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What YouGov was reporting a year ago today – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited April 2021 in General
imageWhat YouGov was reporting a year ago today – politicalbetting.com

Thanks to John Rentoul for Tweeting the above poll data from April 3rd 2020. As can be seen the immediate polling reaction to the start of lockdown was to get behind the government and the Prime Minister.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited April 2021
    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    Disagree. What will matter is what happens when the state of emergency is over.
  • Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    He'll be wanting to demonstrate progress in England but the most important vote is in Scotland. The more hopeless the position of Scottish Labour, the more dependent Starmer looks on the SNP to get over the Parliamentary finishing line after the next General Election - and they are not popular in most of the places South of the Border that really count.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    FPT

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    Depends what you mean by 'empty'?

    There's currently 3,600 people in hospital which means only 16 people on average per NHS trust and only 42 people on average per NHS foundation trust. That's pretty empty already.
  • Is Labour in a better position than in 2019. Yes.

    In 2019 people were saying Labour was done and should split. On that metric the Labour rebound to lead in the polls (albeit fallen back a way now) and to be remotely competitive is nothing short of extraordinary and Starmer should take comfort in that.

    The next year is going to be what is crucial for him, now he has to put some flesh on the bones, set out a few policies and ideas and see the public response. He can also hope for some kind of Lib Dem revival, possibly a pipe dream but who knows.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,046
    Good day from gorgeously sunny Scotland! Bold prediction, Vax passports won't happen. Zero public demand by the time any workable proposals come to fruition as many have said - as many have not said, how does the Government enforce a potentially unpopular policy in Scotland? It can't. The UK Government has a quasi-monarchical status in Scotland at the moment. It is reigning but not really ruling, in Government but not in power. I am sure Vax passports do appeal to the deeply illiberal instincts of the SNP, but popularity and getting one over on the UK Government appeals a lot more. So I think the scheme is DOA.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited April 2021
    So it looks like there are around 140,000 hospital beds in the UK. Therefore COVID patients represent around 2.6% of hospital beds at the moment, and falling.

    EDIT: that 140,000 figure is just England, so the actual % will be lower.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Looks like the actual figure for the whole of the UK is 165,000 roughly. So COVID patients represent 2.2% of hospital capacity at present, and falling.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    Jeremy Corbyn was a meme and then it stopped being funny.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited April 2021

    The daily numbers have updated. Today's Covid deaths: 10. The average for the last week is now down to 36 per day. There's still about 3,500 in hospital but we are definitely getting there.

    It's great, but - I've been ignoring the deaths-by-date-reported for a couple of weeks now, as the volatility and noise in that particular metric overwhelms the signal. The deaths-by-date-of-death is the real data, although it's heavily lagged.

    That, though, seems to be flattening out in the low thirties (deaths by the 31st are already up to 30). Not too concerned by this, though - with what we know of the efficacy of one shot of either Pfizer or AZ, we'd expect that when we've saturated the Groups 1-4 with one-jab-plus-3-5-weeks, we'd get a bit of a plateau: the remaining deaths would largely be the breakthrough deaths of one-jab-vaccinated people (with its 85% effectiveness at preventing death). We've seen Malmesbury's excellent graphs showing CFR flatlining for the older categories for a while, after all.

    And now we're shifting hugely to second jabs, so we SHOULD see those numbers start to fall again within a week or two.

    Cases, though - they definitely look to be on the retreat. Going straight to specimen dates and taking the weekly average, they've dropped a long way in just a week or so. We could be looking at them heading off towards an 11 day halving cycle again, looking at the rate of fall recently.
    I like to look at the rolling seven day total and the change from the previous week as well. I know it's not going to be quite as accurate as the death-by-date figures to which you refer, but it'll smooth out quite a lot of the noise and means that you don't have to wait for delayed numbers, of course.

    The daily numbers have updated. Today's Covid deaths: 10. The average for the last week is now down to 36 per day. There's still about 3,500 in hospital but we are definitely getting there.

    Of course that's an average of only 16 people in hospital per NHS trust.
    Our big local hospital (Addenbrookes in Cambridge) was down to its last 12 Covid patients as of March 30th.
  • First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    Disagree. What will matter is what happens when the state of emergency is over.
    And of course that is not going to be a sudden it is over
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    Jeremy Corbyn was a meme and then it stopped being funny.
    Simples. Labour was selling a product people did not want.
  • First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    He'll be wanting to demonstrate progress in England but the most important vote is in Scotland. The more hopeless the position of Scottish Labour, the more dependent Starmer looks on the SNP to get over the Parliamentary finishing line after the next General Election - and they are not popular in most of the places South of the Border that really count.
    Do not discount Wales either
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    He'll be wanting to demonstrate progress in England but the most important vote is in Scotland. The more hopeless the position of Scottish Labour, the more dependent Starmer looks on the SNP to get over the Parliamentary finishing line after the next General Election - and they are not popular in most of the places South of the Border that really count.
    I agree with that.

    What are the performance targets for Labour in Scotland this spring?
    1. Prevent an SNP majority.
    2. Prevent a Nationalist majority.
    3. Come second.
    4. Win at least one constituency from the SNP.
    5. Win the Airdrie and Shotts by-election.
    6. Form a minority government.

    How far down the list of implausibility do they need to be to convince English voters they won't be beholden to the SNP at Westminster?

    Much further then they are likely to reach I would guess.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    Jeremy Corbyn was a meme and then it stopped being funny.
    Simples. Labour was selling a product people did not want.
    40% of the country voted for that 'product' in 2017. To say they were selling a product people did not want is not good analysis.
  • LindonLightLindonLight Posts: 96
    edited April 2021
    The Danish vaccine passport App looks like it may be a winner:

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-danish-vaccine-passport-app-will-cause-domino-effect-across-europe-12264256

    Unfortunately for those on here who are irritated or outraged, public sentiment for something like this is, and will continue to be, strong. The Government and their scientists have done an excellent job of scaring everyone witless, as has the pandemic itself, and there's no strong desire among the British public to gamble with one's life.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    Superb figures on NHS dashboard today. 3423 new infections and only 10 deaths. (4715 and 58 last Saturday.)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK cases by specimen date

    image
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK cases by specimen date and scaled to 100k population

    image
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK cases summary

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK hospitals

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK deaths

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    image
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    In reality it was probably about both Brexit and Jezza.
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited April 2021
    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK R

    from case data

    image
    image

    from hospitalisation data

    image
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    Age related data

    image
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    image
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Afternoon again all :)

    Let's be fair - last April there was the same rallying round and support given to the Government here as there was in many other countries. Incumbent Governments, in many countries, regardless of political composition, all got a boost which some kept and others have lost.

    Bulgaria votes tomorrow as we know - Albania votes on April 25th. As we know, Albania is governed by the Socialists who won 48% of the vote and 74 out of 140 seats in the 2017 elections. The opposition Democratic Party won 29% of the vote and 43 seats. The Socialist Integration Party got 14% of the vote and 19 seats.

    The latest poll has the Socialists on 49% and the Democratic Party on 40% with Socialist Integration on 6% so you'd think the Socialists will maintain or slightly increase their majority but with the Democratic Party picking up perhaps 15 seats from Integration to be around 60 seats.

    Elsewhere, a slightly mischievous poll from INSA in Germany which puts the Greens on top - not quite, all INSA has done is split the CDU and CSU votes so the Greens have 21%, CDU 19%, SPD 18%, AfD 11%, FDP 10.5%, Linke 8% and CSU 7%.

    Is anyone suggesting the "Union" is about to split? It would be a huge event in German politics were that to happen.

    Two other German polls (YouGov and Infratest) had very similar numbers - Union 27%, Greens 21-22%, SPD 16-17%.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    Age related data scaled to 100K population

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  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    Or all about Johnson.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    UK vaccinations

    Are we going to have a panic about these?

    image
    image
    image
    image
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited April 2021
    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    England CFR

    image
    image
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    UK vaccinations

    Are we going to have a panic about these?

    image
    image
    image
    image

    Bank holiday effect? Yesterday was Good Friday after all.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    Summary - everything going down.

    CFR seems to be heading down again - maybe. Very noisy data....
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    Agree entirely. I can't remember if isam has been making that point.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    About 2030. They are going to be filled with people suffering with long Covid and the backlog of cancer, diabetes etc until at least then.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    Or all about Johnson.
    Or all about May.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618

    UK vaccinations

    Are we going to have a panic about these?

    image
    image
    image
    image

    Bank holiday effect? Yesterday was Good Friday after all.
    Don't be sensible, for Cuthulu's sake! We are trying to get some hysteria going here...
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629

    The Danish vaccine passport App looks like it may be a winner:

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-danish-vaccine-passport-app-will-cause-domino-effect-across-europe-12264256

    Unfortunately for those on here who are irritated or outraged, public sentiment for something like this is, and will continue to be, strong. The Government and their scientists have done an excellent job of scaring everyone witless, as has the pandemic itself, and there's no strong desire among the British public to gamble with one's life.

    Fair enough as long as they are happy to take the hit to the economy. I know I won't go anywhere that is not absolutely necessary if they are mandatory. I doubt I am the only one. If 10% of people stop using hospitality then a lot of hospitality will be in trouble. If you look at the ipsos mori polling as well the strong agreement is mostly in the 55 plus age groups

    Even the 35 to 44 age group are only 35% strongly in favour.....now I wonder which spends more and more frequently in hospitality the under 45s or the over
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 2,869

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793

    England CFR

    image
    image

    That CFR data is pointing to that surmise of mine on the previous thread maybe being true - but also to us dropping off that temporary plateau of deaths-by-date-of-death already, as the over 90s look to have slide off their CFR plateau. I reckon the second jabs-plus-14-days effect is kicking in for the oldest now.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Sadly there is no program simple enough to replace you...
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,669

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    Or all about Johnson.
    Or all about May.
    Only if you assume that Tory dominance is the natural state of affairs, and May's ineptitude was required to prevent it.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Left wing comedy still sucks
  • isam said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Left wing comedy still sucks
    404, joke not found
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    Because everything in elections is relative and not judged by an absolute standard. labour were not up against a set of scales or a ruler, they were up against their opponents. Up against the worst campaign in living memory Jezza did OK, but still lost. Up against a political animal of gigantic election winning instinct Jezza got nowhere.

    In politics someone has to do well enough to lead a government even if they are all terrible. 2017 was the nadir of such moments.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    He'll be wanting to demonstrate progress in England but the most important vote is in Scotland. The more hopeless the position of Scottish Labour, the more dependent Starmer looks on the SNP to get over the Parliamentary finishing line after the next General Election - and they are not popular in most of the places South of the Border that really count.
    Do not discount Wales either
    The difference being that Welsh Labour's position might weaken, but there's little reason to suppose that it will implode like its Scottish cousin, with all the attendant consequences.

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    He'll be wanting to demonstrate progress in England but the most important vote is in Scotland. The more hopeless the position of Scottish Labour, the more dependent Starmer looks on the SNP to get over the Parliamentary finishing line after the next General Election - and they are not popular in most of the places South of the Border that really count.
    I agree with that.

    What are the performance targets for Labour in Scotland this spring?
    1. Prevent an SNP majority.
    2. Prevent a Nationalist majority.
    3. Come second.
    4. Win at least one constituency from the SNP.
    5. Win the Airdrie and Shotts by-election.
    6. Form a minority government.

    How far down the list of implausibility do they need to be to convince English voters they won't be beholden to the SNP at Westminster?

    Much further then they are likely to reach I would guess.
    1. May or may not happen, but not really down to them
    2. Hopeless. There will not be a Unionist majority
    3. Possible, but the battle between SCON and SLAB for second place does not, in and of itself, mean anything. If SLAB can't get anywhere close to the SNP then it's just the electoral equivalent of two bald men arguing over the proverbial comb
    4. Possible, I suppose. I don't know enough to answer this question, the SNP seems very secure in its constituencies but there are plenty for Labour to choose from
    5. Highly unlikely
    6. LOL!

    No voter in England who doesn't trust Labour not to throw their money at Scotland is going to have their mind changed by anything short of the implosion of the SNP and the return of the Scottish Labour bloc at Westminster, which certainly won't be happening at the next GE and might never happen at all. Scotland is a millstone around Starmer's neck.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    We are down to about 45 patients now, from 500 at the peak in Leicester, and only a handful on ICU.

    The permanent ICU staff are shattered physically and mentally, so are on recovery leave so they still have a lot of our staff. It will be a week or two before we can scale up elective outpatients and surgical work, but even then only partially as we need social distancing still.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    edited April 2021

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
    This is partly true, but, sadly, if Labour do nothing at all but carry on as they are and the Tories become rubbish (as they easily do) they will win; because everything in politics is relative.

  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    "Starmer may not have been able to cut through amid the dominance of Covid, yet the near invisibility of his first year gives him an unsullied opportunity once politics resumes from this spring. There is a cliche that says you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. But that is exactly what Starmer now has."

    Martin Kettle - Guardian
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    Acording to Plato, Socrates once said "I know that I know nothing".

    That's certainly true for all of us about the result of a 2024 general election.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited April 2021

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited April 2021

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Foxy said:

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    We are down to about 45 patients now, from 500 at the peak in Leicester, and only a handful on ICU.

    The permanent ICU staff are shattered physically and mentally, so are on recovery leave so they still have a lot of our staff. It will be a week or two before we can scale up elective outpatients and surgical work, but even then only partially as we need social distancing still.
    Why do you need social distancing if everyone is vaccinated?
  • RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
    No he's right, I do spend my days writing infinite loops that just output the word crap to the console, that's exactly what I do.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
    Close enough in this case...
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    I am not so sure about the first point or else Theresa May would never have got so far ahead in the polls in the first place, but the second may be more relevant. One imagines that some Labour voters who had doubts against Corbyn felt safe backing their side anyway because they felt there was no chance of his winning.

    That, in turn, is part of the broader media contribution to the election result. It was presented as and assumed to be a one-horse race, so most of the attention was devoted to picking apart Theresa May's flawed manifesto. Very little scrutiny was afforded to Labour's plans.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
    Agreed. But if there is no credible loyal opposition other than them, they survive by default (as the opposition). Then, all it takes is for some political catastrophe for the Tories, and no matter how crap Labour are, they become the government in waiting.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
    No he's right, I do spend my days writing infinite loops that just output the word crap to the console, that's exactly what I do.
    As long as your are being paid for it. But in the interests of your sanity I'd think about looking for employment elsewhere.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    First

    Improved yes but some distance from Office

    May's elections are vital for Starmer

    Disagree. What will matter is what happens when the state of emergency is over.
    Time is running out for Starmer. The pandemic has restricted his freedom to manoeuvre but he has not made a great impact to date. May be he will improve but I’m not convinced. His instinct is to triangulate and I think voters are wise to that.

    “Better than Corbyn” is not an epitaph any LotO should be content with
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    Mr Smithson underestimates the chance of an early election. The Tories will have a high chance of winning any election unless and until Boris's wheels come off. That happening greatly reduces the chance. The longer that passes the greater the chance of wheels coming off - that is one of the features of temporal sequence being unidirectional and Boris being Boris.

    Therefore it is massively in Boris and Tory interest to engineer an election as soon as this parliament has run long enough that it is plausible to get away with it. Which is sometime in 2022 or 2023.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    Well i think you're right in the sense that at the moment it doesn't look likely that he will become PM.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    Or all about Johnson.
    Or all about May.
    Only if you assume that Tory dominance is the natural state of affairs, and May's ineptitude was required to prevent it.
    With Brexit and Corbyn, Tory dominance was the natural state.
    It is a tribute to May's special incompetence that she failed to win a Boris type majority.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited April 2021

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
    No he's right, I do spend my days writing infinite loops that just output the word crap to the console, that's exactly what I do.
    You could probably do that WFH permanently I guess.
  • RobD said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    Oh dear. Is this the code you're running?

    while (true) {
    console.write("crap");
    }


    You'd never make it as a computer programmer. All that would print is the string "crap". Surely you meant to use crap the variable?
    No he's right, I do spend my days writing infinite loops that just output the word crap to the console, that's exactly what I do.
    As long as your are being paid for it. But in the interests of your sanity I'd think about looking for employment elsewhere.
    I'll have a look on Crapoverflow, thanks
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730

    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    "Starmer may not have been able to cut through amid the dominance of Covid, yet the near invisibility of his first year gives him an unsullied opportunity once politics resumes from this spring. There is a cliche that says you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. But that is exactly what Starmer now has."

    Martin Kettle - Guardian
    Yes... but when he started soaring in the polls as Covid and Lockdown were dragging, his supporters claimed it was down to the public liking Labour again post Corbyn, now that the adults had taken over, rather than the fact people were dropping dead and all the pubs were closed.

    "Under New Management" was the line, I think

    If that was true, he wasn't that invisible really - more likely I would say that the more people see of him, the less impressed they are. The Dont Knows are far fewer than they were a year ago, and they have turned into negative views of him

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    There could be a significant hot war in Europe within the next few weeks. What the butterfly effect consequences are of that on British politics is anyone's guess.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    algarkirk said:

    Mr Smithson underestimates the chance of an early election. The Tories will have a high chance of winning any election unless and until Boris's wheels come off. That happening greatly reduces the chance. The longer that passes the greater the chance of wheels coming off - that is one of the features of temporal sequence being unidirectional and Boris being Boris.

    Therefore it is massively in Boris and Tory interest to engineer an election as soon as this parliament has run long enough that it is plausible to get away with it. Which is sometime in 2022 or 2023.

    But new boundaries won't report till 2023. Why chuck away a dozen or so extra seats?
    Plus memories of 2017 are still fresh.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    isam said:


    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    That aside, where's the market in which we can use this information?

    Should we be on the Conservatives at Evens to win Hartlepool because Starmer's ratings are so bad?

    I've had a look at the Betfair market - £14 to back the Conservatives to win most seats at 1.58 or £24 on Labour at 2.58. Not exactly frantic - what would you suggest? Based on how bad Starmer's ratings are and the electoral mountain so often pointed out by OGH and others, I assume you'll be on at 1.58 - looks a good bet if you don't mind the cash sitting there for three years and, to be fair, it's still miles better than any savings account.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
    Agreed. But if there is no credible loyal opposition other than them, they survive by default (as the opposition). Then, all it takes is for some political catastrophe for the Tories, and no matter how crap Labour are, they become the government in waiting.
    It's also an open question as to whether a large enough catastrophe will ever happen to swing sufficient voters in favour of Labour's present incarnation. We could just as easily end up with a situation not dissimilar to that in the Scottish Parliament, where only one party commands a sufficiently large and cohesive bloc of voters to win an election.

    Indeed, as has been pointed out on this site on numerous past occasions, some democracies have been under single party rule more-or-less continuously for periods of decades at a time. Exhibit A: Japan. It's not inconceivable that England may be entering a period of one-and-a-half party politics, in which the second party is simultaneously too weak to win and too strong to be displaced by anything better. We just don't know.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,917
    FPT
    Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Fishing said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Late to the party: The problem with the Green Party is that has become something of a greeny-Corbynite mush. Just as likely to wibble on about the bedroom tax or trans rights than talk about environmental issues.

    They need to focus 100% on 'green' issues - climate change, habitat loss, species loss, pollution, etc. And take a hard line. Be eco-authoritarian. Will this set a ceiling on support? Of course it will. But with every other party turning green round the edges they need to be at the vanguard.

    It may take a split for such a 'proper' Green Party to come into being. And of course that will bugger them even more at the ballot box.

    We are as one on this Sandy. Democracy won't save the planet. A Green Party has, at root, to be anti-the-species-that-caused-all-this. Most deep greens have simply given up. Best chance the planet has is to reduce rogue species numbers by, say, a virus that wipes out only humans ...
    Actively killing people off is a bit harsh.

    A virus that makes everyone sterile would be good.
    Don't tempt Fate. There are rumours Long Covid does exactly that
    A declining population for a century or so would do Britain, and overpopulated England in particular, a power of good. The trick would be to resist at all costs the temptation to import young people and allow the population pyramid to invert. Labour shortages would mean higher wages for the surviving working age population, along with the incentive to automate, which can both only be a good thing. The growing pension burden can be alleviated by ramping up the retirement age, whilst incentivizing part-time working so that low-to-middle income codgers can keep slogging away for longer. The latter part's not going to come as welcome news to anybody but the Ponzi scheme has to come to an end at some point.

    Full employment should not be difficult to achieve under such circumstances. Anybody who's left who struggles to find work in the new, more efficient economy can be employed by the state to progressively demolish and rewild defunct urban areas.
    Higher wages, more affordable housing, less pollution and transport congestion.
    Also less economic growth, lower pensions, less innovation, more direlict areas.

    Pros and cons.

    I myself don't think England is overpopulated - about 92% of it is not developed.
    England (as distinct from the UK - Wales and Scotland consisting largely of sparsely inhabited uplands) is more densely populated than every member of the EU27 except Malta. Let's not keep going shall we?
    Wrong. The Netherlands has a denser population density.
    Netherlands 423 per sq km
    England 432 per sq km
    Netherlands is 500+ according to most sources.
    According to my "Sunil's Commonwealth" Excel file, I have Netherlands (European bit) down as 419 per sq. km (2019 data).
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    There could be a significant hot war in Europe within the next few weeks. What the butterfly effect consequences are of that on British politics is anyone's guess.

    That's summat to look forward to then.
    Cheers.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
    Agreed. But if there is no credible loyal opposition other than them, they survive by default (as the opposition). Then, all it takes is for some political catastrophe for the Tories, and no matter how crap Labour are, they become the government in waiting.
    It's also an open question as to whether a large enough catastrophe will ever happen to swing sufficient voters in favour of Labour's present incarnation. We could just as easily end up with a situation not dissimilar to that in the Scottish Parliament, where only one party commands a sufficiently large and cohesive bloc of voters to win an election.

    Indeed, as has been pointed out on this site on numerous past occasions, some democracies have been under single party rule more-or-less continuously for periods of decades at a time. Exhibit A: Japan. It's not inconceivable that England may be entering a period of one-and-a-half party politics, in which the second party is simultaneously too weak to win and too strong to be displaced by anything better. We just don't know.
    Good point.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    No, I think there is something to what you say. Johnson is a mendacious buffoon, but a highly competent campaigner, and while marmite, a lot of people are fooled and charmed by him.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    Foxy said:

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    We are down to about 45 patients now, from 500 at the peak in Leicester, and only a handful on ICU.

    The permanent ICU staff are shattered physically and mentally, so are on recovery leave so they still have a lot of our staff. It will be a week or two before we can scale up elective outpatients and surgical work, but even then only partially as we need social distancing still.
    Why do you need social distancing if everyone is vaccinated?
    They are not yet, and about 4 months off that as a start date.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    Long hours can be managed with planning

    It’s the long hours + no breaks + stress + no prospects of improvement that breaks people
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    dixiedean said:

    algarkirk said:

    Mr Smithson underestimates the chance of an early election. The Tories will have a high chance of winning any election unless and until Boris's wheels come off. That happening greatly reduces the chance. The longer that passes the greater the chance of wheels coming off - that is one of the features of temporal sequence being unidirectional and Boris being Boris.

    Therefore it is massively in Boris and Tory interest to engineer an election as soon as this parliament has run long enough that it is plausible to get away with it. Which is sometime in 2022 or 2023.

    But new boundaries won't report till 2023. Why chuck away a dozen or so extra seats?
    Plus memories of 2017 are still fresh.
    Absolutely agree that those are two factors to put in the equation. Which makes the question an interesting one. I would put it at 60%? chance that there will be a 2022 0r 2023 election - but it's guesswork, or intuition if you want a posh word. but for some factors like the ones you mention I think it would be an 80% chance.

  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Not just Italy - they're all at it. In Spain if you are in the 65-75 range you're too young for Pfizer or Moderna by 6-8 weeks and too old to be offered AZT. The level of madness is extraordinary to behold.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    We are down to about 45 patients now, from 500 at the peak in Leicester, and only a handful on ICU.

    The permanent ICU staff are shattered physically and mentally, so are on recovery leave so they still have a lot of our staff. It will be a week or two before we can scale up elective outpatients and surgical work, but even then only partially as we need social distancing still.
    Why do you need social distancing if everyone is vaccinated?
    They are not yet, and about 4 months off that as a start date.
    My wife is already noticing strong pressure from hospital administrators here in the US to scale back COVID IPC measures and speed up surgeries, including elective surgery. I am sure part of that is due to the for-profit nature of US healthcare, but I wonder also whether the NHS is being a bit too cautious if it's planning to wait 4 months to get rid of social distancing requirement in the OR, where people are already wearing surgical masks etc... It seems the risks to those not getting operated on at some point soon outweigh the COVID risks.
  • 2023 for an early election IMHO, I think before then people will ask "what for?"
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    Charles said:

    AnneJGP said:

    Can anyone provide an estimate on when hospitals should have emptied on current trajectory?

    define emptied - there will be a number of very long term patients, sadly.

    See the horrible example of Derek Draper.
    Presumably all hospitals are going to need to carry on with the Covid/non-Covid streams, even if no Covid patients are actually coming in, just in case there's a further outbreak.

    We used to have isolation hospitals for things like TB, didn't we?
    Not really sure that will work - the issue isn't really space or even ICU capacity. It's staff. And there is no possibility of NHS staff not working flat out, for years now. See the backlogs for *everything*.
    Long hours can be managed with planning

    It’s the long hours + no breaks + stress + no prospects of improvement that breaks people
    I think that even in the case of planned long hours, you break people. It is just slower and less dependable.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    "Starmer may not have been able to cut through amid the dominance of Covid, yet the near invisibility of his first year gives him an unsullied opportunity once politics resumes from this spring. There is a cliche that says you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. But that is exactly what Starmer now has."

    Martin Kettle - Guardian
    Grasping at straws... he did shit the first time but he gets a do-over 😂
  • https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1378376774850068481

    I find this kind of comment boring, the BBC believes in Britain, Channel 4 believes in Britain, the Sun believes in Britain, the Telegraph believes in Britain. They just don't all believe that means the same thing
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    The latest in a series of headers full of excuses for Sir Keir's underperformance. You can understand why - if Sir Keir is seen to be a failure then Remainers who like to blame Corbyn for the majority Boris won will have to face the truth; it was all about Brexit, not Jezza

    We could build a simple program to replace you.

    while (true) {
    console.write("Keir Starmer is crap");
    }
    To be fair he backs up what he says with polling data.
    You can use polling data to backup the point that Keir is currently less popular than Boris Johnson, granted, but that doesn't tell us with any certainty how he's going to fare in the next election. There's frankly too many events that could occur in the meantime.
    No one can claim to know about the next election with certainty - that's why you look at the data, compare it with previous trends, listen to what people are saying and use your brain to make a judgement - how do you think gamblers make a living?

    Sir Keir may be a decent bloke, I am sure he means well, but that doesn't stop me noticing that his ratings are crap, and that Leaders of the Opposition with such ratings, whose party trails in the polls, when up against a PM that the public find more charismatic, don't really get the top job. I am banging on about it because no one else seems to want to admit it. This place is called politcal betting after all, and I am someone who bets a lot, and likes politics, I assumed others might too

    No, I think there is something to what you say. Johnson is a mendacious buffoon, but a highly competent campaigner, and while marmite, a lot of people are fooled and charmed by him.

    It may also be that Labour is now the Nasty Party - or, more precisely, the Nastier Party. The proportion of voters who are Never Labour may have exceeded that who are Never Tory.

    For a party that regards itself as a moral crusade and always on the side of righteousness, that's going to be very difficult indeed to overcome. You can't imagine Labour's members being willing to listen to an equivalent of Theresa May's infamous 2002 conference speech. Being perfect themselves, if the voters criticise them then it must be the voters that are at fault. False consciousness and all that.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Andy_JS said:

    i still don't understand why Labour did so well in 2017 and then so badly just 2 years later.

    1. Theresa May in 2017: worst campaign and worst campaigner in modern history
    2. Jeremy Corbyn was a relative novelty in 2017. More folk had made up their minds about him by 2019
    3. Get Brexit Done (which itself catalysed the breakdown in the cultural relationship between Labour and one wing of its support base, which had been underway for many years beforehand)

    Anyway, Labour only did relatively well in 2017, when compared with what came before and especially since. And even then, they still finished well behind on seats, and they were still left sat on the Opposition benches. Worse, it is quite possible that the 36% they're now averaging in the polls (basically, the supporters that stuck with them in 2019, plus returning hardcore Remainers who lent their votes to the Lib Dems) constitutes their new ceiling of support. But time will tell.
    Surely the biggest boost to Labour in 2017 was due to people not wanting the predicted Tory landslide and the belief that Labour could not possibly win.
    For depressed Labour supporters, I am a firm believer that everything in politics is fluid. What the party is and what the electorate want (and how tarnished the Tories are) are all movable feasts. In the medium-term, anything is possible. Predictions of Labour's demise are, IMO, overblown until there is a truly credible other alternative to the Tories.
    While that's true the political pendulum does not swing due to external fixed factors like gravity - it has to be moved by organisational effort, political argument and leadership.

    There's a lot of hard work for Labour to do just to lay the groundwork for looking like a credible government-in-waiting.
    Agreed. But if there is no credible loyal opposition other than them, they survive by default (as the opposition). Then, all it takes is for some political catastrophe for the Tories, and no matter how crap Labour are, they become the government in waiting.
    It's also an open question as to whether a large enough catastrophe will ever happen to swing sufficient voters in favour of Labour's present incarnation. We could just as easily end up with a situation not dissimilar to that in the Scottish Parliament, where only one party commands a sufficiently large and cohesive bloc of voters to win an election.

    Indeed, as has been pointed out on this site on numerous past occasions, some democracies have been under single party rule more-or-less continuously for periods of decades at a time. Exhibit A: Japan. It's not inconceivable that England may be entering a period of one-and-a-half party politics, in which the second party is simultaneously too weak to win and too strong to be displaced by anything better. We just don't know.
    I sometimes wonder the same, as people did with Mrs T in her pomp and with T Blair in his prime. But it would be wrong then, and the laws of undulation suggest we will be wrong again.

    If it did happen it would be strange. Firstly it would take so long to know - 18 years of Tory rule is clearly not long enough - and secondly the iron electoral law ruling against third parties since the 1920s means that it would take a meteorite of an explosion to shift the system along.

This discussion has been closed.