetence of the UK Govt...and she suffered from a Nazi occupation....

    But go ahead Big_G....by all means believe what you want to believe.....
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Zac takes Richmond Park from the LDs.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722



    Or you could say that to win an election in a democracy you need to build a coalition.

    In some countries, that it is a literal coalition of parties.

    Most often, in the UK, it is a coalition within a party. Neither Labour or Conservatives (or Liberal Democrats!) can win on their core vote. So they need to reach out to floating voters.

    Blair was successful in this, by constructing a coalition of "Social Democrats".

    Corbyn wanted a party of true believers. All others not welcome.

    I can't be bothered with rival retrospective assessments in general, but that last point is simply untrue. Corbyn could certainly have organised deselection of critics big time, and there were plenty of people on the left who were urging it on him. He disagreed, saying that it was better to persuade than to replace, and the number of anti-Corbyn MPs who were deselected was zero (though a few walked of their own accord, as was their right, of course). Nor, with a few exceptions, was there the usual effort to impose candidates from the centre.

    As isam says, he's a principled politician who didn't see gaining power as the first priority. One can argue, as many here have done, that gaining power is always the first priority as you can't do anything without it. But it's not the only possible view.
    Well said Nick

    One mans 7 time Westminster Seat failure is another mans most important politician of the last 50 years
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    kinabalu said:

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
    Starmer has had a good start and I like him.

    He needs to act against the antisemitism and corbynism and be seen to win that fight

    I have no idea who will succeed at the next GE and I doubt anyone else has

    Far too many variables including covid, brexit, Scots independence, and others

    However labour are in with a chance of winning seats for the first time in5 years
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    kinabalu said:

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
    I think that is just as daft a position to hold as thinking they will automatically lose.

    There is absolutely no way anyone can predict what the political landscape will look like in 4 years.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    tyson said:

    97,029 tests yesterday

    It's this somehow supposed to mitigate how shockingly shit and incompetent this Govt is?

    Even my Italian mother in law is worried about the appalling news stories about the UK being relayed about the incompetence of the UK Govt...and she suffered from a Nazi occupation....

    But go ahead Big_G....by all means believe what you want to believe.....
    I am not rising to you Tyson

    I hope the weather is as nice with you as it is here
  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    I agree. I would rather be SKS than Boris Johnson at the moment.

    Boris can (and will) make Hancock the fall guy. He's still PM with an 80 seat majority after this.
    Care homes, late lockdown, Turkish PPE, Ferguson, NHS app, and, crucially, our final position on the leaderboard. More heads than just Hancock's will be needed.
    I think you are being unfair

    1. Care homes - that was either an oversight or a deliberate consequence of a desire to protect capacity in the NHS at all costs. It’s fair to blame the government. But it’s interesting that every other government made the same choice

    2. Late lockdown - he followed the guidance from SAGE. That’s the right thing to do.

    3. Turkish PPE - until you have it you can’t test it. I’d rather money was wasted buying stuff on spec than not having enough. Has any hospital *actually* run out of PPE?

    4. Ferguson. Why is one mans inability to keep his duck in his pants and his willingness to break the rules the governments fault? 😏

    5. NHS App. haven’t followed the story closely enough. But if it’s no good then that is blameworthy

    I don’t see 5 as being more than a Hancock level issue. 1 might be, depending on the fact pattern
    Re 1. I think your opinion that every other government had made the same choice, i.e. releasing CV-positive patients from hospitals back to care homes, is very interesting, indeed. That's not was has been happening here. What "fact pattern" have you recognised to arrive at this very interesting opinion?
    basically uncontrolled deaths in care homes in, certainly, Italy, France, Spain and Ireland. I was looking at outcomes.

    One presumes that this could have been stopped but it was a choice that governments to prioritise other matters.
    I tend to agree with your presumption for the countries you mentioned (plus Belgium). That obviously doesn't equate to "every other government making the same choice".
    I'm fairly certain that eg. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and even the Netherlands, despite their horrific fatality rate, chose otherwise.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    Back on Topic

    Labour votes at all GE's this Millennium

    2001 Blair 10,724,952

    2005 Blair 9,552,436

    2010 Brown 8,609,526

    2015 EICIPM 9,436,273

    2017 Jezza 12,868,460

    2019 Jezza 10,269,051

    Ranking in terms of total votes Jezza 1st and 3rd "most unpopular leader of all time"

    Blair "the great vote winner" 2nd and 4th

    EICIPM 5th

    Gordy 6th

    Anyone fancy SKS chances of getting to 12,868,460

    Wow. Of course one can proffer theories till the cows come home but this - this cold hard stat right here - is what it is. A cold hard stat. Most Labour votes this century - and easily - came under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. I will sign off exactly as I started. Wow.
    Now repeat the same stat for their opposite numbers.

    Gaining votes isn't impressive if for every vote you win you drive two more for your opponents.
    Strikes me as more impressive to get people to actually vote for you than to be inoffensive enough to split your opponents votes in a way that suits the current electoral system. Maybe Corbyn believed in his politics more than he craved power, I think that’s quite admirable.
    I don't at all.

    He believed in his politics so strongly the nation gave the Tories an 80 seat majority. How's that furthering his politics?

    Being inoffensive can be a strength not a weakness.
    Yes, I said it “strikes ME as more impressive”, not that you had to agree. I’d rather keep my philosophy and lose than play the game and maybe win, maybe lose, so I guess I’m more inclined to think well of others who do so.

    Our voting system doesn’t suit conviction politicians, but I’d rather they all were and see where we end up than everyone gaming the system to get power
    That's the difference. Conviction politicians in general scare me. I'd rather people are free to run their own lives according to their own convictions than have politicians who have firm convictions dictate to them how to live their life according to whichever politicians in charge today.

    Gaming the system means reaching a compromise with the nation the nation is happiest with.
    I think you are just twisting things to make your preference seem more valid than mine to be honest. We can disagree without needing to do that.
    I'm not twisting things I respect your PoV I'm just explaining where I'm coming from.

    Lots of people refer to conviction politicians like it's a good thing and I understand why. But few concepts are scarier for me than the idea of a government of conviction politicians. It's the same reason I despise organised religions. Convictions are not a good thing once you start to use your convictions to tell others how to live.
    Ok well at least you respect my PoV. Fair does.

    I reckon cross party coalitions are actually better than internal party coalitions, as the fighting is more accepted rather than seen as a fracture, but we are where we are
    On the proviso that the cross party coalitions were agreed and put to the public BEFORE the election I agree. However that's extremely rare globally.

    I'm off the opinion that if there is a coalition to be built it should be built first and then seek the endorsement of the nation - not the other way around.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    I don't think we were expecting anything else. I'm expecting a similar response in England to that announced in Wales: a bit more freedom outdoors, provided that the 2m/household only rules continue to apply, and the reopening of the garden centres. Maybe some advice to certain businesses to prepare for the next phase of easing in three weeks' time. That's about it.
    Yes - all about garden centres right now. They are first in the queue and always have been.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722
    edited May 2020

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    Well said.

    In fact, brilliant post. I am so used to hearing from people on here how wrong everything Boris/Farage/Cameron did is that I forget the right always win.

    What baffles me about the left is they don't seem to realise, no matter how many times they lose, that this country isn't really into having them in charge, instead they spend forever spinning/slurring rather than come to terms with it.

    Left wing policies in the hands of people purporting to be "Conservative" is a different matter. I'd say Britain was a progressive country but doesn't trust progressive politicians not to take the piss when they get power - so we have Conservative politicians in charge, delivering ever more progressive policies
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Andy_JS said:

    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes. Andy Slaughter holds the seat for Labour.

    Hammersmith was a seat Conservatives had been very confident of winning.

    Their failure to do so was a turning point on long term Conservative strategy.
    Having worked with Shaun in Hammersmith for that very election I don't remember anyone being confident. Let alone very confident
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,049

    tyson said:

    97,029 tests yesterday

    It's this somehow supposed to mitigate how shockingly shit and incompetent this Govt is?

    Even my Italian mother in law is worried about the appalling news stories about the UK being relaed about the incompetence of the UK Govt...and she suffered from a Nazi occupation....

    But go ahead Big_G....by all means believe what you want to believe.....
    I am not rising to you Tyson

    I hope the weather is as nice with you as it is here
    It is lovely here Big G....I've got the Union Jacks displayed from my windows...and there were the bagbipes playing outside for the 3.00 toast to the fallen...I had a tear in my eye thinking of those countryman 75 years ago, and what this day meant to them....

    You did well not to rise to the challenge.....today is about other things......
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    It doesn't look very crowded tbh.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    Yep. People may be willing to put up with a lack of clothes shopping opportunities, football matches and sit-down restaurants for a while longer, but the public (or, at any rate, a very large proportion of it) appears to have had enough of house arrest.

    The ones meandering through the park and minding their own business aren't likely to make much difference to anything. It's the ones who are packing their kids into their cars and driving off to visit Granny for the first time since March who might yet prove to be more of a problem.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722
    kinabalu said:

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
    Crikey. They seem amazing odds for the Tories given their 80 seat majority
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008



    Andrew said:

    Alistair said:

    I see Fearless Truth Teller Alistair Haimes has blocked me for pointing out he was using lagged Swedish data to pretend there was a rapid fall in deaths. All it took was posting todays graph after he had posted yesterdays and pointing out 4 days had had their numbers revised up completely eliminating the fall.


    Meanwhile, Sweden continues to move up the deaths/capita chart. Overtook the Dutch today, now in 6th place and chasing down France.
    To remind again, the Swedish advisor Giesecke said come back in a year on numbers.
    I just mentally put "so far" in everywhere and ignore most of the sub6th form analysis. Giesecke's recent interviews and recent Lancet paper are required reading - even if you do not agree with the points made, it is important that someone is making them in a calm voice, backed by experience and knowledge.

    There's another paper here, that's worth a read: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30673-5/fulltext
    I hope no one takes the case fatality estimates from China seriously. They were already more than a month out of date when this paper appeared 6 weeks ago.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392

    "But, 2017" will be a wonderful epitaph.

    Especially when Corbynism's greatest victory produced a higher Tory seat total and a bigger Tory-Labour gap than New Labour's worst defeat...
    4.6m more votes and more seats than 2010 though
    Big John, why are you still fighting yesterday's battles? If you want to see the back of Johnson in 2024 Starmer is the only game in town.
    The thread is about can Labour succeed going forward.

    It wont succeed if people like Joff, Rochdale who didnt even vote Labour 5 months ago werent even in the party 5 months ago cant stop banging on about how everything is Corbyns fault and how great SKS is.

    The Lab decline started way before SKS became leader and New Labour, Old Labour, or Corbyn Labour have not succeeded in turning it around.

    The thread is about will SKS succeed my first post in the thread and at least 3 others have contained my prediction on that.

    Isam has given the best analysis in several posts of Labs problems IMO
    Labour's disconnect with, well, people who labour has been happening for a long time. Initially it could be ignored when it was being masked by a blip in middle class voters taking their place. But now, with the loss of seats to the Tories that we thought would be Labour forever, it has well and truly bitten us in the arse.

    I agree that none of the approaches we have adopted over the past decade have done anything to address this. And I have a lot of doubts over a north London lawyer having the right agenda to put things right.

    I hope I'm wrong. But if I'm not, in 2024 I'll be saying 'Should have picked Nandy', and reminding everyone why I voted for her.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,571
    tyson said:

    97,029 tests yesterday

    It's this somehow supposed to mitigate how shockingly shit and incompetent this Govt is?

    Even my Italian mother in law is worried about the appalling news stories about the UK being relayed about the incompetence of the UK Govt...and she suffered from a Nazi occupation....

    She's not alone. Those running the UK are being viewed with disdain around the world for their complacency and incompetence.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/complacent-uk-draws-global-criticism-for-covid-19-response-boris-johnson
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    To state the obvious, London is the worst place for the lockdown to be broken.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    So, fetched out the battery charger this morning. Plugged it in. Nothing. Bugger.

    I'll have to try and cadge one from one of the neighbours.

    I read earlier that half of AA callouts are to folk in our predicament.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722
    Today must be very difficult for anyone whose Father died fighting in WW2
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Andy_JS said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    To state the obvious, London is the worst place for the lockdown to be broken.
    Yes, but people are at breaking point. We need outdoor spaces available to us again, and cafés and beer gardens. Businesses can adapt to table service or socially distanced bar service. I'm basically done, will be going to the Heath tomorrow with my partner and a picnic basket. If the police want to fine me then I'll just deal with it.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
    Crikey. They seem amazing odds for the Tories given their 80 seat majority
    I agree. The question is whether now is the best time to lay Labour. In practice they’re likely to shorten if they rise in the polls, as they probably will at some point.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    isam said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    Well said.

    In fact, brilliant post. I am so used to hearing from people on here how wrong everything Boris/Farage/Cameron did is that I forget the right always win.

    What baffles me about the left is they don't seem to realise, no matter how many times they lose, that this country isn't really into having them in charge, instead they spend forever spinning/slurring rather than come to terms with it.

    Left wing policies in the hands of people purporting to be "Conservative" is a different matter. I'd say Britain was a progressive country but doesn't trust progressive politicians not to take the piss when they get power - so we have Conservative politicians in charge, delivering ever more progressive policies
    Well, of course, that was what Boris Johnson's aim was suspected of being *before* this all kicked off: culturally a bit to the right, economically a bit to the left, i.e. the unoccupied centre ground of our politics. Covid is just pushing the Tory Party in a direction to which its leader was already amenable.

    Whether they'll make a decent fist of it is, of course, anyone's guess. My bet is that they stuff up, and that potentially opens the door to Starmer - if enough people outside of the cities can be persuaded to listen to him.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    Very well said, Cyclefree.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Hear hear @Cyclefree
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    To state the obvious, London is the worst place for the lockdown to be broken.
    Yes, but people are at breaking point. We need outdoor spaces available to us again, and cafés and beer gardens. Businesses can adapt to table service or socially distanced bar service. I'm basically done, will be going to the Heath tomorrow with my partner and a picnic basket. If the police want to fine me then I'll just deal with it.
    What a hero.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    kinabalu said:

    What's everyone reading during lockdown ? I am not a great fiction reader but read some non fiction in the last 7 weeks including

    The Games - David Goldblatt (history of the Olympics)
    The Crucibles greatest matches -Hector Nunns (I love snooker and any "pub" game)
    Who dares wins -Dominic Sandbrook (Britain 1979-1982)
    The medal factory - About British Cycling and its recent triumphs and tribulations.
    A better betting with a decent fellow - A social history of Bookmaking
    A short history of Europe - Simon Jenkins
    A short history of London -Simon Jenkins
    Ghosts at the table - a history of poker
    Airhead -Emily Maitlis

    Quite proud of myself even if all on my sort of hobbies!

    That's a good effort in 7 weeks. I've managed only a Japanese novel by David Mitchell and approx 100 pages of Alistair Campbell's diaries - this latter quite a test of resilience and willpower.
    I finished The Mirror and the Light earlier in the week (incidentally, the only item on middle-class lockdown bingo that I've ticked off). Almost 900 pages, and something of a struggle too. It's the weakest of the three, though I feel the trilogy as a whole has been rather over-hyped. Am now halfway through Ali Smith's Hotel World - an altogether more satisfying read.
    I find Hilary Mantel a hugely overrated writer. I struggled to finish the first Cromwell book and have no desire to read anything by her ever again. Why she won the Booker prize beats me.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    So, fetched out the battery charger this morning. Plugged it in. Nothing. Bugger.

    I'll have to try and cadge one from one of the neighbours.

    I read earlier that half of AA callouts are to folk in our predicament.

    Yeah, you've fallen into a common trap. My Dad deliberately drives 15 miles to our town (I don't meet him, I hasten to add, as I'm doing my best most of the time to keep within the spirit of the rules,) to do some of his shopping here once a week. The only purpose of this detour is to charge his car battery.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722
    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    It's another example of "not wanting to go as far as the herd" being wilfully misrepresented as "complete disagreement".

    If you are in a room where the volume on the music is turned up to 10 and say you'd prefer it to be on 7 so you can talk, it doesn't mean "So what you're saying is you want to sit here in silence"

    The same old ripostes are made to Lockdown easing & immigration control, with I guess the inverse made from the right about raising taxes and government spending
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    Beautifully put Cyclefree and the perfect response to HYUFD disgusting comments

    He is so obnoxious at times and shames our party

    Please do not judge those of us who support our party and seek for compassion and kindness so lacking in so many these days

    My very best wishes to you and your family
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    I don't think Labour position is that bad. Anyone who wants to make predictions whilst we have two existential crises - Brexit and Covid 19 - going on is a bit mad.

    The support for the government is shallow. Given the complexity of Brexit and Scotland, piecing together a majority will no doubt be a difficult challenge though. Starmer seems off to a good start. Written an inoffensive article in the Telegraph for VE Day.

    Anybody who thinks Labour have little chance next time is miles off the consensus view - which is that they have an excellent chance. Please see the odds for largest party next GE for confirmation of this.
    Crikey. They seem amazing odds for the Tories given their 80 seat majority
    I agree. The question is whether now is the best time to lay Labour. In practice they’re likely to shorten if they rise in the polls, as they probably will at some point.
    Little nibbles once a week I'd say, there's a long way to go!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    isam said:

    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    It's another example of "not wanting to go as far as the herd" being wilfully misrepresented as "complete disagreement".

    If you are in a room where the volume on the music is turned up to 10 and say you'd prefer it to be on 7 so you can talk, it doesn't mean "So what you're saying is you want to sit here in silence"

    The same old ripostes are made to Lockdown easing & immigration control, with I guess the inverse made from the right about raising taxes and government spending
    I think the volume analogy is very well made.
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,665
    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    To state the obvious, London is the worst place for the lockdown to be broken.
    Yes, but people are at breaking point. We need outdoor spaces available to us again, and cafés and beer gardens. Businesses can adapt to table service or socially distanced bar service. I'm basically done, will be going to the Heath tomorrow with my partner and a picnic basket. If the police want to fine me then I'll just deal with it.
    Fining them is far too good for the likes of such people! They should be shot on the spot! The country voted for a proper Tory government after all.... And you were a Tory, the last I heard, Mr Max.

    The next thing such people will want to do is give themselves the luxury of travelling all over the country, infecting the rest of us with their diseases.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post. Apart from you thinking Brexit was a loss for the left wing. It was a huge victory. Arguably the biggest one for them of our age, as the remainder of your list illustrates.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    TOPPING said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes. Andy Slaughter holds the seat for Labour.

    Hammersmith was a seat Conservatives had been very confident of winning.

    Their failure to do so was a turning point on long term Conservative strategy.
    Having worked with Shaun in Hammersmith for that very election I don't remember anyone being confident. Let alone very confident
    They were on the internet.

    And Shaun Bailey was confident enough to be a 'Tatler Tory'

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/2711375/Society-magazine-Tatler-unveils-line-up-of-top-Tory-totty.html

    He was a 'future Home Secretary'.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    In the USA, there’s a school of men (always men) who affect a military past to gain kudos. They call it stolen valour.

    @HYUFD, who has seen no more active service than a canvassing session in the rougher end of Chingford, would fit in nicely, stealing the valour of his grandparents to lead Britain into a nationalist dead end.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    "The dirt mount was erected last week to put a stop to it."
    Finnbarr Saunders is living in Ayrshire.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    TOPPING said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post. Apart from you thinking Brexit was a loss for the left wing. It was a huge victory. Arguably the biggest one for them of our age, as the remainder of your list illustrates.
    Brexit was a loss for modern liberals, not the left specifically. There is a difference, I'd say brexit was a win for the old left, definitely.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    Same people will be blaming the government when death rate spikes in a month....
    Out of curiosity (please be honest) how old are you, what do you do and where do you live?
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,571

    "But, 2017" will be a wonderful epitaph.

    Especially when Corbynism's greatest victory produced a higher Tory seat total and a bigger Tory-Labour gap than New Labour's worst defeat...
    4.6m more votes and more seats than 2010 though
    Big John, why are you still fighting yesterday's battles? If you want to see the back of Johnson in 2024 Starmer is the only game in town.
    The thread is about can Labour succeed going forward.

    It wont succeed if people like Joff, Rochdale who didnt even vote Labour 5 months ago werent even in the party 5 months ago cant stop banging on about how everything is Corbyns fault and how great SKS is.

    The Lab decline started way before SKS became leader and New Labour, Old Labour, or Corbyn Labour have not succeeded in turning it around.

    The thread is about will SKS succeed my first post in the thread and at least 3 others have contained my prediction on that.

    Isam has given the best analysis in several posts of Labs problems IMO
    Since Starmer became leader, the far left have thrown down one challenge after another to his stated desire - which I believe is genuine - to end factionalism in the party. They have taken it to another degree. That's what I'm seeing at both the local level here and nationally. Read any of the far left websites that were so supportive of Corbyn and you'll see criticism of Starmer at every turn, on pretty spurious grounds. They have moved on from grief to anger, and pretty destructive anger at that.

    If they really do believe the meme that Corbyn was on course to win and lost only because he was betrayed by fifth columnists, then that is all the more reason not to act as fifth columnists themselves.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,116
    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    Thank you so very much for putting that view for many of us.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm on Primrose Hill. It's rocking, unfortunately.

    The lockdown is broken in NW London, the Heath is packed, lots of people on my street walking up to it.
    To state the obvious, London is the worst place for the lockdown to be broken.
    Yes, but people are at breaking point. We need outdoor spaces available to us again, and cafés and beer gardens. Businesses can adapt to table service or socially distanced bar service. I'm basically done, will be going to the Heath tomorrow with my partner and a picnic basket. If the police want to fine me then I'll just deal with it.
    As I've said before, there are very good reasons why society chooses imprisonment as its go-to option for the punishment of criminals. A lot of people are still to cautious or downright afraid to go out, but much of the remainder of the populace is growing sick of house arrest.

    It is at this point that I have to admit that I broke the exercise rules today. Went out twice - once early morning to go running, then for a second time at about lunchtime to go out walking with my husband. We've both had enough of incarceration, and he especially needs a little more freedom: he's asthmatic and has scarcely been more than about fifty yards from the flat since the start of the lockdown. We also have the incalculable advantage of living in a small market town and not in a horrible jam-packed city, so we're able to get out and about and avoid nearly everyone else if we're sensible about where we go.

    Anyway, regardless of where they live, I don't really blame anybody else for doing likewise.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    TOPPING said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post. Apart from you thinking Brexit was a loss for the left wing. It was a huge victory. Arguably the biggest one for them of our age, as the remainder of your list illustrates.
    I tend to agree with this view. If I was thinking solely from a selfish perspective, I'd have voted Remain.

    The problem, of course, is that "The Left" don't see Brexit as a good thing. This isn't exactly an original point, but the dividing lines in politics are now far more cultural than economic. Perhaps the coming recession (depression?) might change it all again.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    Anecdata: just got back from my area's socially distanced street party.

    Next door neighbour out by himself. Asked him about his son (he's been with him for six weeks and was doing DIY only on Wednesday) he told me he quit yesterday and went to move in with his girlfriend: he'd had enough.

    Other neighbours (other side) gave up trying to keep their 6 year old and 9 year old apart and just let them play together.

    Adults all apart from each other but lots of frustration being expressed, apart from the very old and retired ( who didn't come out).

    The polling isn't picking this up. It's breaking down.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Shaun Bailey fails to win Hammersmith by 3,000 votes. Andy Slaughter holds the seat for Labour.

    Hammersmith was a seat Conservatives had been very confident of winning.

    Their failure to do so was a turning point on long term Conservative strategy.
    Having worked with Shaun in Hammersmith for that very election I don't remember anyone being confident. Let alone very confident
    They were on the internet.

    And Shaun Bailey was confident enough to be a 'Tatler Tory'

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/2711375/Society-magazine-Tatler-unveils-line-up-of-top-Tory-totty.html

    He was a 'future Home Secretary'.
    Which PPC is not confident in their utterances?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007

    Anybody got the tape measure out to check they were sufficiently socially distanced?

    https://twitter.com/wabbey/status/1258780535310213121?s=19

    Oi, that's my joke.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    stodge said:


    The Government has no-one to blame but itself.

    It’s been heavily trailing all sorts of loosening in the papers over the last few days (those articles saying that unlimited socially-distanced outdoor activity, picnics and sunbathing, and permitted mixing with only one other chosen household from Downing Street “sources” weren’t just conjured up out of thin air) but it wasn’t sure how popular it was due to far too literal reading of headline polling numbers and then chickened out at the 11th hour due to ‘care homes’, which is a disaster of its own making.

    They should have made the announcement yesterday at 8pm after their review. Instead, they’ve decided to do it late on Sunday night and only give the benefits to the oldies.

    It’s really pissed people off. Many were really looking forward to this weekend, and are happy to continue to act responsibly but want the Government to be reasonable.

    The Government haven’t been reasonable (instead trying to tell people to “keep going” in adds yesterday) and so people have had enough and are now taking matters into their own hands.

    The problem is Johnson is terrified of being unpopular (he's not used to it) and is therefore incapable of saying what he thinks people don't want to hear.

    On Wednesday he tried to placate both the pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown groups and ended up annoying them both. Sunak's flip-flopping on the furlough money also suggests division and drift in the Cabinet. There's obviously a faction who thinks this has gone on long enough and the economic damage unsupportable.

    This chimes with US stock market sentiment (the DJIA goes on rising and NASDAQ is positive for the year) which thinks the re-opening in several states will lead to a surge in economic activity such that in a few months the US economy will be humming along, Trump will get re-elected and all this will seem a bad dream.

    Perhaps but indications are after an early surge activity remains slack - people are scared still and the US case numbers don't inspire confidence. We'll see.
    That's a good summary.

    My view is Johnson's chickens are going to come home to roost sooner than he thinks.

    I'm still betting on him being gone before the next election.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post. Apart from you thinking Brexit was a loss for the left wing. It was a huge victory. Arguably the biggest one for them of our age, as the remainder of your list illustrates.
    Brexit was a loss for modern liberals, not the left specifically. There is a difference, I'd say brexit was a win for the old left, definitely.
    Yes. As exemplified by one J. Corbyn.
  • DayTripperDayTripper Posts: 128
    Apologies if posted before: Queen guitarist injuring in freak gardening incident ((c) Spinal Tap) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52594627
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    isam said:

    Cyclefree said:



    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    I wanted to respond to Cyclefree's excellent contribution on the previous thread.

    I understand her frustration at the VE-day celebrations. We emphasise this rather than VJ-day and there was still a major conflict going on in Asia when we were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

    Yet Liberation Day (and that in many ways is far more appropriate a title) is still celebrated every year in the Channel Islands and we have little or no perception of what it is like to be conquered and the sheer unalloyed joy of liberation and the restoration of freedom.

    Apart from countries which were neutral in both World Wars only Britain of all the nations of Europe has never experienced what it is like to be conquered in modern times. To have hostile foreign troops walking down your streets, to be told what you do and when to do it by "the enemy" and to be second class citizens in your own country.

    I think it's right we continue to celebrate our liberation and that of the world from the darkness of Naziism and celebrate all those who contributed to that including the USSR and the various resistance groups. We were alone for a while but we won with the help of large parts of the rest of the world. As someone said the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and we provided the time.

    Indeed, even Berlin is celebrating VE Day today as liberation from Nazi rule.

    The only people who are not seem to be a few diehard Remainers like Alistair Meeks and Cyclefree who refuse to join Brexiteers in celebrating anything and the AfD in Germany who refuse to celebrate a German defeat, even if it was the Nazis defeated

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52574748
    You really are an ignorant so and so. One who cannot read either. Honour the dead I said. And I do and did today. I went down to our village green where some schoolchildren played the Last Post. Very beautifully. One of their close friends, a young man who works part-time in my daughter’s business, lost his mother two days ago - from a brain aneurism. Mid-40’s - leaving behind 3 children aged 13 to 18. The 18 year old became 18 the day after his mother’s death. So it was also a tribute to her.

    But I am not going to be party to people like you misusing history and the fighting done by people like my father for party political reasons. Just as you did in your response in which you suggested that commemorating liberation was something that only those in favour of Brexit did. Or that those who don't like this misuse of history are like Nazis.

    What a disgustingly narrow-minded and ignorant thing to say. People like my parents who lived through the war, fought in it and knew what occupation really meant had a far more generous vision of what Britain at its best could be than people like you.

    There is a part of Britain which has such a limited view and knowledge of its own history let alone that of Europe or the Empire that it misuses that history for its own narrow purposes. I refuse to be part of that. It is utterly adolescent and ignorant. Britain needs to stop behaving like a country thinking that the apogee of its achievements occurred in the years between the Battle of Britain and the creation of the NHS. It is pathetic. Like some 65 year old boring you about the top marks they go in their O-levels decades earlier.

    Honour those who made sacrifices. Remember the events which shape our history. Try and think intelligently about the lessons such events might teach us. All these are worthwhile.

    Sanctimoniously waving your Union Jack knickers in the air at those who refuse to be part of some pretendy patriotic game-playing is not how you do this.
    It's another example of "not wanting to go as far as the herd" being wilfully misrepresented as "complete disagreement".

    If you are in a room where the volume on the music is turned up to 10 and say you'd prefer it to be on 7 so you can talk, it doesn't mean "So what you're saying is you want to sit here in silence"

    The same old ripostes are made to Lockdown easing & immigration control, with I guess the inverse made from the right about raising taxes and government spending
    I go up to 11.
  • For me Starmer encompasses what I think a Labour leader should stand for.

    He's left wing enough without seeming crazy, he appears patriotic but crucially he seems competent and not terrifying at all.

    I didn't agree with the characterisations of Corbyn but I can see how people got the sense he was really too radical and the 2019 manifesto was an own goal in that regard.

    The 2017 manifesto with Starmer would I think do rather well, even on that Corbyn achieved 40% of the vote (although as the days go by, I see that as more of a fluke).

    But regardless, he can surely best Brown's 2010 performance.

    Personally I think this is the high tide of Tory majorities and it will shrink next time because less people choose to stay home, which millions did in 2019 because they were too scared to vote Corbyn. And loads of Lib Dems voted Tory for the same reason.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Anecdata: just got back from my area's socially distanced street party.

    Next door neighbour out by himself. Asked him about his son (he's been with him for six weeks and was doing DIY only on Wednesday) he told me he quit yesterday and went to move in with his girlfriend: he'd had enough.

    Other neighbours (other side) gave up trying to keep their 6 year old and 9 year old apart and just let them play together.

    Adults all apart from each other but lots of frustration being expressed, apart from the very old and retired ( who didn't come out).

    The polling isn't picking this up. It's breaking down.

    Yes, I think all of this Thursday clapping stuff is hiding a much larger frustration with the lockdown. Just as there are shy Tories because social pressure deems it necessary (though I'm "out" as a member among my social circle and no one cares) I think the overwhelming media pressure is to support the lockdown so people are telling polling companies they support it out of guilt.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,722
    edited May 2020
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post. Apart from you thinking Brexit was a loss for the left wing. It was a huge victory. Arguably the biggest one for them of our age, as the remainder of your list illustrates.
    Brexit was a loss for modern liberals, not the left specifically. There is a difference, I'd say brexit was a win for the old left, definitely.
    Me too.

    I just cant understand how the party of the Trade Unions could be in favour of an unlimited source of labour being allowed to undercut the pay of the workers, pitting the poor of the UK against the immigrants, whilst the bosses profited. It also allowed the middle class a lifestyle based simultaenously on exploitation of immigrants and denouncement of those opposed to immigration

    If you are interested in a left wing view of Brexit, I recommend this interview with Lord Glasman. He sees it as the biggest vehicle for capitalism man could make

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa5vsa1FLKY
  • theakestheakes Posts: 839
    Well I will be voting Labour next time, first time in my long life, anything to get this present bunch of right wingers out.
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    TOPPING said:

    Just a general point, since 2008, the UK has had 4 general elections, 3 referenda, 3 sets of european elections, and increasingly high profile local elections every year.

    This has been accompanied with ever pervasive social media and a distinct coarsening in tone of the campaigns.

    One thing has remained near constant - the 'left' argument has lost. It might have won seemingly vital wins at points in between the elections. It might have near complete air superiority on Twitter but, when things mattered, well, the results are below:

    2009 - 3rd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2010 - lost power
    2011 - AV rejected
    2014 - 2nd place in the Euros, UKIP 1st
    2014 - scottish independence rejected
    2015 - actually went backwards (!)
    2016 - Brexit
    2017 - did not win majority
    2019 - 3rd place (again) in the Euros, UKIP Brexit Part 1st
    2019 - hammered

    As far as I have seen, there has been no self reflection on the argument, the tactics, any of it. The message of Starmer's election was "we need unity, we all get behind the new new thing and ONE MORE HEAVE".

    What's really telling is that the tactics, such as they are, have not yet changed this spring. Set to transmit, TRY HARDER, chase those ambulances.

    You're trying to apply the fruits of reason and falsifiability to what for these people is a religion.

    It ain't gonna work! :wink:
    Yeah, I'll be honest, I was hoping my post would be 'fisked' and subsequently ignored.

    Don't interrupt an opponent when he's making a mistake.
    It was a good post.
    Cheers!

    I mean, the rest was tedium, but those first 5 words - bang on.

  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Anecdata: just got back from my area's socially distanced street party.

    Next door neighbour out by himself. Asked him about his son (he's been with him for six weeks and was doing DIY only on Wednesday) he told me he quit yesterday and went to move in with his girlfriend: he'd had enough.

    Other neighbours (other side) gave up trying to keep their 6 year old and 9 year old apart and just let them play together.

    Adults all apart from each other but lots of frustration being expressed, apart from the very old and retired ( who didn't come out).

    The polling isn't picking this up. It's breaking down.

    Lots of reports and anecdotes to this effect.

    It's possible with the polling that those asked are thinking about schools and businesses, not about their own private behaviour.
This discussion has been closed.